Die Cuts and the Letter 'J' - Time to Dream with the Dragons again!

Hello and welcome to Magpieheaven. It's once again time to dream with the Dragons, as we prepare for the shorter Autumn days and all the challenges and new beginnings that come with this season. Our daughter is flying the nest to live with her student friends and I have new students myself starting their tuition in English Literature 'A' level with the new school year. The Dragon recipe this time is chosen by the very talented Elizabeth and she would like us to use die-cuts and to include a letter 'J' on our tags. As always she would like to see at least one stamped image on your tag. Please do take a look at all the inspiration over at The Dragons' Dream TIO here.

I've been playing with Autumn colours recently, but for this tag I left them behind and went for the idea of flight, probably those thoughts about Matilda starting out independently. With the end of summer birds migrate to warmer climes and these little Artistic Outpost girls look to me as if the smaller one is being taken to school for the first time by her older sister. I love these little Artistic Outpost girls and I should like to link up with the Artistic Outpost Challenge here. I love Artistic Outpost and this month the design team would like us to show them our artwork created with Artistic Outpost stamps.

With this tag I knew that I wanted to explore the idea of spreading our wings and heading off into the wide, blue yonder! This gave me the perfect excuse to create a master-board with lots of PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Blues that I could then die-cut with my decorative strip dies. I used a Tim Holtz die of swallows and also his chipboard alphabet. The arch is also a Tim Holtz die and the two little girls are from Artistic Outpost. I also used the sentiment from this plate: 'A person's a person no matter how small.'

I coloured the stamped image with Inktense pencils, stencilling my background with a Rebekkah Meir doily stencil and accenting my blue-birds with Treasure Gold.

My choice of word for the letter 'J' is Joy, die-cut from my master-board. Autumn is a season of mingled joy and sadness, but possibly the greatest joy for me is that it is the season when both our children came into the world. I love the poetry of William Blake, especially this from his 'Songs of Innocence' -
                                  

Infant Joy

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

I have no name 

I am but two days old.— 

What shall I call thee?

I happy am 

Joy is my name,— 

Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!

Sweet joy but two days old,

Sweet joy I call thee; 

Thou dost smile. 

I sing the while 

Sweet joy befall thee. 

Thank you for stopping by Magpieheaven today. May 'Sweet joy' befall you as we enter this Autumn season and may you rise to meet every challenge! Do link up with the Dragons' Dream TIO here too. Remember all you have to do is to create a tag using die-cuts; include the letter 'J' and at least one stamped image.