Dawn chorus!

Hi everyone, there's been a change in the weather lately - lots of rain today! We both had dental appointments this morning and as the Dentists is quite close to the Trafford Centre where we occasionally go to Silver Screen viewings at the Odeon cinema (I think I may have mentioned - they are for 'the older generation' and it costs £3 each and includes a hot drink and a biscuit, or if we are lucky we can buy a cake for a small donation to charity)so we decided to go!
We had just had lunch and a coffee so passed on the refreshments today....just as well as the cinema was nearly full - the film was Stan and Ollie and it was the first SS showing so quite busy! We had missed this when it was on general release a few weeks ago and I am so glad we got to see it! We have several Laurel and Hardy films on DVD which we have enjoyed watching - they don't get shown much on TV these days.
The film is about the end of their careers which was in the UK and was very funny in parts and sad in others, a very watchable film!

When I got home I completed a page for Art Journal Journey that I started last night! 
Jo's theme is 'Hello Spring' and my page is about the birds I have been hearing on those early mornings when the sun has been rising, although the blackbird at about 5a.m. is a bit too early!! 

  The page started like this

A little bit of brayer cleaning, and some stencilling through two different stencils...and after that I forgot to take photos!!!

I added smudgy circle of blue paint over the sun with a baby wipe. The blossom trees are a mixture of finger painting, wooden stick, and some stippling with shades of pink and green and I added some flowers on the bottom the same way.

I decide to lighten the blue by lightly brayering some white paint which accidentally picked up some of the still wet pink paint so we have falling blossom there too!

I stamped the Crafty Individuals bird designed by Maria Kitano in black onto the page and then stamped and fussy cut the bird onto white and coloured it with distress markers.
The berries were coloured white with a gel pen and I painted the branch with some watered down gold paint.

I searched for some words and found just the thing but unfortunately can't find the packaging so can't credit it!

I would like to enter at:-

Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge - 'Whatever the Weather'
Simon Says Wednesday challenge - Create a Scene
Craft Stamper Magazine - Take It Make it March challenge
Moo Mania and More - 'Close to Nature'


Thanks for looking, Chris