Two surprises.

I bought this pond iris three years ago and have been patiently waiting for a flower.    I had almost given up, but suddenly last week I noticed a bud and my patience has been rewarded.

I didn't realise this plant had a flower and thought it was just an oxygenating plant.   I was told to just drop it into the water and it would sink to the bottom and do it's stuff.   Again, three years on and I noticed this lovely fat bud.

These irises are my old faithfuls and come up every year for me.  Their true colour is a glorious rich royal blue, almost purple.

I have broken my rules and couldn't wait to add some decoration to a page or two rather than wait until all the pages were prepared.   The creases in the double spread above can be tidied but will be permanent as it is folded in on itself on both sides.   I haven't stuck the houses in yet - couldn't wait to photograph it!   The design came from a rubber stamp which I then had photocopied and enlarged.  I coloured the houses with marker pens and cut them out.  I used other rubber stamps to print three distant tree shapes behind the houses.  The words were part of the stamp and I cut them all out and applied them separately in a higgledy piggledy fashion.  

I stuck these drawings on the folds which open out to reveal my street.

I did a few others to decorate other pages.

I tore them out of the sketchbook and aged the edges with an ink pad which doesn't seem to show up very well in these photos.   I quite like the way that where the gesso is unevenly applied, the paint appears stronger and the pages have a distressed look.    Now I've had some fun it's back to more glue, gesso and colourwashing before the next fun can begin.

 I've been planting a few bedding plants today and had work really hard to break up our heavy clay soil.  Needless to say there were quite a few weeds to evict first.   My hands, arms and shoulders are complaining!   I'm thankful that it is our group meeting tomorrow and all I'll have to do is sit and talk to nice people all day.