A Butterfly Card and Some Birds

A butterfly card is posted at the end of this posting.

It’s another ‘May’ day here in Ontario but now they are predicting 60& chance of rain tomorrow – groan. We were hoping to have our first BBQ at the lake and get the bikes out for a nice long ride. Doesn’t look like that isn’t going to happen.

Yesterday we decided to go to Point Pelee to do some birding – too bad the birds decided not to show up. We walked, and walked and walked and we only saw two warblers, some black terns and….my favourite bird of the day….a black-billed cuckoo….and I was the one who found it and ID’d it….that does not happen too often. Here are the birds we saw yesterday.

 A close-up of the black-billed cuckoo. The eye ring is always red. He is not sick.

He blends in so well with the trees it is hard to spot them.

Giving us the cold shoulder?

Sometimes the black terns will dive bomb people walking along the boardwalk when they are nesting. They were flying over our heads to let us know we were invading their territory but not exactly dive bombing.

These black terns look very grumpy.



 

One of my favourite warblers - the Common Yellow-Throat.

Same bird, different look.

And now for the card. I made this card the other night when I only had an hour or so to play at my desk.

The background was left over from an anniversary card I posted a week or two ago…yes, it was still sitting on the desk which yes, needs a good cleaning and organizing. Anyway, I picked up the two strips and instead of filing them away I decided to make a card. So, I flipped the two strips so the patterned paper was on opposite sides; taped them together, cut them to the right size, and inked the edges with black ink. Okay, what next? Mmmmhhhmmm I laid a few coloured images on top and rejected all of them. I rooted through my stash some more and came across this glitter embossed butterfly and decided that pop of red was just what it needed. (Sometimes when I don’t know what I want to make I just play by experimenting with different stamps; dies; ink; and embossing powder and if I like what I’ve done, I just add it to the stash….so that’s where this butterfly came from) Now, I started out thinking I was going to make a sympathy card but once I had the butterfly cut out and laid it on top I realized it was more fitting for a birthday card. The butterfly is just glued down with a glue dot in the body and the wings are left loose and in fact, they were bent up a bit for some extra dimension. The swirl and the sentiment are silver peel-offs. Once completed, it was all glued to a white card base leaving about an 1/8” edge…..I photograph with white paper behind the cards so it’s had to see where the card ends so you will have to take my word for it. So, that’s how I make cards….no plan….no sketch….no idea if it will work or not but it’s how I roll.

That’s all for a lovely spring Friday, May-20-16. Have a great weekend everyone and if you are Canadian, have a safe and happy long weekend.

Cheers

Violet