Birds and a Card

 We had a very pleasant weekend but today is another scorcher….hot and humid. So we packed up a lunch and headed to Mitchell’s Bay for the afternoon. The wind comes off the lake and it is so much cooler there. I always take my camera with me “just in case” and I’m so glad I did. We noticed a very small bird under a bench and wondered what it was. It turned out to be a baby Cedar Waxwing. I don’t think it fledged but fell out of the nest. Here are a couple photos of it.

 

 Here's a video of it trying to fly and the mother happened to show up to feed it. Hope it opens. 

I was very busy in my ‘lower studio’ last week but not crafting! I was purging! I have a whole box of crafting supplies that I decided I was not going to use and they are going to sold or donated.

I do have a couple of cards ready to post though. Here’s one.

                               

 This is an old Art Impression stamp (I think) so not sure if its available anymore. I had a stack of old greeting cards someone gave me and this one with the funny flowers was one of them. I decided to repurpose it. Not all the flowers had stems so I added stems and gems in the centre of each one. The lady was stamped, coloured and then I hand cut her out and attached her with dimensional dots. The two sentiments were stamped - the top one from my stash and the one by her came with the stamp set.

That’s all for a hot and humid Monday with hurricane Beryl expecting to hit us tomorrow with torrential downpours. Stay safe everyone!

Cheers

Violet

Ps: To save a card to your Pinterest account, simply over over the image until the “Pin It” symbol appears and then click …. be patient, it sometimes takes a few seconds. This will take you to your own Pinterest account to save the card.

 

A Quick and Easy Card

 The snow didn’t miss us this time - over 4” yesterday. It turned very mild today though and it has started to melt….but more snow expected for the next few days. Here is a photo I took of our backyard yesterday. And this was mid afternoon - it got a lot worse.

 

And here's a couple little Juncos that seem to live in our backyard as well.

    Today I’m posting a card made with another one of my thrift store finds.  I have made cards for all of them except for some Tim Holtz flower stamps that I bought at the same time. I burnt my hand before I got to them… and then the sore throat kept me from my ‘lower studio’ which is the basement where its always a little cool in the winter.

 Here’s today's card though. I would have to put this one in the quick and easy category.

                          

         I wasn’t sure how much I was going to use this stamp but once I stamped it, I was so glad I bought it. I’m trying hard to only buy or keep stamps that I will use over and over as storage is an issue…..the key word there is ‘trying’…I do love my stamps and died.  It was stamped on white cardstock that was die cut with a stitched rectangle die. Blue ink was sponged around the image. I couldn’t decide if the area behind the bike was sky, foliage, or a stone wall….This time it is sky…next time, who knows. I figured the bike is the focal image so I concentrated on that. The red on the bike is a marker as is the foliage and flowers in the basket. Light grey ink was watered down and painted on for the bricks the bike is sitting on. I wanted to hi-lite the red in the bike so it was mounted on red cardstock and then red flower brads were placed in the two top corners. Then it was glued to a white card base. Two of my daughters like to bike so this may go to one of them.

    That’s all for a mild but snow covered day on January 26, 2023.  

 Cheers

Violet

Ps: To save a card to your Pinterest account, simply over over the image until the “Pin It” symbol appears and then click …. be patient, it sometimes takes a few seconds.This will take you to your own Pinterest account to save the card.

 

Birds and Nature

 I've been missing in action this week because I've been stricken with the good old fashioned stomach flu! I cannot remember the last time I had the flu. I'm just hoping hubby doesn't catch it. It's been a nasty week. I haven't been able to do much of anything but when I had a few minutes of feeling okay, I would photograph the birds in our backyard .... through a window that needs washing!!! And a few flowers that are still blooming. So instead of a card I'm just posting some of the photos I took this week.

Cheers

Violet

My Sister's Garden.

 I know I've been missing in action lately. I was out of town last week for my sister's memorial and it was an exhausting few days. I do have some cards to share this week but first of all I am posting a story that was featured last Saturday in the Hamilton Spectator. It is the story of my sister and her garden. Hope you like it. It captures her personality perfectly.

Here is the link.

A garden that began with a love story and carries on | TheSpec.com

Cheers

Violet

Scooter Card and Birds

 Well we just had a very strange long weekend weather wise. Saturday morning we had a thunderstorm roll through here and on to the East. It was just a normal thunderstorm here but it picked up wind speed on the way East of here and caused a lot of damage including falling trees which sadly claimed two lives. After the storm passed we went to Rondeau to get some more birding in…..waste of time really. The migratory birds are scarce this year. I think because the first part of May was so cold here that they just moved on up north instead of staying here. We did enjoy some hiking through our favourite trails though and did get a few photos. Here are a few of them.

                       

Brown-headed Cow Bird - not my favourite bird but at least he was sitting still. 

Female Blackburnian Warbler

Fungi!

I love this old tree stump and just had to get a photo of it.

There were more pink Trilliums than white.

But a friend pointed out to me that the white ones turn pink as they age. I did not know that. We usually see the white ones and when we go back to that area, they are all but dead. So I guess we had always missed that in between pink stage. The Trillium is the official flower of Ontario. 

It was very, very hot at Rondeau Saturday afternoon. We have yet to turn the A/C on so the house was pretty hot when we got back….. but we refused to turn on the A/C because we knew the temperatures were going to dip pretty low at night. Yup, we had to turn the furnace on Sunday and Monday morning to get the chill out of the house. It also rained Sunday and Monday so no more hiking or birding for us. I feel sorry for the people who were camping there.

So, I did get some more work done on my gnome quilt blocks and some cards mad. Here’s one of them.

                          
    I pulled out this old Stamping Bella stamp - everything old is new again, right! It was coloured with pencils and blended with gamsol and then I hand cut it… no dies for these old stamps. Yes, I even had to cut between her skinny arms and body and inside of the scooter. If you ever have to hand cut something like this, do those small pieces first because then you have more paper to hang on to….at least I find it easier to do those first.  So once it was coloured and cut out I had to find some papers to go with it. While rifling through the 6” packs I found this one with a map and some coordinating paper and decided to use that. I cut two thin strips of hot pink/red to edge the green strip. The black strip was added so the scooter could sit on something and not look like it was floating. The sentiment as stamped and heat embossed in white before gluing it on. Overall I was pleased with it. It will be a good quilt for a young adult.

That’s all for a nice but coolish Tuesday, May 24, 2022.

Cheers

Violet

PS: To save a card to your Pinterest account, simply hover over the image until the ‘Pin It” symbol appears and then click…it sometimes takes a few seconds. This will take you to your own Pinterest account to save the card.

 

 

 

 

Birds

 Hello fellow crafters. I haven’t posted this week because we have been so busy. We went from a very cold, windy, rainy spring into summer! Temperatures over the last couple of days have been close to 90F….love it. It’s also May that the migratory birds fly up from South America and the Southern parts of the USA to Canada to breed. Why do they come all this way? I have no idea but I’m glad they do. So, we are what is called ‘birders’. We go out to the parks and hike the trails looking for the migratory birds. Joe’s favourite is the Scarlet Tanager that we got to see yesterday….photo below.

                    
My favourite is the Indigo Bunting, which there seems to be less of them and rare to see. We have no seen it yet.

But my other favourite is the Prothonotary Warbler which is close to being added to the Endangered Species list. We did get to see it and here are some photos of it.

                      

 We also were lucky enough to see the Pileated Woodpecker up close. This is the woodpecker that the cartoon character, Woody Woodpecker was based on.

                          
And I videotaped it. Turn your sound on to hear what it sounds like when he hammers his beak against the tree. Amazing. I hope this posts okay. I don't usually do videos.

                         

I’ll be posting some cards later this week.

Take care until then.

 Cheers

Violet

PS: To save a card to your Pinterest account, simply hover over the image until the ‘Pin It” symbol appears and then click…it sometimes takes a few seconds. This will take you to your own Pinterest account to save the card.