Bird Song - Wednesday 13th June

Morning Friends!


My card today is another made from the little Stampavie  Tina Wenke bird stamp and I wanted to share it in a nod to the highly productive Spring we have enjoyed in our garden!


Beginning with our very tame Robin pair, who raised two broods (moving nest from one end of the garden to the other in between): the baby Robins were darling and one of them hung around for ages, becoming quite tame himself. The Robins were gone, all of a sudden, but all being well the male will be back in August. He has been with us for a few years now (I can tell by a marking it's him), so I'm hoping he'll be back again, once his 'holiday' is over!


We also have a resident pair of Blackbirds which have also been with us for a number of years. So far they have had two broods and we also see the fledglings on the grass from time to time.


We put a Tit box on the end of the summer house after we built it about 7 years ago. The first year a pair of Blue Tits snapped up this new 'des res' (carefully painted with my own fair hand, including a painting of a Blue Tit on the side!), the second year nothing and then  we built the enclosure for the hens right next to it. It's about 6ft tall, so almost reaches the height of the box. We thought that it would put any birds off and have been meaning to move it, but never got around to it -and then some weeks ago I spotted a Great Tit darting in with some feathers in it's beak. Back and forth it went with more nest building material and yay! we now have a family of Great Tits chirping away inside the box. They've been there about a week now and I can hear they're calls getting stronger all the time. The parent swoops in and out for food when I'm out there cleaning the hen coop, it's wonderful!


Last but not least, our little Sparrows, who have been nesting quite near to the Blackbirds and have also raised a brood and seem to be busying themselves for another. This year has been a great year for so many different garden visitors - we've seen Blue Tits, Goldfinches and we even have a tiny Dunnock scurrying about the undergrowth, which I also think has been nesting in the dense bush at the back of the garden with the Sparrows and Blackbirds...quite a little community!

So to the card, which I made for my friend's birthday....It's coloured with Promarkers and die cut using Spellbinders Labels 24, shaded on the edges with Spun Sugar distress ink. I cut felt flowers from Flower Creations (all Spellbinders unless stated!) and made one big flower and then I cut a  small butterfly from Flights of Fancy. The papers were all from stash, the lace I got recently at a Vintage Fair and I coloured it lightly with Spun Sugar.


The greeting is  an LOTV stamp, but with Heart Circles....


No work today, but a busy day ahead with lots of cards to make and designs to finalise! Happy Wednesday folks and thanks for stopping by!
Carole X

Summer days - Friday 18th May

Good Morning Bloggers!


I was up bright and early this morning trying to create a design for Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stampers Challenge today...but I was having a loss of mojo moment, so thought it a good time to say hello and update!


Today's card was in fact made a few weeks ago, for Christine Emberson's Hope and Chances blog. Christine has started doing a brilliant thing by inviting her followers to submit a project inspired by some photos. It's a lovely idea because there's no competition and we all get to see each other's work.


This was my contribution...

I used this stamp on the bookmark a few days ago..it's really cute and is by Stampavie. I used a 5x5 card and covered the front with kraft card, matted and layered with a sheet from the Spring Jubilee pack that I had free with Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine. I then created a strip for the centre using kraft card and coredinations card, which was sanded to raise the polkadots. 


The image was stamped with memento, coloured with Promarkers and die cut using labels 24. I stamped the greeting using an LOTV stamp, using Latte Adirondack and die cut it using the smallest Heart Circles die. Both die cuts were distressed lightly using Spun Sugar. I cut the butterfly from Fanciful Flight and the flowers from Flower Creations and the Aster Flower Topper. The accents were also free with the magazine and the lace, candy and gems were from stash.


As Christine is the only British Spellbinders Design team member, it seemed fitting to make this a bit of a Spellbinders homage...also you know they are my faces anyway!


I took this card into the garden to photograph.. just to carry through the theme!


I'm not going to get much done today, as Tom has the day off too, so it looks like I'll be returning to Hels' challenge project this evening!


I am excited though..next Thursday Amy and I will be delivering our next workshop, full of my favourite things - Spellbinders, Grand Calibur, Cuttlebug and Promarkers...can't wait!




Thanks for visiting, following and commenting!


Carole X