Having a 'Wale' of a time - ha ha.

Happy Bank Holiday Monday everybody!! I have just spent a wonderful weekend with my family and some very good friends in the Brecon Beacons in Wales. We did some fantastic walking across the Brecons, we had a picnic by the Brecon Railway and we saw some AMAZING birds.  For those of you who don't know, I'm a bit of a bird spotter - I'm not necessarily good at it but I am addicted to looking out for them. We were staggering lucky on this trip - as well as spotting loads of Buzzards and Kite's, and having Swallows and House Martin's nesting the eves of the fantastic place we stay in, we saw some real gems.

We came across this ground nest with a baby which we think was a skylark or a woodlark .....It was along the path we were walking, and stayed totally still the whole time. 

Skylark or Woodlark chick

This is the nest of a bird that we saw the parent coming in and out of on a craggy outcrop above a waterfall - we identified it via the RSPB website as a Ring Ouzel, and it had three beautiful teal coloured eggs......

Excuse my blurriness - we were balancing on a rocky outcrop!!

And - the best one - we got to see a pair of Dippers, and peered into it's nest to see a very fluffy chick waiting for dinner.  I don't have a photo that does that justice but the Dipper's were stunningly amazing.

I of course took some card craft with me - I ended up taking a card class with me and the girls made gorgeous cards while the boys cooked the Barbecue - very stereotypical and totally perfect! 

So, back to the card craft I wanted to show you today - I thought it was time I tried a little brayering - what can I say - yet another lovely technique! I'm a little worried I'm going to run out of lovely techniques, but I'm really hoping the options continue to be endless.

I've brought out the 'Hello Sailor' set for this one, along with a little 'Gorgeous Grunge' which is on a base of Pool Party, and Island Indigo, with a little 'Not quite Navy' thrown in for some edging and the darker areas. It feels like a bit of a disaster when you start to Brayer it - I'd suggest looking at Liz's blog for a video tutorial - as initially it's easy to lose your nerve, but when you keep adding the layers it just starts to look much better and suddenly you have a fab background to work with.

I had a 'whale of a time' making this :) hope you have a go! (It's lucky I know I'm really not funny isn't it)

Leigh-Anne
x

And here's the silly version of the first photo....:)