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....:)

Fair Paris!

It's not far off a year since my Husband took me to Paris as a surprise for our First Anniversary! What a beautiful place -  it's the perfect place to spend a special weekend and I'd highly recommend a visit.  As a result I just HAD to have BOTH Eiffel Tower stamps from Stampin' Up - I'm very greedy!! The one I've used here is from a retired set, but the current set Follow my Heart also has a beautiful, slightly smaller version with a heart at the centre.

This is watercolour paper cut to a regular card front size, and then watercoloured  using an Aqua Painter and (from bottom to top) Pink Pirhouette, Blushing Bride, Wisteria Wonder/Elegant Eggplant combination, and Rich Razzleberry. I've used a marker in Early Espresso around the edge to create a border and a little bit of Gorgeous Grunge at the bottom..

The Eiffel Tower is printed in Early Espresso Ink.  I used Bruce (The Stamp-a-ma-Jig) to get it just where I wanted it.  Those of you who have been to Paris will know that once the sun sets, every hour the Eiffel Tower gets lit up with beautiful sparkly lights and I wanted to give just a hint of this(being a Dazzling Diamond I love all things sparkly!) So -  having stamped in Early Espresso I then very speedily covered it in Heat and Stick Powder -  heated -  and added just a sprinkle of Dazzling Diamonds to the right side.  I did try covering the whole thing but it lightened up the colour just a little too much. 

You can't go wrong with gold embossing powder! This uses the end Heart from a stamp in the current set Language of Love

The back was pretty straightforward - a little watercolour and the Postcard Stamp in Rich Razzleberry.  As you can see from these photo's it ended up a little bent from all the watercolouring - I popped it under a heavy book overnight and it came out perfectly flat!

Dazzling I hope! :)

Leigh-Anne