Stampin! with Jaydee

Hi Everyone.  Happy Thursday.

I cannot tell you how happy I am that we have a long weekend coming up.  Seriously.... 5 whole months is too long without a long weekend!  By the looks of things, the weather is going to be glorious this weekend and we are so looking forward to it.

I made a card using last week's Freshlymadesketches.  It's a really fun sketch.  I then needed some inspiration and found a MARITIME challenge at KIS.   The minute I saw that, I knew that I wanted to use some of the new Maritime DSP that is sitting in my craft room.

Here's the sketch and the badge for KIS

The circular piece on the sketch was the only one that had me scratching my head, until I remembered that I had some of the wooden elements in my cupboard.  Now, the great thing about these elements, is that you can stamp on them!  So, to keep with the maritime theme, I inked up the sand dollar stamp from By the Seashore and stamped that onto the wooden element.   

Here's my card:

I stamped the sentiment using the "hello" stamp from the Four You set.  I really love the font on this set, I might add!  When I was prepping the card for assembly, I thought that the white base looked too clean, so took out my Wonderfully Worn background stamp and inked it up in Crumb Cake.

I love the fishy paper and can't wait to use it with one of my other new sets!

On a personal note:

We met with the landscaper today.  We walked around and checked out all of the plants that were put into the ground last year, as well as the seeds in the woodland and wetland.  We can see that there are plenty of seeds that have germinated in the woodland area and it should start to look pretty in about a month.  The wetland is a different story!  We are going to have to wait for all of the water to recede and drain before we really know what has taken root there.  :-)

Almost all of the plants that we planted did really well and only 3 did not survive.  We thought that was amazing considering the winter we have just gone through!  They will be coming in about a week to add the shrubs, scatter more seed where we have taken a beating around the bird feeder and adding a few flowers in the woodland.  The west side of the property won't be planted until the trees are in.  We hope that the ground will be dry enough to get the spader in sometime in the next 10 days.  Then the big trees can go in and we can finish the landscaping.

Now.  I promised you some wildlife shots and have a few bird photos to share with you tonight.  Before I show you those, I wanted to show you the difference a single week makes in the woodland.  A week ago, when we planted the bare root trees, the ferns had not made any sign of an appearance.   Nothing!   One week later - they looked like this... can you see them towards the back of the trees?  Oh... and leaves coming in on the trees, too.

OK... maybe they are a little hard to see.... let's zoom in

They grew a foot in a week.  Since I took this shot on Sunday - they are twice the height today than they were here!   We love that we have this fernery, it really is a very special little spot.  The trees that we planted will be able to give them even more shade next year and strengthen the outcrop. :-)

The Oriole feeder is proving to be a popular spot - still.  So much so, that we went and bought a sugarwater feeder for them, too.   Feeding the Orioles and Hummingbirds is really is and requires no special food.... in fact, I'd strongly suggest NOT buying pre-made hummer food.  It contains preservatives and colorings that aren't really good for the hummers.  Some of the colorings have even been found to cause hummingbird deaths.  All you need is some good quality fine sugar and some boiling water.    

For hummer food - 1/4 cup of sugar to 1 cup of boiling water.   Mix up really well and allow to cool before pouring it into your CLEAN hummer feeder.   Make sure the hummer feeder is not washed in dishsoap.  All you need to do is rinse it very, very well in very hot water, and make sure you clean of ALL black mold.  Black mold forms very quickly in hot weather and will kill the hummers.  

I change out the food every second day, clean the feeders and replenish the sugar mixture.   Very cheap, very easy... and being able to feed the hummers... priceless :-)

Talking of feeding the hummers.   Not only will you attract the humming birds and the Orioles, you will also attract the woodpeckers, or, as I affectionally call them in summer... sugarpeckers!

One of the birds that makes me very happy is the chickadee.  Because we see them around so much all year, I tend not to photograph them.  However, this little guy was posing so beautifully, I couldn't resist