Bluebird Update - July 29th - 12 days old

First of all, this is not a picture of my current babies. The parents get so stressed when I check the nestbox, I didn't want to stay any longer than I need to stay in order to make sure everything is going well. It's amazing that bluebirds, like people, all have different personalities. Most are passive and just keep an eye on me when I check the nestbox. This couple panics and actually flies over my head; I can feel the wind as they pass. The current nest box only has 3 babies, one egg was unfertilized and didn't hatch. Which is funny because my first nesting in the north box also had one unhatched egg in it. BUT this is what the new babies look like. They have touches of blue in their feathers now. If they hatched on the 16th, they will be twelve days old and within a week of fledging. The parents could even have another brood before the end of the season.
In the new Magnolia summer kit, a pelican stamp was included. I LOVE pelicans. It's just been recently that the white pelicans have come back to the Illinois River. In the spring and fall we can see the large flocks circling our house, appearing and disappearing as they turn into and away from the sun. They just glide on the airstream and it looks like ballet. From the deck of a restaurant on the river that we frequent, you can see sandbars covered with pelicans and watch them fly from one sandbar to another. They fly single file, very close to the water. For such large birds they are surprisingly graceful. We've seen a small nesting colony at Homosassa Springs State Park in Florida. In their nesting colony they are loud, disruptive and dirty. Their babies are very unattractive, but when they grow up, they are truly impressive.

Even though this is a very simple card, I was pleased with the way it turned out. I've had the Spellbinder Impressionabilities for some time and had never even taken them out of the package. When I was doing inventory of my embossing folders for "the book" I decided to break one out and airbrush it. I used it as a stencil rather than an embossing folder and WOW!

Paper: Stash; Stamps: Magnolia Pelican; Spellbinder Petite Scalloped Ovals, Spellbinder Petite Ovals, Spellbinder Impressionabilities Sea Scape; Copic Air Gun; Copics: [Background Y35, Y32 sprayed with air gun][Pelican Y38, T6, N1, ), N)]