Compendium of Curiosities 2 - Week Three

We're already at Week 3 of Linda's challenges taken from Volume 2 of Tim Holtz' Compendium of Curiosities. Visit Linda's Studio L3 blog to see lots of lovely examples of this week's technique from  page 46 - Marbled Stains. Eclectic Paperie are kindly sponsoring the challenge with a gift voucher.

I used Pine Needles, Tumbled Glass, Scattered Straw, Wild Honey and Picket Fence Distress Stains. I've chosen to use the Tim envelope die again and have decided to do so where possible with all of these challenges, so that I will end up with a pile of envelopes each with a label inside describing the technique. Then I guess I'll have to make a box to hold them all !

The colour of the envelope suggested to me that I should fish out my Artistic Stamper peacock feather stamp, and I've used Indigo Blu glue and their Yorkshire Dales Mega Flakes to decorate the envelope.

A woodpecker has always been a regular visitor to the feeding station outside my kitchen window. I had a marvellous opportunity the other day to get a great photo as he was this side of the feeder showing off his lovely plumage, but of course my camera was not to hand, so this is the best I have managed so far.

Woodpeckers are omnivores and known to attack the nests of small birds such as bluetits, taking eggs and newly hatched babies, so it always amazes me that the other birds don't seem at all perturbed by his presence at the feeders. Yesterday I couldn't get the camera out quickly enough to capture him peck violently at a bluetit who had dared to alight on the peanut feeder beside him. The woodpecker continued feeding by hammering against the peanuts with a tuft of bluetit feathers stuck in his beak, and the bluetit was apparently unhurt but had opted to eat from the nearby fatballs instead.