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Monday, February 24, 2020

The Invisible Woodpecker + Watercolor Stencil Technique

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My neighborhood really has an amazing bird variety. As I told you in the roof rat post, there's an oak canopy which is home to all manner of wildlife.

My neighbor's tree comes over the fence into my backyard, and is the home to a mated pair of screech owls (which are so poorly named - they make the sweetest sounds) and a mated pair of Great Horned owls, whom I love and am also certain will murder me a la the Staircase.

One day I walked out of my house to hear very loud squawking, which is an unmistakable sound if you've ever heard it, coming from an extremely large and chatty roadrunner zooming all over my neighbor's roof.

For the last few days though, I've been hearing a woodpecker in that same yard across the street every time I take out the trash. I CANNOT FIND THE LITTLE BUGGER.

I wanted to go out there today with binoculars, but then I thought that might look creepy if my neighbors walked out of their house and saw me peering at their house through binoculars. This just happens to be the neighbor that already thought I was a murderer, after all.

So I'm still on the hunt to see this little guy - they are such beautiful birds. I'm also hoping hearing him doesn't mean we are having some sort of tree beetle invasion this year, because it's not a bird I see often here.

It's gorgeous here right now, as February can be, and I'm just waiting to see the butterflies come back into my yard. It's been pretty rainy and gross so I've missed all the signs of life out back. This weekend, my back porch was COVERED with these sweet little moths, so there was a hatch of some sort.

The upside of the rain is that my calamondin tree has shot three foot runners up, so I'm hoping this will be a "leap" year for it. #seewhatIdidthere.

I am paying tribute to our Monarch migration today with a gorgeous butterfly stencil. If you click over to this stencil or the catalog, you will see this card on their site - so exciting for me!

It's such a perfectly sized image to be the star of the show. I'll re-post the video of the technique I used to achieve this look below. I used Green Man Infusions and the sentiment from this set - which I'll be back on Wednesday with! I cut the mats for the sentiment with my circle infinity dies - I don't know why I ever file these - I should just leave them out since I use them on every card!
Here's the video for this very simple stencil technique in case you missed it!











SA134 Butterfly Stained Glass Stencil...
[ HA ]
CM414 Orange Blossoms - Hero Arts
[ HA ]
Circle Infinity Dies (H)
[ HA ]
Watercolor Paint for Crafting - Ink &...
[ SSS ]
Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473
[ SSS ]
Heavy Base Weight Card Stock- White
[ GNK ]
MISTI Stamping Tool
[ HA | UNT ]
Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -...
[ BLIC ]
LightView 2in1 LED Magnifier for...
[ BRG ]
Xyron ADHESIVE ERASER 23675
[ SSS | ART | AMZUS ]
Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC
[ ELH | SSS ]
Crafter's Companion GEMINI...
[ SSS ]
Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring...
[ SSS ]
Essentials by Ellen Storage...
[ ELH ]
Die Storage - Clear Storage Pockets...
[ CHC ]
XL Stamp Storage Pockets
[ ELH ]
Mermaid tidy towel case and glue...
[ ETS ]
Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045
[ SSS | CST ]
Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies
[ ART ]


I hope you have an amazing week! I filmed FIVE videos this weekend, so lots of fun techniques coming up!

Loveyameanitbye.

7 comments:

  1. What incredibly cool techniques! Thank you, Lydia, for once again sharing your expertise!

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  2. :) I love this post! I think it's so cool that you have such a diverse population in town! We love seeing all the living things that visit out here. :) Your stenciled background turned out so beautifully. And I did #seewhatUdidthere, it made me laugh!

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  3. Very cool looking technique- ties in perfectly with the hidden woodpecker. I have one in my new tree. I’ll share a photo on FB

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  4. I look forward to trying this after my holidays

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  5. Such cool techniques! I'm definitely going to try the 'hurricane' one with alcohol inks, too! I'm right with you in celebrating the wildlife we are surrounded with - they were here first, after all :)

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  6. Such cool techniques. I love the hurricane twist on the old plastic wrap technique - am going to try that next. Thanks for the terrific ideas!

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  7. Trying this technique (still stencil) as I send this comment...do you leave the stencil in place until everything dries? btw...love your blog!!

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