Mephibosheth's First Swim

Hi Guys! 

Well several of you have been asking for an update about my crippled duckling, Mephibosheth. (Fibby). He's doing much better and getting stronger every day. In the video above you can see him takinghis very first swim at 6 days old. He took another one two days later (I didn't video it) and he was swimming straighter and stronger. He is still crippled, nothing has changed in that department, but the leg braces help him walk a little more normally (which I remove when he's in the water) and he's eating and drinking well. He's quite a bit smaller than Fiona but that just adds to his cuteness. :-)

In the video below, Fibby is joined by Fiona and Wendy.

And just an update on my 16 older ducklings , they're in a pen, inside a pen. We let them into the bigger pen a couple times a day to run around and between the two pens it keeps predators out. The one small pen alone did not. A snapping turtle found he could reach into the chicken wire and now we have a lame duckling who got her thigh gashed. (She was leaning against the edge of the cage.)

Needless to say, I won't be letting them outside the large pen til we have the turtle population more under control.

You can see how they love to muck their water up as soon as you fill it. lol

And here's the vegetable garden, doing amazingly well. Ive never seen anything like it, the squash are incredible. This pic was taken a week ago and now the squash have reached the top of those peaks.

So thats the news on the homefront! 

I'll be back with a card on Thursday and once again I apologize if I haven't got around to your blogs recently. I am trying my best but Spring is, well, Spring. So much to do....

Take care everyone and I can't wait to stomp around Blogland and see all your lovely creations!

You're My Knight

Hi Everyone~!

So not too long ago I discovered the wonderful world of Dustin Pike from one of my blogging buddies, Jane.

She does such a wonderful job coloring these cuties that I had to go by Dustin's blog and check them out. I spent I don't know how long looking through his old posts and downloading his freebies. This is one of them.

Most of my friends know how much I love suits of armour and knights so this one was a must. :-)

So I'm using my usual. 

Papers are DCWV and colors are prismacolors. The ribbon is from Crafty Ribbons.

Close up of the handsome knight below:

And for those of you who would like to snag the sentiment that I whipped up on the computer, you are more than welcome to. Just click, right click and save or go to the free sentiments box on my sidebar so you can download different sizes.

Ok! Now on to business!!

I decided to use this card as my fortnightly card for the Catered Crop party.

Are you ready to play?

We're stripping down Jessica's fabulous card as the source of our inspiration. Why not swing by her blog and check out her creative genius, she's a pretty talented gal!

(use any or all to make your own unique project)

In red you can see the ingredients I used for this card.

• Colors – red, white, blue, and yellow
• Stamps and Stickers – happy birthday, sailboats
• Color Mediums – stamp ink
•  Embellishments – twine/hemp rope,buttons
• Tools – punches, border punches, distress tools, sewing machine, die cuts, pearls
• Techniques – distress, make a square card, paper piecing, sewing, distressing
• Theme – summer, water, happy birthday

And now on to our cool sponsor!

 Inky Antics Rubber Stamps is sponsoring our FTR13 challenge. If you're a trend watcher you may have heard of their HoneyPop Collection – an amazing collection of honeycomb paper and coordinating stamps and the big craze at the last Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) convention. With a baker's dozen of illustrators, there's a wide collection of beautiful and whimsical stamps to choose from as well as all the necessities to make a beautiful project. One lucky random winner will get to spend $25 on Inky Antics wood mounted or clear stamps.

So how awesome is that! I hope you all get to play. Remember, you have a whole two weeks to create a project and with a recipe like this there should be no excuses!

Thanks so much for coming by for a visit!!

A few challenges:

Card Cupids - Ribbon and/or Fibers

2 Sisters - #41 Anything Goes

Catch The Bug -  Bright Colours + Optional Flower Soft

Craft Your Days Away  - Special Man

ECP Challenges -  #39 For Dad

Polkadoodle - - Card for a male including 1 button & a circle.

Charisma Cardz -  – Card for a male.

Craft Us Crazy - - Remembrance and/or love.

Craft Your Passion - What a Guy

Lexi's Creations - a Mans card

Summer Sweetness

Hi Again!

Well I'm back with another DT project today, this time its Phindy's Place and were challenging you all to make a summer card.

Well, it was about 96 degrees today so I have no trouble to "think sunshine". Unfortunately, I have the 'heat headache' to prove it.

But anyway! Back to the card!

Isn't this summer girl so cute? Its called "sticky elbow" and Ive colored her with Prismacolors. The sentiment I created on the computer and then merged it so it sat right on the paper near my image. You can snag it at the end of the post.

the papers are DCWV and the ribbons are Crafty Ribbons. The sentiment stamp is from Whimsy Stamps. I distressed it a bit with distress inks.

A close up:

For the sentiment just click, right click and save or, go to my Free Sentiments box in the sidebar and download different sizes from there.

I would like to play along with these challenges:

Penny's Paper-Crafty summer

Pixie Cottage - -  Sketch* and/or sun

Sisterhood of Crafters -- buttons 

ColourQ - COLOR* #86

Nettie G's Digital Gems - - Childhood fantasies

Inspire Me Fridays - Always anything goes

Tip Top Tuesday: Two stamps

Digi Doodle Shop's Best - - Anything goes.

Paper Crafting Journey - Anything goes and/or use your favourite whatever (colours, technique, etc).

Paper Romance -  Distressing.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Gardening Guru

Hi Guys!

I just love this recent creation of Mo's and couldn't wait to color them up. I merged the potters bench digi with the gardening girl. They're just made for eachother, love it love it.

So this week's challenge at Mo's Digital Pencil is:

Pearls and Flowers.

I don't normally use many flowers on my cards but I dug out some cannibalized silk flowers and buttons and made one for todays card. The pearls are a little hidden. i.e, drawer knobs etc.

The papers are DCWV and the embossed leaves (they're sold as flower petals) are a cuttlebug embossing kit. I just ran some distress ink over them so you could see the embossing a bit better.

Coloring was done in Prismacolor pencils and goo gone. Gotta love them!

Oh! And that cutie patootie watering can charm was found in The Charm Barn. (Stay away from that place its dangerous. lol)  Pat knows, don't you Pat? :-D They're very reasonably priced, the trouble is you "need" one of each. lol

A close up below:

I would like to play with the following challenges:

 Crafting for all Seasons - Anything goes

Crafts and Me - gems and pearls

Divas by Design -- #2 For the Girls 

House That Stamps Built - - Stitching

My Mum's Craft shop -- #7 favorite colors

Papercraft Star -  1 colored cardstock, 2 patterned paper, 3 bling

Paper Shelter Challenge -- #15 anything goes

Clear It Out! - - Projects using Colouring Mediums

Creative Card Crew - Anything Goes

Going Grey With Scrap-Creations -- Use at Least 3 Different DP's

Creative Stamp Friends  - My favourite colours

Get Hippity with Ippity -  Flowers

House of Gilli -  - Flowers

Make it Monday - Always anything goes

Paper Playtime -- add a charm (one week this week)

Stamps & Fun = Creativity - Flower Power

Stamps R Us -  Goin Digital - use something digi

There's Magic in the Air - - Make your own flowers

Meet Mephibosheth

Hi Blogging Buddies!

I hope your week has started off well. Mine is improving.You'll see why.

In my post about the egg hatching you all might remember my story about Fiona. Well , I'm happy to report that she is doing well and is very spunky. (My daughter named her Fiona, I would have called her Tina as she's a real rocker at heart and kind of struts about the place. lol ) Anyway, in that post you may also recall that Fiona had a sibling who was hatched crippled.

This is the story of Mephibosheth.

I didn't go into detail about him/her before because I didn't expect him to live. He was hatched with still much of his yolk unabsorbed and so was attached to his cord and shell. Eyes closed and unresponsive. I came close to putting him down but in the end  I didn't have the heart to.

I'm glad now because Mephibosheth is a fighter.

Have a look at those splayed and clubbed toes. Poor little blighter.

But this guy is a trooper. Just look where he's come from.(below)  Mephibosheth is the duckling on the right still half in his shell.

Amazingly enough, he managed to absorb his yolk after about 12-18 hours and surprised me when I looked in the brooder and saw him on the other side of it. I asked my daughter "Did you move him?" "No!" He managed to crawl across the brooder on his own. I was flabbergasted! I figured that a duck that fights that strong deserves a second chance. I'm ashamed to say that I had given up on him too soon. 

So! After much research, (isn't the internet wonderful!) I found that if you give a crippled bird pedialite and niacin (and some other vitamins)  in its water it can help correct some leg issues if the leg issues were due to nutritional deficiencies.We don't know what caused his legs to be like this except that he was born late (but so was Fiona and she's fine). 

Also, you can make a brace out of micropore or another  First Aid tape to help support its legs and put them in a better position while they grow.

You can see the brace below. It just kinda lines the hips up. Before, Mephibosheth would crawl and his legs would be splayed out on either side, but with the brace on he can sit up a bit better and lay normally.

He may never be able to be truly "free". I.e. he may be in a pen for his entire life, but some who've raised a "special needs" duck say that a crippled duck can go on to live quite happy lives if well supervised and looked after.

By the way, peas are high in Niacin and ducks love them. :-) They can eat them at one day old if you mash them well. Yum Yum!

OK, so I know you're wondering why I name him Mephibosheth. LOL

As you know, I like to read my bible and the accounts about David are some of my favorites. Well, David's closest friend was Jonathan and when Jonathan was killed in battle, David asked if there was any one left of Jonathan's family that he could show special kindness to. As it turned out,  Jonathan had one son who was lame in his feet from birth and his name was (you guessed it), Mephibosheth. :-) Its a beautiful account found in 2 Samuel chapter 9.

My daughter just calls him "Fibby" as she has trouble with Mephibosheth.

It is a mouthful but as in his upbringing we're just going to take it one bite at a time.

Hope you enjoyed seeing him and I'll post more pics as all the spring babies grow up.

Happy Hatch Day!

Hi Again!

 You all thought you were rid of me, didn't you? lol 

For last post about hatching click here.

This card was made last month when I thought I had a brood of ducks hatching. Then when that didn't happen I saved it for my next brood. Well one has hatched and I thought well, good enough, I can't sit on this card forever, can I? It may not be the three pictured but there you go.

This digi is a fantastic one (IMHO) by Tammy of A day For Daisies. Some of you will remember it from my blogaversary a few weeks ago. I just think its the sweetest thing ever, (aside from my real ducks of course!)

I have used Prismacolor pencils to color it and the papers are all DCWV. The sentiment is by TLC.

I know, I know, ducks have bills not beaks, but give me a little creative licence, ok? How many people would catch that, anyway?

Oh! 

And check out this little duck button embellie I created with assorted buttons and a feather from a willing pet duck. :-) Pretty cute, right?

Inside finished! tada!

I would like to enter this in:

Dream Valley Challenges -- Dig out the old to use with the new

Emerald Faeries - - Anything Goes

I Did It Creations - Anything Goes 

2 Sisters - Use A Digi

Crafty Emma - Embellish It 

ECP Challenges - Pastel Colours 

Sweet Stampin -- In The Garden and/or Sketch*

Totally Gorjuss -  Water or Anything Wet (wet ducks?)

Word Play Weekend Challenge -  Wings

Floweret -- Spring& green.

Fuzzy Wuzzy - include an animal - Babies

Stampin For The Weekend - – Blue, buttons & bling.

Bunny Zoe's Crafts - - Lace

Creative Stamp Friends - - My favourite colours

Critter Sketch - 3 different solid colours, 2 buttons and 1 ribbon

Lexi's Creations -  - Spots and/or stripes

Scrapmaster's Paradise - Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery and Early Espresso

Woodware USA - - Anything Goes

Off the Wall Craftiness - - Colour*.

Have a great week !

 I'll be back on Thursday but hopefully before then to see what everyone's been up to!

Welcome baby Fiona

Hi Guys!

Well most of my regular followers will know that during the tornado last month I lost my batch of eggs that I had been incubating. The lady that I bought them from was as sweet as she could be and offered to send me a new batch for just the cost of shipping.

I was reticent about starting over again as the last episode upset me so much but my daughter thought I should at least try it one more time. So I did.

There are so many variables with hatching ducks. The temp , the humidity, all has to be just so. Unfortunately its very difficult finding accurate thermometers so you can think all is well and you may be off by a degree or two , spelling disaster) Tricky business. I had 18 eggs but by the end of it when all were overdue I told myself that I would be content if I had just one. If I could only see one born healthy. (several had made it as far as pecking their bills out and then died).

Well this little sweetie is Fiona.

 She was a very overdue egg ( by about three and a half days) that was very lively, wobbling and cheeping almost non stop. But after she had struggled for 31 hours to break more than her bill out of the egg I took matters into my own hands. I had lost too many already to lose her. It was "No- No Number 1". Never mess with ducks hatching. If they're too weak to hatch they're too weak to survive etc etc. Well at this point I figured that a weak duck was better than a dead duck so at 3:30 this morning I started picking at the shell around her bill. She cheeped and pushed with me. between the two of us (and a lot of it was me, I'm afraid) a lusty, opinionated female (I assume) was born into the world.

All babies look like aliens . Its a fact of nature.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww...

Taking a break..

And as Fiona was on her own (her only living sibling was born crippled) Tweety and I ran down to the local feed store and bought a mallard baby about her size to keep her company.

Fiona is the silver duck that looks like she went a little crazy with the hairspray. lol

And for those who are wondering, I filled their water bowl with marbles to keep the ducks from drowning and also keep them from splashing all the water out!)

So unless the remaining eggs surprise us with good news ,Fiona is our little miracle baby.

And for those of you who are wondering how our other brood of 16 are doing. the picture below was several  days ago. (they have now outgrown the bathtub, or at least, out STUNK the bathtub and have been moved outside in a pen)

Thanks for coming by everyone! I'll  be back in a sec with a card for you!

Sag, You're It

Hi Guys!

Well ,Tammy over at A day For Daisies made an offer I couldn't refuse. I'd been drooling over all her new releases for some weeks but have just been short on cash. Well she just started up a new game over at CDAC where she wants to see our fairy tale cards. She is giving away this digi so everyone can play.(Awesome isn't it?) She also has her weekly $2 deal featuring another fairytale digi.

So anyway,  I just had to play. :-)

I am using papers from assorted designers. They were in my scrap packs so I couldn't really say except that the floral patterned paper down the center of the card is definately K&Co.

As normal, I am using prismacolor pencils throughout.

An angled shot so you can see the bling blinging. Cool, huh? :-)

And for those of you who appreciate my demented sense of humor you can snag this sentiment as well. Just click, right click and save. Or go to my free sentiments box on the sidebar and choose sizes etc.

I would like to play with these challenges:

Crafty Catz - Anything goes.

Inspire Me Fridays - Always anything goes

Stampin With The Dragon - 1 image, 2 design papers, 1 embellishment, Sketch*.

Paper Play - Sparkle galore.

Shelly's Images - - Anything goes

Creative Belli -Anything starting with S (sisters!)

Divas by Design - For the Girls 

Simon Says Stamp - Sparkle & Shine.

Sisterhood of Crafters - - Let it Shine

Clear It Out! -  Projects using Colouring Mediums

Use It Tuesdays - - Bling

Crafty Emma -  Embellish It 

Crazy 4 Challenges  Humour

Little Claire's  -- Sparkle

One Stop Craft--Fairy Tales

Thanks for visiting everyone! I really appreciate all your sweet comments. If I haven't visited you recently please don't feel too badly. Things have been crazy busy over here and I haven't had the chance to do my usual blog stomping. I will be 'round though, when you least expect it lol

Have a great weekend!

Aren't Visitors Grand?

Hi Blogging Buddies!

I'm so glad you could stop in today cos Ive got some good stuff here. :-)

First of all, don't you just LOOOOOVE Aunt Flo??

I think she's brilliant and perfect for this week's challenge at Mo's DP2 which is 

Distressing

Why is she perfect? 

Well, for one thing she is very old and could be called vintage herself. A little worn around the edges.Second,   that coat she's wearing probably is on the distressed side and smelling like moth balls. Thirdly, look at her and you can see that she's not the picture of sweetness and therefore  her visit would be

distresssssing!!

Oh yeah! This is what I'm talkin about! lol

Oh she's sweet really. My hat goes off to anyone brave enough to sport purple hair!

I have used an image by Mo Manning, papers by DCWV and colors are prismacolors.

I am also using this card as my Catered Crop "follow the recipe" card.

We're using Grace's fabulous lightouse sidestep card as the stew pot for this week's ingredient list. Its an awesome card, you need to go check it out.

For a sponsor this week we have Becky Roberts of Inking Idaho . The winner gets to choose any one of her templates and I've gotta say they're pretty cool. Can't I win???? Hey, this isn't fair! lol

OK so here's the recipe. 

You can use any elements from the recipe . In red you can see the  ingredients I utilized for this card.

* Colors – brown, blue, red
* Stamps and Stickers – nautical, light house, sentiment
* Color Mediums – stamp ink, Copic markers
* Embellishments – twine/hemp rope, charm
* Tools – die cuts, air brush system
* Techniques – make a scene, use a creative fold
* Theme – masculine, Father's Day

The inside:

Oh!

 And you can grab the sentiments here. Just Click, right click and save or go to my free sentiments box in the sidebar.

Challenges I'd like to play with:

Amber's Crafts and Stuff -  Dogs & Cats

Paper Shelter Challenge -  Distress

A Spoonful Of Sugar -  Anything Goes 

Clear It Out! -  Projects using Colouring Mediums 

Creative Craft Challenges -  - Distressed/Vintage

Everybody-Art-Challenge -  Tags 

Karen's Doodles Netherlands -   Text on Front, inside decorated 

Happileigh Scrappin - - Stitching 

KB Cute Monday - Anything goes using a digi

Make it Monday - Always anything goes

My Partner in Crafting Crime -  Twine, jute or string

Stamps R Us -Goin Digital - use something digi

Creative Cowgirls -  - Anything Goes

Dream Valley Challenges -  Dig out the old to use with the new (an old laundry list to use with a new image)

Scrappy Frogs - - Anything goes

Challenge Up Your Life - - Travel Related

Stamping Vacation - - Inspired by the Book Title - Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats (but its not true!)

Have a great weekend everyone!!