Ruby and Kiwi

By far, my favourite birds at the Bloedel Conservatory were Ruby and Kiwi. They are two brilliantly coloured eclectus parrots.

At first I thought they were both males because of their bright colours. I was quite wrong. For the eclectus parrots the females are more brightly coloured with red, blues and sometimes violet and lavender while the males are mostly emerald green. Ruby, the female, had a black beak and Kiwi's, the male, was a “candy corn” orange and yellow beak.

The other interesting difference to other parrot species is that the structure of their feathers is so fine that it actually resembles hair rather than feathers.

Kiwi was the better talker of the two.  Actually, his voice sounded a bit like Dustin Hoffman’s character Ray Babbitt in the movie Rainman when he got going.

Totally fascinating and beautiful birds.

 The layout is from the September Stick It Down double page sketch. I so enjoy participating with Stick It Down as one of their double page team Members.

There are also great single page and card layouts on the site. Whatever your fancy there's a sketch for it. Be sure to link up your design. The link is active until the end of September.

Picking embellishments was interesting. I loved how the sketch suggested different groupings that really pulled the pages together.

 

I chose circles with a dream catcher overlay, to go with feathers, for the ones behind the two photos, and branches to mimic the sweeping groups of circles.

 

 

For the title I chose multi-toned grey and blue paper and did a bit of journaling as I've done with other of the pages highlighting birds of the Conservatory.

 

I was very pleased with how it all turned out.

is there life out there?

Poor wee Freya just can't quite figure out how she can see outside but not get outside.

As she stares through the glass I can't help but think that she's wondering, as the Reba McEntire song goes, "Is there life out there?".

 

I'm using this layout to participate in 3 challenges.

 

The first is the Scrapmuch sketch challenge. This sketch is by Laura Whitaker. You can find it, and another sketch each Friday on the Scrapmuch site.

 

The second is the Scrapping For Fun challenge that required the layout to be made up of "Brand Name Scrapbooking Paper". I've used Bo Bunny and American Crafts in my layout.

 

The third is from Lasting Memories who has a weekly challenge that works in with their September theme of "Techniques and Titles. This layout is for the challenge "Use those punches - Title after a book, song or movie". I've used question marks and the title is after the Reba McEntire song "Is There Life Out There".

 

 

You have until the 28th of September to create your layout using this sketch and post it on the Scrapmuch site to have a chance to be chosen by random draw for a prize.

It's always fun to try and win a prize.

 

Art

Art...not the kind you find in a museum but the blue-gold macaw kind. Art is a large South American parrot with blue top parts and yellow under parts. He's a member of the large group of Neotropical parrots known as macaws and the last of my bird pages in the Bloedel Conservatory of my Vancouver album. Yes the last. The birds are done. :) You've been very patient. I just wasn't able to choose between them so had to do them all.

 

 

The sketch is the September single page from Stick It Down, designed by Purvi. I like that the sketch suggested a variety of papers for the horizontal bands. What a great way to use of some leftover paper pieces. I just dug through my scrap treasures to find colours that matched Art and his surroundings.

Stick It Down also publishes a great double-page sketch as well as a fabulous card sketch on the 1st of the month. This gives you all month to design your creations. You should try accomplishing all three this month. Each will give you a chance to be selected by the Design Team as a guest Designer next month.

 

Card Sketch

 

Double-page Sketch