More Birds

While I was making the Bird Quilt from yesterday there was a lot of interest in birds generally in the house - mainly bird watching and looking out for different birds that were appearing on the quilt. But also lots of bird crafts and drawing as well, and as a result a little area of our house has a bit of a bird theme going on. Much to the amusement of the children, we've put our bird makes in our downstairs toilet and utility area - they find this funny because it's also our 'room' for our 2 cats - where they eat and sleep, so we're being very mean and taunting the poor cats with images of birds!

Anyway, I thought I'd share these bird makes with you today. It started off with a picture of a Blue Tit that Venetia painted:

This one looked really effective framed on its own. But then there were lots of pencil drawings as well. We used another idea from this book

And turned the drawings into this:

 It's an old piece of MDF, first painted with a plain blue and green landscape background, then with the bird drawings cut out and decoupaged on to it. We finished it with a couple of coats of varnish. The 'hooks' are just really big screws, only partly screwed in, with flower shaped felt and then a yellow button glued on the ends. I screwed it on to the wall and it's made a brilliant coat/bag hook work of art! Soulemama's version in the book is slightly different and she uses beautiful vintage drawer/door handles as hooks, but the basic idea is very much the same. I love the fact that it's a useful way to display my children's art work, there are so many pictures produced in this house and, as much as I try to display and keep as many as I can, I find it impossible to keep up with production! So something very practical and permanent like this is great and, I hope, makes the children feel that their work is really valued and admired. There are a few ideas in the book that make good use of childrens' art work, I think it's something that comes across strongly in Soulemama's blog generally too.

I also made a quick patchwork cushion -  from a first try, reject quilt square:

And I had a couple of very pretty blue tit plates I'd found in a Charity Shop ages ago without any particular purpose in mind.

Very pretty, but not in the best condition.

All of a sudden they seemed perfect to display on the wall with our other bird art work. I bought some self adhesive plate hanger discs that looked easy to use - they were very easy to use and - touch wood! - they haven't fallen down yet! I couldn't get the 2 plates to look right together, so for a long time there was just one lonely plate up there:

And I've been keeping an eye out for other bird plates in Charity Shop visits. It took a good few months, and I found a few other thrifty birdy items in the process!

Vintage bird tin

A tub and a little tray with blue tits that we find very useful as a soap dish

And eventually I found another 3 plates, all Blue Tits as well, that work together. They sat around for ages on a window sill, until in my weekend of 'get quick and easy things done' last week, they finally made it up on to the wall.

One of the plates already had holes for wire, but I used the self adhesive discs for the others - a really easy way to display plates.



Looking lovely now.



We have a few plans for some other birdy makes, just to taunt the poor cats some more, but they probably won't happen for a while. For now the cats don't seem too bothered by the birds around them!

Back tomorrow, Sally.