Home Sweet Home - My Summer Garden Birdhouse

Hello Everyone:

Before I go into my long winded story about my Mom's garden, I just want to say one thing...I made this out of a Kellogg's Special K cereal box!!!!! Can you believe that! That's the true meaning of recycling in my opinion! For size reference, my birdhouse stands about 7" tall from the base to the roof peak.

When I think of summer, I think about home and my Mom's garden. My parents live in a small town up north that used to be a very busy ranch. The animals are gone and the kids have grown and moved out, but that beautiful garden is still there. My Mom built every bit of it by hand, collected every stone and planted every flower, it took her almost a decade, but if you could see it, you would understand how worth it, it was.

There is a little pond with a gorgeous rock waterfalls, a natural stone patio and walkway, a fountain that makes a soothing sort of noise that can't be described, and the flowers, all those beautiful flowers. My Mom loves birds and she has bird feeders and bird houses spread all around the garden, so there are always birds fluttering about making their little chirping noises. There's no place like it for me...it is the epitome of summer, it's the feeling of home sweet home...it's my happy place.

Mom, this is for you!!!

How did I do it??

- I drew my individual birdhouse pieces onto the cereal box and cut them out. I painted one side with several layers of white paint until all of the design of the box was covered. The other side, I painted brown for the inside.

- I applied a thick layer of home-made texture paste in uneven strokes on the white side. After it dried, I used  the Crafter's Workshop Woodgrain stencil and my texture paste to give the birdhouse more defined grooves and patterns. Let it dry, then I painted all the textured pieces with DecoArt Tan Crafter's Acrylic paint.

- Next came Tim Holtz stain Gathered Twigs, which I rubbed into the grooves and spritzed with water to let it pool in the valleys.

- Then I spritzed all the pieces with mini misters filled with diluted DecoArt Sun Yellow paint just to soften all the dark browns. I stamped on some summery images with Ranger Archival Coffee ink, then highlighted all the raised areas with a sponge dipped in white paint.

- Glued all the pieces together and magico, presto, the four walls are done-o!

- The eggs I made out of Martha Stewart polymer clay, painted them yellow and flicked some brown and white paint on them to get the spots. The border is also Martha Stewart - doily border punch.

- The flowers were made using Joy Crafts Flower 4 and coloured with Tim Holtz distress inks Squeezed Lemonade and Dried Marigold. The vines are Joy Crafts Flourish Branch 1 & Poppystamps Ivy Tendrils.

- The sign I cut out by hand and stamped by hand using an alphabet stamp set by Studio G.

- For the shingles, I textured an entire page with various paints, distress stains, distress ink pads and distress ink refills. I got the grain pattern by dragging the distress ink pad across the page.

- Then I cut the page up into 1" squares (rectangles for the top tier), distressed the edges and glued them on. Magico-presto-the roof is done-o!  Oops, I put one of the shingles on sideways! Ughh!

I would like to give a shout out to three challenge blogs that really inspired me this week to do something that I probably never would had tried without their creative challenges and their inspiring design teams:

Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge Blog - Challenge #13 - Let's Cycle...Up-cycle, That Is

They asked us to use 'junk' from our stash. Along with the cereal box that I used for the walls and the roof, I also made the nest with leftover moss from a potted plant and I used scrap papers to piece together the doily borders.  You should have seen the looks I was getting from hubby as I rifled through our junk cabinet! If he had seen the absolutely mind blowing DT creations, he would have understood.

Craft-Room Challenge - A Summer Garden
They asked that we tell them what inspired us to do our 'Summer Garden' project and that's what really got me thinking about my Mom's garden and sharing the beautiful details with you. Their DT creations were so full of summer colours and flowers, how could I not be inspired!

City Crafter Challenge Blog - Week #223 - Home is Where the Heart is

They asked us to make a project using a house as part of the design...so I just decided to make a whole entire house!! Here is the inspiration photo that they provided...isn't it cutsie!! I know it's a Christmas house, but I really wanted to go the summer route for this one. I send thanks to the talented design team for bumping my creativity up a notch with their fabulous designs!

 

***

I am also excited to enter my birdhouse into these wonderful challenges this week!

- Crafty Catz - Challenge #243 - Lazy Days of Summer
- Suzy Bee's Bloomin' Challenge Blog - #41 - Anything Goes

- Mixed Media Monthly Challenge - Stencils & Pastes

UPDATE: Template for my birdhouse
I have added my template here for anyone who would like to five it a go. I designed it myself and it's pretty easy to use. You can make it as small or as big as you like, as long as the pieces stay the same size, relative to each other. Solid lines are where you cut, dashed lines are where you fold. Just right click, open link in new tab and then save it to your computer. Have fun!

That's it for today, that was a long one!  Thank you for stopping in and for all the amazing comments. I read and appreciate every single one! If you have any questions, please let me know.