Birds of a Feather - Wall Art

My latest project satisfies my love for birds and nests perfectly.

I've had so many nests just laying around in various places throughout the house, and realized I had never tried to pull them together in a single collection.

Well, we all know that ideas can pop out of nowhere when we least expect them.

I was in the Habitat Restore one day and found 2 of those french door inserts.

You know, the flimsy plastic kind that snap into the frames around the glass.

It hit me immediately that I could hang it on the wall and pull a lot of my bird collection together to fill it.

And, since I had to get my living room finished before my VIP Guest arrived, it was a really quick alternative for wall art with a minimal amount of effort.

I had everything I needed to make this project happen, so I only had to spend the $5 it costs for the frame itself. Can't beat that!

I took the stark white frame and dry brushed on a bit of brown glaze to age it, then laid out my plan on the floor to get it the way I wanted before I committed to it on the wall.

I was in a rush to get it finished, so there are no pictures of the process, but it's such an easy-peasy project that I know you can decifer it from the pictures.

Once I got it the way I wanted it, I simply hung nails to hold the nests, and used double sticky tape to hold the pictures.

I hung it above the small desk that I have in the corner of my living room.

A large piece of art for that small piece of furniture I know, but it gives me the impact I was hoping for.

Oh yeah, I also jazzed up another lamp. I found the shade at a thrift store for about 2 bucks, and I added one of my flower embellishments to the center and eyelash trim to the bottom.

(Trim from Hobby Lobby, Fabric Flower from my shop)

(I found my graphics for the wall piece at The Graphics Fairy, and purchased

a few more from Masterpiece Designs on Etsy.)

 

I love the way it warms up an otherwise drab corner!

I'm linking up to Saturday Night Special over at Funky Junk.

Tea Staining Project - From Tablecloth to Lampshade

I've been digging through the early days of my blog and discovered something.

It appears that I've posted several projects that were in progress, promised to come back with the finished pictures.........and never did. oh so sorry

In my defense, I didn't forget - I just never finished the projects!

Needless to say there are plenty of unfinished things in my house.

I try to complete them, they just never seem to make it to the top of my priority list anymore.

However, I did come across one that I finished that I can share with you now.

You all know my love of all things tea stained.

In my very second blog post, I showed you how to tea stain for yourself.

In that post, I showed you a beautiful tablecloth I found at an antique store.

My intent was simply to tea stain it and use it on a table. Unfortunately, after I put it in the tea to soak, I realized that the previous owner had bleached it heavily. The smell was unmistakeable once it got wet, and I noticed that it was becoming more brittle the longer it soaked.

My heart sank when I pulled it out of the sink and it started coming apart.

Well, not being one to waste anything, I set it aside until I could decide what to use it for.

I decided on a lampshade.
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And meant to do it right away.
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But didn't.
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Story of my life.

But I DID finally make it, and here it is.

This is the tablecloth before - crisp white, but on it's way to pure shabby creamy color.

And here's what I turned it into:

(sorry for the picture quality. took these a while back and my camera battery was going dead)

I raided my craft closet of bird items, keys, and ACEO tags. I made individual fabric embellishments, and then hot glued them to the shade. I then added lots of fun buttons (my signature go-to accessory) and keys, nests, and ribbons.

I made 3 of these and sold 2 of them right away. I love the way they turned out so I thought I'd take one home with me. But, after trying it out in every room of my home, I just can't find the perfect spot for it. Or the perfect lamp base for me. As lovely as it is, it's not fitting the look of my home.

So........

Maybe you love it. And maybe you have the perfect place for it. And maybe you want it for yourself.

:)

I'm selling this one!

If you're interested, let me know.

I sold these in the shop for $69, but I'm selling this last one for $42, plus $8 shipping.

If you want it, I'll load it up on etsy and send you the link.

It's ready to mailed out!

What projects have you started, meant to finish, and never have?

It's time to get those projects completed!

Marianne over at Songbird is hosting her Gitter Done party every week now, so we have a reason to get busy and Gitter DONE!

Doesn't matter how big or small the project as long it's been on your list for a while and you've FINALLY got it done!

Repair a Hole in Your Lampshade with a Bird Nest!

Yep, you read that right!

The birds in my house live in  posh accomodations!

In fact, they are master nest builders. :)

A few weeks ago while perusing my mother's garage, I spied this little jewel.

After talking my mother's husband into letting me have it, I proudly - and quickly - tucked it away in my car. I didn't know what I'd do with it, but I knew I was in love with the shape. Actually, I thought I'd probably just use it to trace the pattern and create a stencil.

(Which I still will do by the way.)

I pondered recovering it but then decided I liked the shabby grunginess of it in it's current state.

Only problem was, I needed to figure out how to fix that hole.

Well it just so happens that I was attempting to clean out a closet in my craft room today, and I was picking things up off the floor that I'd left in a pretty little trail leading to said closet.

Trying to get in there, I stumbled over the lampshade, which somehow found it's way to the floor.

When I did that, I dropped what was in my hand and it landed on the shade.

I leaned down to pick it all up and noticed that a clump of moss and a spring of flowers was sitting on top of the hole in the lampshade.

Hmmm, I thought, that looks pretty good. I think I'll go with that!

So, after collecting a few supplies from my plethora of all that is crafty, I came up with these things.

Look at all the goodies I found. I've got birds, nests, eggs, feathers, moss, flowers, and twigs.

Don't you love it when you but all those things you don't need at the moment just because you caught a good sale? Yeah, me too......

Welp, I guess I'll grab my glue gun and get started.

The first order of business was to fill in that hole, so I tucked a handful of moss in it.

Then I just started layering up my products.

Note: I don't actually start gluing things down until I get a good base I know I can work with.

After playing around a bit, (ok, about 30 minutes more than I needed to),

I finally had a nest I was proud of. Some would call it a floral arrangement,

but I assure you, there are eggs in there. :)

I told you my birds have posh accomodations!

Now that my nest was finished, I only had one problem.

There's no room left for my bird! Oops!

I decided to just perch him on the top of the shade, as if to watch over his nest.

(I say "his" like he's the one laying those eggs, and we all know that no male is going to volunteer to do that - so I guess my bird is a 'she' afterall. :) )

I just love it!

And to answer two questions I know you'll be asking.....

I got the birds at The Dollar Tree.

Check these out - 2 for $1.

And Yes, I bought all they had - 4 different types of birds.

...and the other is, I got my feathers at Hobby Lobby while they were on sale at half off.

I even took a picture for you with the item number incase you need to show an employee to help you find them. :) They're with the floral stems.

And Yes, I bought all of those too!

Now, since this is my first official completed project of the year, and I transformed my lampshade, I'm linking up to:

Transformation Thursday over at The Shabby Chic Cottage

and 1st Project of the year Party over at Whisperwood Cottage

What projects have you jumpstarted the year with?

Home Decor Series - Sewing - Is Hand Sewing KeepinYou All Twisted Up?

Do you do a lot of hand sewing?

Hemming pants, closing up pillows, sewing on buttons?


If you do, then I'm guessing you spend a fair amount of time frustrated with your thread twisting up, or one thread suddenly becoming 'longer' than the other one. Am I right?

Are you constantly having to stop and unwind your thread to keep it from knotting up?

Well, if you're having this problem, I have a very quick fix. I promise, you'll never lose control of your thread again!

All you need to do is tie a knot in your thread directly at the end of the eye of the needle.

Here we go:

1. Thread your needle.

2. Bring both threads together and wrap around your needle.

3. Bring the end of your threads across your needle and through the loop you just formed.

 (Don't pay any attention to my grown out nails. I told you I've been busy. In fact, this picture is so old now that those nails aren't even there anymore! I'm aunatural at this point!)

4. Pull your knot tight on the needle.

5. Slide the knot down the needle until you're just off the edge of it a bit.
Pull tight. See how that knot is directly at the edge of the needle? That's important.
It'll keep your knot from catching in the fabric.

6. Also important is that your knot needs to be no larger than the thread layers.
If you make a big knot, it will catch in your fabric and break off.

7. See how you can barely tell there's a knot in the threads? That's how yours should look.

And there you have it - hassle free hand sewing!

Try it and see how much easier your hand sewn projects become. You'll thank me, I guarantee it!

And if you're still hand sewing with a single thread and wonder what the heck I'm talking about.......shame on you. :)

Bird Silhouette Pillows .....in progress

Ok, I give in. I decided to jump on the silhouette bandwagon.

I usually veer away from doing what everybody else is doing, and let's face it, a bazillion people in blogland are putting their spin on the silhouette craze right now.......... but, that was before I found some great new bird stencils. I didn't care who was doing it - I was going to use those stencils.

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I've had some black and cream houndstooth fabric and a stash of washed canvas sitting in my fabric closet for a while, and I really wanted to use them for some pillows, but I couldn't decide what to put on the fronts.

And then I saw this over at Tracy's Trinkets and Treasures, and I had to have it.

Not the bench, although it's fabulous, but the bird stencil.

She said she got it at HL, so I immeditaely put it on my shopping list.

(If you don't already know Tracy, you should really check out her blog and see all of her great projects.)

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To my surprise, when I went to HL, I discovered that stencil was from a whole new line.

So, I bought all the bird stencils in that line. When I got home and opened them, I realized there were 2 different stencils in the smaller pack.

Woohoo, bonus score!

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I'm not finished sewing all of the pillows yet, but I wanted to show you anyway,

mainly for the purpose of showing how something so easy can make such an impact on your decor.

When I get them finished later today, I'll come back and add the pictures.

Here's a start.

I got so excited about getting these done that I forgot to take many before pictures.

TIP: When I use stencils, I prefer to use the small bottles of acrylic paints, but I always mix them with a little bit of clear glaze to 'water' them down a bit. Makes it so much easier to paint on fabric!

TIP: Another tip for using stencils - invest in the stencil adhesive spray. It's a lightweight ashesive that you can spray on the back of your stencil to hold it in place. I was out of it at the time, and I really should've waited until I got more. These stencils had lots of little pieces that would've stayed in place much better if I had.

See, aren't these great stencils?

Here's another. (I added a few buttons to the smaller stencils to fill in the space a little more. I also added a rhinestone for the eye to give it some sparkle.)

And the last one. (I see I have some overflow paint that needs cleaned up. :( )

(More on placing and marking buttons in an upcoming Tips on Tuesday in the Home Decor Series.)

Here's what I've finished so far, along with the pics of the other two I still need to put the backs on.

I love the contrast of the black houndstooth on the back and in the cord.

If you want a complete tutorial on how to make a corded, zippered pillow just like a pro, click the link.

What have you made with birds?

Let me know so I can go see.