For The Birds

This weekend our little family

went to the

Idaho Center For Birds Of Prey.

These are a couple of cool post cards I picked up there,
pictured on them are some of the birds we saw.

My husband had the opportunity to take a Birds of Prey class
the first week of January and was so excited to share
all the cool things he had learned with us.

The center had all sorts of activities for kids and their families
plus ~bonus~ it was free to get in that day!

It was a great excuse to go for sure!

My daughter has been a bit of a bird lover

for several years now, so this definitely was perfect for her.

The thing is, I didn't realize how much I would enjoy it too!

They had several live birds~falcons & eagles, even a pair of California Condors.
There were also plenty of "preserved" birds to look at too.:)
We spent most of the afternoon out bird watching,
we even spotted a great horned owl!
He was refusing to pose for the picture....

Then we came home to mount the bird boxes

we built on my birthday.

You can find several plans on the internet for building these simple boxes.

The Birds of Prey even have a great set of directions!

Click here to get them!
They are all simple straight cuts and each box costs about $10 to make!

We didn't realize that most owls and falcons do not build their own nests

so we are hoping to lure a few into our yard.

Of course only smaller ones that don't eat squirrels!:)

There is also a great app we found that was amazing!
It's called iBird Explorer Pro 5.

It's on sale right now and a must for bird lovers!
It has an amazing library of bird calls and facts.
We learned that most birds begin to migrate
back to Northern America in February
so we're going to have our eyes peeled!

What fun and educational things do you know about
in your neck of the woods?

WYLTC @ Under My Umbrella

Are you guys ready for this month's project for

Wood You Like To Craft?

We had so much fun coming up with something

inspired by Melinda over at Under My Umbrella.

This month's theme was "birds",

with Melinda doing an amazing job with her adorable bird house!

Of course with this one we both had to whip something up

and made something definitely for the birds!:)

Make sure to come stop by Under My Umbrella for the full tutorial

and make sure to enter your own "version"

for a chance to win a gift card!

P.S. We finally got Candace's curtain rod hung in her master bedroom

and it looks AWESOME!!!!

Stay tuned for a sneak peek!:)

Haunted Village

Here's a little Halloween craft we're sure the kiddos will enjoy.  My son didn't think that it was too scary....but I know he liked it! 

 We had tons of K&Co. paper left over from papering our pennant banners and we were determined not to let this cute paper go to waste.

We bought our paper pack at Michaels but I know you can purchase it here.  K&Co used the same design to make chipboard pieces and pop up Haunted houses, this inspired us to bring to life our own Haunted House.

We wandered down to the unfinished wood section and picked up these birdhouses for a dollar a piece.  Perfectly shaped for haunted houses!

We pulled the strings out and gave them a good coat of black paint.

My son was playing around with them the other day and lined them up in a row.  We thought it would be great to make a haunted row with them on a 2x4.  We cut up smaller pieces of wood to give the houses some height.

Using Mod Podge, we papered away.

We ended up pulling out the little perch for the birds so we could paper over the holes.

We drilled some holes for the dowles to hang the banners. We didn't glue any of the dowels so you can remove them for storage. I always end up with so many broken crafts, so we thought this would be a good solution.

We did the same with the large dowels. 

And this is where I stood back and watched Nicole work her paper magic on the wood.  I wasn't a lot of help, just a back seat driver ordering doors on one house ...pumpkins on the other. She's just so darn good with paper and wood...so I let her take over. :)

We made mini paper pennants, cutting paper triangles and hot gluing them to ribbon.  Nicole backed the top pennants with wire so we could shape them easily. 

We added more spider web yarn and ribbon to dress up the wood blocks. We used really fine wire to  hot glue the bats, ghosts and moon.  

My kids love chopping paper...any paper they can get their hands on.... I think I have six to eight pairs of  confiscated scissors tucked away on a high shelf.

These little paper triangles would be perfect for little hands to practice their scissoring skills. :)

I think this little haunted village needs to go straight to Nicole's house

~ where it can be adorned by her little girl with Little Pet Shops!

Sharing at Tatertots and Jello's FALL Linky Party

Faux Patina Birdhouse

 

We chose Gorilla Wood Glue to use for our project.

 We have never tried it before and I do have to say...we are pleased!

The set time is so incredibly fast!

 

We decided to "embellish" a small birdhouse into a super duper mansion birdhouse

....fit for a king....well bird, and maybe a couple of his buddies....

Our inspiration came from a picture of a copper coin with great patina that I found on 

Wikipedia.

 ( my source for all of my unanswered questions! :) 

I wanted to see what true patina looks like and this is the example they gave.

  The colors are gorgeous!

We thought it would be cool to give a simple birdhouse the same colors,

 and add some bold color to my backyard. 

Real copper would have been SWEET....but......

have you seen how much that stuff costs?

Faux will have to do.

We started with this fancy unfinished birdhouse.

It's made to hang on a tree, but we've been a little obsessed with perches lately....

Although it looked large in the store- it looked

like an itsy bitsy birdhouse on our intended perch. 

So here's how we enlarged it!

We started by mimicking the base of the birdhouse by cutting 1x2's at 30 degree angles.

We always have a couple of 1x2's lying around....you never know when you'll need them!

Plus they're super cheap!

Then we built up and out.

 Each piece was glued together with Gorilla wood glue. 

  The set time was SOOOOOO fast!

This is the third layer of 1x2's to give it extra height.

Yes.....ADMIRE my fine tools.......

Here is my frying pan "clamping" system.

Did you know frying pans can be used for things other than cooking???

We covered the holes so birdseed couldn't seep down into the inside.

Now we let it sit overnight and I have to say...it was solid!

We added the perch with more

 Gorilla glue

and wood screws,

filled the gaps with some filler and sanded.

We gave everything a coat of durable outdoor paint and

cut a few triangular wedges to add under the perch.

The roof got a "faux" copper roof. 

Pretty ain't it!!!

The base is a post in the ground.  I've never done this before.

Thank goodness for our Dad!  

He said to bury it at least 2 1/2 feet into the ground. 

We probably should have used cement. 

But hey,

I'm always wanting to move things around and redecorate!

Next came the faux finish.

  We mixed turquoise, dark green,  navy blue and copper

and used the dry brush technique to paint the faux patina.   

We just dabbed and dabbed until we found the color we liked.

Wood screws attach the triangle wood pieces to the post.

There you go! 

A little far out for a birdhouse, but it got the "cool" approval from my boys. 

 That's all that matters! :)

Now all it needs are a couple coats of polyurethane,

and maybe some birdseed....

A Bird House For The Perch

So finding a bird house for this perch was a lot harder to do than we anticipated.

Did you know all those pretty ones in the store are

"Decorative", "Not Meant For Outdoor Use".

So we finally found one at Michael's made from pine

and grabbed a simple plaque base to mount it on.

We primed it and decided to paint it to match my (Nicole's) house color.

People think I'm joking when I give directions to my home and

says it's the Pistachio Green one

on the corner.  Seriously when I told our Dad what color

I had picked out for it he thought I was nuts.

Especially with cream trim?

When he drove almost 6 hours to come help me paint it
(he's the world's greatest Dad ever!!!!)

he couldn't believe that it actually was pretty and worked, somehow!

We thought it would be fun to give the roof some bling

so we pulled out this embossed metal sheeting we picked up a few years ago

for pennies when a hardware store went out of business.

Back then we thought it would be cool for a magnetic board

but quickly found out

aluminum isn't magnetic.  :(

We made a pattern and cut it out with our metal snips!

If you don't have a pair of these snips get some!

We picked these up at Home Depot for about $15 and they cut like butter!

We nailed the roof in place and then screwed them onto the plaque base

and then onto the perch.

Not bad huh?

So now the grand total for the project is a whole whopping $11!!!

Not sure why the base is looking pink below

but hey at least you'll know which house this one belongs to!