Edible Bird House!

Look at this lovely housewarming gift! This is made by my childhood friend Mary who is here visiting. She made this last Winter during a Kentucky ice storm when she was house bound. To make this you start with a birdhouse. She got hers from Michaels. She also got non-toxic glue there too. You then embellished the house with bird seeds, nuts, dried fruit (nothing with salt or sugar). You could use a small corn cob for the chimney if you want. You can also decorate with things that birds can make their nests with. She said that each of her birdhouses were a different shape and were decorated differently.

This is so cute I think I have to keep it for some months to look at and maybe put it out next Spring. Birds actually come and eat the stuff on the birdhouse and then make a nest inside. Mary said that after the house is trashed you can spread peanut butter on it and put more seeds on it.

Anyone looking for a good DIY Christmas project could start making these now and have their Christmas shopping done.

Paris Decoupage Box

My first decoupage project is complete and it was fun to do. Now I know I will be on the look out for wooden things to decoupage. I collected a lot of Paris ephemera when we were there not knowing that I would do with it. It was fun to get some of it out and go through it to pick a few little things to work with. And what do you think the pix below is?

Decoupage

This is my first time ever doing decoupage. I am practicing before I start my Paris table. I never decoupaged when everyone else was for that reason. I never liked the look of the finished projects, generally too busy. So we will see where this takes me. Oddly this kind of reminds me of my early start as a commercial artist, pre computer. Then it was all about gluing type and things to layout boards. I think I am going to like this. Could be bad. Generally I've never seen a piece of wood I didn't want to paint. This could end up with never seeing a piece of wood I didn't want to decoupage.

DIY Button Bracelet

This is a simple button bracelet I made a couple years ago from vintage buttons from my button drawer. Some are bakelite I think, all are old. But you could do with from new buttons. Oddly I had all these in my button drawer. Start with wide black elastic. Cut a piece a little larger than your wrist. Stitch the two ends together by hand or machine. Sew buttons on. I layered my buttons and alternated the colors-- red on green, green on red.

DIY button box

We live in a small space so I am always looking for something to add more organization to our space. I noticed that this button box moved with us. I had made it years ago using an old box from a Clinique give-a-way and all the shirt buttons I had. Since then I had made jewelry out of vintage buttons and had a lot of old white ones. So I added another layer to the box.

If you want to make one I suggest a finding a fun box at Goodwill or a tag sale. I got a lovely Japanese wooded box in golden colors and added all the brown, gold, tan buttons to the top of that one. I gave that one to my cousin Alice.

The key is to start with the buttons touching each other. When that layer is done then like a puzzle add more here and there paying attention to color and texture as you go.

Creative Lunch

This is my cute friend Justine. She owns Vintage Hearts which is a darling little store here in Eau Claire on Water Street. Justine also makes slip covers and will come to your house with her sewing machine and just make them there.

Justine and I have what we call our Creative Lunch. We meet monthly and share what new creative things we are making or thinking about making. These boxes that she made were inspired by her collection of vintage ceramic kitsch things. They are even more charming in person. She is thinking about making them for the store.

And she surprised me by having drawn a heart and swirl font that I will make and market... called of course Vintage Hearts. She is also the handwriting behind the font Justine.