Helping The Birds Make Beautiful Nests

We have really enjoyed watching the birds building their nests this year. We have a family of crows who live in the tree in our back yard. Apart from the terrible squarking they make in the early mornings, we love them. They are particularly fun to watch when they are building their nests as they choose big sticks to build with, sometimes even longer than themselves. And, they are funny because they bicker and fight and often make each other drop their sticks and then try to find them again. We have had many a laugh watching them this spring.

With our garden birds in mind, we have a tradition of helping them make their nests as comfy as possible. In years past, we have decorated branches with wool roving for the birds to use as nesting material. But this year, we decided to do something different and made them a yarn ball instead. We fashioned a bit of wire into a ball to hold the yarn. The birds have been helping themselves all week and we are delighting in the visions of their eggs, nestled comfortably in their colorful yarn nests.

To make our yarn balls, we needed nice bendable wire, wire cutters, a ball and bits of yarn.

We cut a long length of wire and wrapped it around the ball to get a round shape, twisting it around itself at the join.

Then we extracted the ball and used the dimensions we already had to make our yarn holder. 

When we were finished it looked like a wire pumpkin! We added a little hook for hanging.

Then we cut our yarn into different lengths for the birds.

Stuffed the yarn into our handmade yarn holder.

And hung it in the tree for the birds.

Oh, what pretty nests they'll have.

Be sure not to miss out on our Fairy Garden Series and Contest.

Blessings and magic,
Donni

Handmade Christmas Gifts - Paper Mache Nest.

Our granny loves birds nests. She has a collection of discarded nests that she has picked up on her walks. They are so pretty to look at and a wonder to see how intricately the husband birds have woven them together.

Her love of nests in mind, the kids and I have made her this nest for Christmas.

We made the shell of the nest from paper mache. Teddy enjoyed ripping an old newspaper into long strips.

We use an all natural flour and water recipe to make our paper mache.

* 1 part flour to 5 parts water.
* Mix the flour with about 1 TBS of hot water until if forms a smooth paste. Add boiling water.
* Boil for a few minutes
* Allow to cool

We used balloons as our molds. We blew up the balloons (had a little play with them) and then covered them in strips of the newspaper dipped in the flour paste.

Add layer after layer until the newspaper is thickly packed.

I love this flour paste as I can let my kids get wonderfully messy without fearing that they are also getting covered in nasty chemicals.

Set paper mache balloons in the sun to dry. When dry, use a box cutter to cut an oval opening into them... and, yay, pop the balloons.

We decided to cover our nest in a fragrant mixture of dried chamomile and lavender.

Cover the 'nests' in glue and roll them in the dried herbs.

Leave in the sun to dry.

Line the inside with dried moss... we use two different kinds.

Add a few wooden speckled eggs.

We think Granny will LOVE her Christmas gift! (but I must admit that it's sooooo sweet we can hardly give it away)

Merry Blessings and magic,
Donni

Make a Hummingbird Feeder.

We so love the hummingbirds. They are prolific in our area... visiting our garden often. They remind me of UFO's... they come 'whirrrrrrrrrring' in, hover, and then, faster than lightening, zip off into the air and away. They amuse me and make me smile.

Kitty want's them to stay. She gets frustrated with their fleeting visits. So, in an effort to tempt our hummingbird friends to stay a little longer than they do, we made humming bird feeders.

We needed:

* A pretty, vintage bottle (picked up at a garage sale)

* A Hummingbird stopper (from our local garden shop. You might also find these at pet stores or hardware stores)

* Thin wire

* Pliers

* My trusty old glue gun

This is what the hummingbird stopper looks like.

We used our pliers to cut off a small bit of wire. I used the fine on the pliers to file the ends a little so that they were no longer sharp. We twisted it loosely around the top of the bottle.

We cut a longer length of wire that would fit around the bottle. We molded it to the shape of the bottle and threaded it through the loose top loop of wire.

We cut it and tightened it. Then we cut and tightened the top loop around the top of the bottle to hold the other wire in place.

I used my glue gun to stick the wire in place at the base of the bottle. I used a spoon to stick the wire down... once the glue has cooled and stuck (takes only seconds) the spoon breaks away easily.

We filled our bottle with hummingbird nectar, one blue for Teddy and one pink for Kitty (you can make your own with 1/4 cups of sugar, 1 cup of water and just a little colorful food coloring).

We turned our hummingbird feeder upside down and attached a nice bright and colorful ribbon to it (to attract the hummingbirds) and waited.

We didn't have to wait long... with in the hour, there was a beautifully colorful hummingbird feasting from our feeder. Yay... what excitement.

Blessings and magic,

Donni

Lanterns, pressed sweet peas and little birdies.

For some reason, Little Miss K decided that she did not want to make a butterfly lantern with Mr T the other day... Oh NO! She had something much more daring in mind. She had pressed some of our sweet peas a while back and has been saving them for something REALLY special.

A Summer Lantern was just the thing. She carefully undid her flower press to

reveal her beautifully preserved blooms...

Wonderfully colorful petals and leaves and intricately twirled suckers.

She used some glue to stick them to her yellow, sun-colored lantern.

And then we used my hot glue gun to stick little birdies that we had bought from a craft store into place. She chose a hot pink ribbon to hang her lantern in her room. It is a 'day lantern' she says... it is to remind her that the sun gives us all life... oh, the sweet innocence of the 6 year-old mind!

I aslo wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have commented so sweetly on my new banner. Thank you! It is the result of a few lessons in Photoshop. It's fair to say that I have a new hobby... playing with photos. Oh... is there no end to fun things to learn?

Blessings and magic,

Donni

Darling Little Birdseed Cakes.

I have been wanting to make these sweet little birdseed cakes for ages.

YAY, I finally remembered to buy gelatine at the supermarket... it has been on my shopping list for months but, alas, it was one of those things I just could NOT remember. At last, as I was looking through the spice isle for Cream of Tatar (to make playdough), GELATINE! suddenly popped into my head.

We have made the peanut-butter-on-pine-cone-feeders many times before and so were very excited to try something different. K is not a peanut butter person and it has always worried her that perhaps some birds wouldn't like peanut butter either. Sweet child.

Here are the simple ingredients;

1 oz Gelatine

Birdseed

Boiling Water

Molds

Yarn or string (for hanging loops)

In a mixing bowl, add 1 oz Gelatine and 1 cup of boiling water and stir until all of the Gelatine has dissolved.

Then add birdseed. We used about 3 cups but this amount will depend on the kind of birdseed you use. You want the mixture to be pretty stiff.

Spoon the mixture into your molds.

Cut your yarn for the hanging loops, knot one end and stick the knot into each seed cake. Cover the knot with a little birdseed mixture to make sure it will set firmly.

Now, you have to wait for the Gelatine to set. This takes quite a while, so amuse yourself in the meantime by making yarn earrings...

You can leave the cakes at room temperature to set. We, however, wanted them to set as quickly as possible, so we put them in the fridge.

To get the sweet little cakes out of the mold, dip the mould quickly into hot water. They should slide right out.

Voila! Birdseed cakes for the birds.

We have hung ours all over our garden and have taken great delight in watching the birds twitter around them. Our birds are VERY happy with their new treats!

Blessings and magic,

Donni

From Nest to Fledgling.

Have you entered our Mother's Day Giveaway with Periwinkle Sky? If you haven't, pop over to this post for your chance to win her beautifully illustrated book, 'My Mother Gave Me the Moon." In honor of Mother's Day, I am delighted to share the story of our resident House Finches with you...

Our little front porch has been a hive of activity. At first we noticed a little House Finch couple building a nest on the inside of the porch pillar. We watched in delight as Mr Finch brought stick and grass and intertwined them into a wonderfully sturdy nest. Then he lined it with fluff, some of which, we are sure, came from our 'Wool Tree'. Yay... the excitement! All the while, Mrs Finch twittered and flapped nearby. She helped now and then and at last her nest was ready.

Then we noticed her sitting in the nest. She sat for hours, days, and we assumed she had laid her eggs. We waited.

It was when Mr Finch started to make a terrible racket whenever we used our front door that we realized his eggs had hatched. We obliged him by using our side door instead. We watched as the new parents worked tirelessly to feed their chicks...

It was an exciting day when we saw the scrawny little chicks for the first time. At first they were silent when their parents brought them food, stretching out their long necks and opening their mouths wide. But soon they became noisy little things, the presence of their mom or dad sending them into a frenzy of pleading for the treat they were bringing.

We counted that there were 4 chicks. We watched them hustle and scramble for pole position in the nest. We watched them grow. We watched their feathers appear.

Every day, they seemed to double in size.
We noticed how cramped their nest became. We watched as, encouraged by Mr and Mrs Finch, they started to balance on the edge of the nest and flap their wings. They practiced for days... never quite brave enough to take flight.
They became little birds before our eyes.
And then today, as we watched, the first little chick teetered nervously, flapped his wings and, lo and behold, he became a fledgeling. He flew! Just a few yards into the Bower Vine, but he did it. Soon he was followed by his sister. The other two tried but just weren't brave enough... they stayed safe and sound in the home they have known for 11 days. Perhaps they will fly tomorrow? Perhaps the next day.

I watch Mr and Mrs Finch with a mixture of excitement and sadness. They have worked tirelessly to ready their babies to leave them. And I realize that this is the job of the parent.

Blessings and magic.