I apologize for the underlining, I have no idea how I made it do that or how to un-do it! Anyone experienced with Blogger who can tell me how to fix this?
I picked up this little truck birdhouse from Michael's for my son. I had him pick out the papers and he decided on these beachy papers from Creative Imaginations. Probably not what I would have done with a truck, but he seems to like it! I thought the little "mobile home" effect was rather cute though! 
Remember the frame I made a while back using the daisy paper from Imaginesence? I came across the scraps from that paper and realized I had enough to do up a little birdhouse to match.
The small design really worked well with my tiny birdhouses! The reverse side made a perfect roof as well. I went a little nuts again with the Scribbles, dotting everything in sight. I also pulled out some chipboard flowers from American Crafts (dotted with Scribbles, lol) and some Rhinestone elements from Heidi Swapp I got in the card kit from Memories from the Attic (I won this from a drawing on Scrapscene!).
Totally simple and totally makes me smile!
Well, today was the last day of 1st grade for my son, Michael! He's been ready for his 6-week summer break for about a month now, lol!
I had originally planned on making another frame for Michael's teacher, similar to the one I made for his kindergarten teacher last year (here), but Michael insisted that I do a birdhouse for her instead (I've got him addicted too, lol!). Since his school loops their teachers two years in a row, I can always make her a frame next year.
So I asked him what her favorite color was - of course he didn't know, but he did say she wore red a lot. Sooo, I picked out a couple of coordinating papers from My Mind's Eye's Tres Jolie line that featured a pretty shade of red. The manila paint from Making Memories happened to go nicely, so I used that for my base. I wanted to keep it fairly simple, so the only decoration I used was the Prima flowers, with dimensional paint from PSX for the centers. I just kept looking at those x's and decided some understated bling was in order, so used a clear glitter pen from Sakura for the centers there. Just the right amount of sparkle!
On a funny note...the Beacon's 3-in-1 glue I use has a tendency to occasionally bubble. Usually it's easily noticeable and quick to just pop with a needle tool or my fingernail. However when i attached the birds to this one, apparently I didn't notice a bubble. It wasn't until I went to photograph it zoomed in that I saw the hardened bubble...yup, right under the top bird's rump! It was comical, but I decided my son's poor teacher didn't need to see the birdie doing it's thing, lol! So there's a little excess clear glue under there, but at least it's no longer a big obvious (how did I not see it??) bubble anymore!
This was the third custom birdhouse I created for a friend to give as a Mother's Day gift. She had asked for a Southwest theme, which I immediately pictured in my head, but could not for the life of me find ANYTHING that would bring my picture to life. Seriously - cowboy is everywhere, but nothing in those gorgeous Aztec-type designs I was thinking of. So instead, I googled southwest houses and after looking through tons of beautiful stucco houses, revised my vision and took a new path for this birdhouse.
I started with some old My Mind's Eye paper that had a stucco-like look. I pulled the brick red color for the roof from another common theme I'd seen in my "house hunting" (man, did I ever want to move, lol!). I did attempt the wavy roof, but didn't like the way it came out so stuck with a flat roof and went another direction.
I found this leather trim in my stash and started trimming out the rooflines and bottom of the birdhouse. Gotta admit - I really loved this look! Then on to decorating.
I knew I wanted cactus. However, like the southwest designs, cactus just isn't "big" right now...at least not in Central Illinois! I found a couple of EK's Jolee's that had some cactus included, but they looked completely cheesy. Not what I wanted at all! It suddenly hit me that I could repeat something I'd done years ago. A little unorthodox, but those cactus are REAL! Years ago, I helped decorate a dollhouse for a guy I was dating's little sister. We used real cactus and they survived forever - even in the hands of a 5 year old! If you look at some of the small cactus plants you find in grocery stores, Walmart, etc. (I got these at Lowe's), they grow by "budding". I took these tiny wooden flower pots (painted and sealed for waterproofing) and added just a tiny bit of dirt, then a tiny bud off of one of my cacti (which I bought to discourage my cat to avoid chewing on my plants...seems to be a lesson he's learning!). One of the full size plants had these lovely yellow blooms (look carefully - most of those "blooming" cacti actually have their blooms glued on!!!). So I recreated the look with tiny yellow Prima's folded and scrunched and then glued on. I sent along instructions that they'd need just a drop or two of water every 10 days or so. I used a Bazzill coaster as a base for this one as I didn't trust having the pots just glued from the sides so they're glued to the base instead.
It's a totally different look than my original vision, but I was still pleased with how it came out - my interpretation of southwest architecture!
This was another one of the birdhouses I was commissioned to make for a friend to give as a Mother's Day gift. I have to admit, this is my new alltime favorite one I've made! I love how the colors came together and the little basket and hat were so fun to play with!
The paper is from Daisy D's. Flowers from Prima. Mini buttons are mixed from Making Memories and Dress It Up. The paint is also Making Memories. The basket and hat are from Darice. I also used Glossy Accents to seal the wire "stems" into the basket.
This birdhouse was one that I was commissioned to make for a friend to give as a Mother's Day
gift (there were three of them altogether - I'll share the other two this week). The paper is from Bo Bunny and is Stickled and Scribbled everywhere! Lots of Prima's and even THOSE have centers of Scribbles covered with Stickles, lol! The closeups (click on each picture to get a larger view) show the bling a bit better, but still not the full sparkly effect of this little birdhouse. I think the most fun was adding the little pot of flowers! It's a tiny regular clay pot that I filled with some of my son's glittery Moon Sand then stuck in picks covered with more Prima flowers and then I "set" the whole thing by adding Glossy Accents over the Moon Sand, sealing everything in. Then I used E6000 to glue the whole assembly to the house itself.
I am so in love with Basic Grey's new Archaic line! To be honest, when I first saw the previews online, I just wasn't feeling it. It wasn't until I saw it in person that I found myself wanting every single piece, lol!
My first birdhouse without a resident birdie, but I decided the the little dinosaurs I cut from one of the papers (were just too cute not to use instead. All I used were a few pieces of paper (with lots of scraps left over) and a couple of pieces of the border stickers from the sticker sheet (the overhangs in front and back). This paper was so fun and it was quite enough all by itself. The palm trees are also cut from the piece of paper the dino's came from. My son begged and begged for this one, so it's happily sitting in his room....but I think I need to make another one for MY collection!
I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend!
I've been dying to find a way to make Marah Johnson's papers work for a birdhouse but the designs are so large compared to these tiny birdhouses I didn't think I could. On Saturday I went over for a crop at Blessed 2 Scrapbook in Champaign and in looking at the corners of one of the papers, found enough design in a small area to give it a try and I'm so glad that I did! I took the paper I needed from the corners and laid them out exactly to keep the design from the corners centered at the peaks in the front and back - LOVE the result! She has so many gorgeous papers I'd love to take a shrink ray to so that the design won't be lost in a birdhouse this small and I'm so happy I found ONE to work, at least! I edged everything with black Stickles because I ended up having a few issues with trying too hard to capture the design that I figured out too late that this particular birdhouse was terribly uneven - to keep the designs where I wanted them I had to sacrifice perfect fit and the Stickles cover this nicely. Of course, I had to also cover it in Prima's! I realized I'm out of little birdies so this house is still uninhabited for the moment. As usual, for a much closer look, simply click on the picture for the gigantic version! 
On another note, I got a new toy this weekend! I finally broke down and bought a video camera! I would LOVE to do a few video tutorials so let me know what you'd like to SEE rather than just read my long-winded explanations of, lol! And then be patient...I have NO idea how to edit the video yet. More software to learn - just what I needed!
I was recently asked "why birdhouses?". I know to some it may seem counterproductive to be churning out these little dust collectors and (gasp) wasting my precious scrapbooking time and products on them when I could be actually scrapbooking instead. To be perfectly honest, for the past few years since my separation and divorce, scrapbooking has just been HARD for me. Every time I pick up a pen to start journaling, I get caught up in these complex thought circles that have nothing to do with the task at hand. Older pictures I find myself wondering if I should be journaling how I felt THEN or how I feel NOW. Newer pictures I wonder if the absence should be noted. It just feels surreal after years of scrapbooking on my old dining room table in my old house etc. But I realized, that for me, the creative process was just as important to me as trying to preserve the memories. I also realized that just like creating a layout, creating an altered item brings out my own feelings and personality. Each piece means something to me and can evoke memories and feelings. The papers were picked with a thought in mind and even when I start a project just wanting to use a certain paper, I've found that it's because that paper brings out some inner piece of ME. Something I want to say, even if I'm the only one who can hear it. Ok. And so I just love to play with paper too! :)
Philosophical hijack over, on to today's project! This winter has just seemed to last forever so here's another one that's just about brightness and flowers and chasing away those winter blues! Patterned papers by Stemma (floral) and Making Memories (roof). Brads by Making Memories - all the tabs were removed and they were simply glued on. The paint is two shades by Making Memories mixed together.
Wishing you all sunshine and flowers today!!
Ok, the winner of the custom birdhouse has gotten it in the mail, so I can post the pics now! She had asked for graphic Doodlebug or black and white...I managed to find a nice black and white graphic Doodlebug paper to base it on! This one is actually the second one I made - the original met with the small curious hands of my son before it was dry. While there are some mishaps that can be fixed, this wasn't the case here, lol, and I'll have to sand down several sections back to the wood to fix it. It was easier to start over! Again, this was a busy paper that did so much by itself that I didn't want to do anything that might overpower it. So I added some glitter in the form of Sakura's clear glitter pen, some black Stickles to the rooflines, and some flowers from Sandylion. I did the stems for the flowers with a white Souffle pen from Sakura. A note about the glitter pens and Mod Podge. Mod Podge immediately spreads the glitter if applied before the Mod Podge! Soooo, there are sparkles that weren't actually meant to be there, but I rather liked the effect anyways. I went back over the lines where I WANTED the glitter after the Mod Podge had dried - these glitter pens stick to it really nicely!
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