Three birdhouses

Following on from Tuesday's post with "action" shots of the creation of birdhouses by my family - here are the first three houses.  They are small - but just look at those details!

Little flowers, grass in the garden, picket fence, trees, friendly birds.....

Gosh - what more could a birdie ask for?

Doesn't it make you want to come and stay with us so that you can paint your own birdhouse too?  We will hang these up tomorrow in the garden and I'll photograph the others too to show you. Even though the birdies have finished their nesting for this year, I'm thinking they may want to fly by and check out where they are going to live next year!!! Which one would you choose?

Birdhouse Creations

Before my family leave, we had to have a creative day painting birdhouses.  As I've mentioned before on this blog, we ask anyone who stays with us to paint/decorate a birdhouse during their stay, which we then hang in the garden.  It is lovely to wander around the garden and remember all our family and friends - and the birdhouses all turn out so differently.

So we got going on the painting!  The birdhouses were all different shapes from cars, planes, castles to more traditional houses.  But I'm afraid I let the side down a little as I couldn't find the red paint.  Turned out that EVERYONE wanted red paint!!!!!  - just because I didn't have it!

But when you are creating, you have to be able to stretch and go wtih the flow - so pinks and greens were selected instead of red (I have about 5 shades of green paint!!!).

Matthew and Peter even found time between swimming to paint theirs!

Phew - hard work by the looks of it - need a good cup of tea afterwards!!

I'll show you the finished pieces when they are dry.

Birdhouses

As I've mentioned in previous posts, when people come to stay with us, we ask them to paint a little bird house for us which we then hang in the garden. They don't last forever, and if one disintegrates, it is repaired twice but then........ This way, repeat visitors get to paint another one when they return!

Yesterday saw John hanging our three new 2009 birdhouses - two were repeat artists and the third was their first birdhouse! It's lovely to wander around the garden and remember all our visitors by their birdhouses. Everyone has their own individual style too, which comes through so clearly.

This one was painted by my mum:

and hangs in the jasmine on our arbor. She wanted brown paint for the roof and asked why I didn't have any. I reminded her that I hate brown and therefore don't want brown birdhouses and so don't supply brown paint!!!!

This one was my dad's and hangs in an oak tree:

The the third was painted by my cousin Caroline (and also attributed to Jamie although I don't think he held a brush - but I'm sure he was very encouraging!!!). This one is hanging in the lovely red maple tree:
Don't they look great! Wonder how many more we will get this year from visitors...... You can see how I get inspired to create birdhouse jewelry!!!