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!:)

Pink Pearled Lovebird Heart

I've always loved the idea of lovebirds and I'm not sure why.

Yes, I'm a hopeless romantic....

We have an abundance of cooing doves here

and I have to admit I love hearing them throughout the day

chatting away.
With our third heart Candace and I wanted something different but still romantic

and the doves seemed to be calling out to us.....:)

 (insert cheese here...oh yea it already is here.)

Well really, my little girl had something to say about what color we chose

and it's no surprise....she's all about pink!

We painted this heart a nice brown burnt umber

which has a "stain" appearance when you water it down a bit.

(can you tell which pictures my crappy camera took and which one Candace's did?)

Paired with some pretty pink paper, little doves, some cute cherry blossom buds and pearl corsage pins

all that was missing were the love words. 

Sometimes it can be really hard to find the perfect paper when you have an idea stuck in your head.

We knew we wanted something light and vellum was the perfect fit.

We googled "famous love sayings" and up popped all sorts of fun quotes.

We combined them all on a word document, picked a light shade of tan and printed them off.

After trimming them into a smaller version of the heart we

glued them on with a glue stick along the edges.

Next we plucked the little blossoms off the branches and skewered

them with the corsage pins.

These blossoms were plastic and the pins held them perfectly in place.

It was so easy my daughter had a blast putting them together!

We just trimmed off the excess pin with some pliers and hot glued them in place,

out lining the edges of the vellum word heart.

We glued on the little love birds which got a quick highlight of that

Gorgeous German Glass Glitter from Meyer Imports,

glued on a bow to hang it from and there ya go!

We've been pretty busy this week working on our latest "knock off" project

and we're really excited to do the big reveal!

Now if we can just get spray paint to cooperate with this cold weather!

Stay tuned......

Love Birds

"Love Birds" are the latest creation for the seasonal ornament hanger.

I harassed Nicole enough to cut me out some lovely birds. These are decorated with puffy glitter stickers, rhinestones for eyes, and Dr. Pepper cans!

Nicole came up with a brilliant idea when she made her "Be Mine" letters last month.  She cut up her Dr. Pepper cans and made cute little hearts to decorate her letters.  It's the perfect "heart" color and adds a  different texture!  I guess when you drink enough Dr. Pepper and stare at the can long enough, you eventually become inspired to create something with it! :)

They look so cute on her letters! 

These are the plain little birds Nicole cut. Have I told you what an incredible "wood cutter" Nicole is? Her cuts are so precise! If I cut them I would be in the garage for hours, struggling to form a bird.

They are so pretty just in silver.

I picked up a few stickers at the craft store.

And these funny little hearts. I ripped the ribbons out and replaced them with wire.

I spliced open the Dr. Pepper can. It's really sharp, so if you try this...be careful!

I didn't waste a bit, because if you flip it over the silver works great too.

I traced the heart with a pencil and cut with sharp scissors.

Baby likes it too!