Yippie!!! It's Bling Your Birdhouse Day!!!!

Here's the little picture I've had on my blog for a while in anticipation of today for Bling Your Birdhouse sponsored by Karla and Beth so......the deal is to make a birdhouse then post photos of it on one's own blog (which, of course, I'm doing now), then I'll leave a comment on Karla's and Beth's blogs so that everyone can go on there and look at each other's birdhouses. Neat idea, huh?

So here's mine. Sometimes my art is like my story-telling, I can turn a small simple project (or story) into an endless, huge ordeal. And I can't just do what the instruction say, I didn't use a birdhouse, I used a picture frame with three openings so I could add a 3-D collage element to it. THEN I had to go even further by gluing the "birdhouse" to a landscape painting as a background and used a green silk hydrangea flower as a 3-D tree in the in between. The whole thing is just about 12" X 14"-huge.

Then I'm supposed to say what I love best about my birdhouse. So that would be (not necessarily in order) the parts of Hope Wallace Paper Relics cards in the side windows; the wonderful blue bird from Bayberry Cove; and the little nod to Carl Larson in the middle 3-D area...a piece from one of his prints plus a (very expensive) antique miniature mantle clock. I named it "Pia Wee's Birdhouse" because Pia is Pee Wee's wife and I thought this looked like something that Pee and Pia Wee Herman would have. It also makes me think it looks like a moble (mo-beel in Texas) home parked at a really nice KOA in the woods.

Okay, so just when you thought I couldn't possibly drone on any further, WRONG. I have to share that this project is most near and dear to my heart because birdhouses are the first art I started with that had lead me down this crazy artists/shop/shows the last 8 years. Soon after Matt (now 11) was born I bought my first unfinished birdhouse, painted and embellished it. When friends started seeing them they were asking to buy them then ordering them for gifts, etc., then eventually I opened my first little shop which stocked mostly with birdhouses. Above is the first birdhouse lamp I ever made; I made it on commission for a friend for her daughters' bedroom. They outgrew the look and so she gave it back to me recently and I just sold it on Etsy. I went on to make many lamps and even some standing birdhouse lamps. After I unwittingly purchased my first copy of Somerset Studio magazine I quickly moved to collage art and have been doing one form or another of collage ever since. I thought it was great and more than a little coincidental that this birdhouse share was so close to the lamp coming back into and quickly back out of my life. I had so much fun I made another birdhouse that I'll be putting in my shop tomorrow. Thank you so much, Karla and Beth, for putting all this together; for me it pushed me to spread my wings again (puns always intended). P.S. I found these photos of birdhouse lamps from long ago. Seriously, I've been digging for tax info all morning and came across these. The standing one is in what used to be our playroom when Matt was little (just turned 11) and is now (whew) our dining room. The other one was in my first shop, the date on the bottom of the photo says 6/01; my style has really changed over the years. Again, thanks Beth and Karla for the walk back through memory lane and for the re-jump-start back into birdhouses. I went to our local wallpaper store yesterday!