Birdhouse Fun

I thought I would share some of my recent crafting projects and ideas. The ones that came to mind today are some birdhouses I painted with my daughter.

Now what you might not know about me is that I am an artist. I have been painting and drawing for years. When I finish a project I want it to look appealing.

My daughter on the other hand is not. At least not yet. She prefers a more haphazard design when painting and generally no matter what medium she uses it amounts to scribble. At her age I was already drawing fairly decent people and making my own paper dolls and dresses. I find it very frustrating to let her do anything artsy without micro-managing the whole process. However she has no fun if I do that and it winds up being my project. So, I decided from now on to I keep my hands off her projects. She needs to be free and learn to create and express herself through her own art, whatever that may look like. All I can do is make my own the way I like it and hope she picks up some more refined taste and technique when she gets older. If she is happy and having fun that's good enough for me!

I gave my daughter and my nephew some small birdhouses, paintbrushes, and paint (all from the dollar store) and let them have at it.

Then I proceeded to paint the slightly more expensive birdhouses from a local craft store. First I spray painted them with a white base. Then I picked out some fun summery colors for accents.

Basically all you do is paint swirls, squiggles, stripes and dots. Keep alternating colors to make it pop!

Mine probably cost about $6.00 to make and the kids about $1.50 each.

Now if you're like me then a scribbly color splashed birdhouse doesn't seem like the most attractive decor. However the kids had put lots of love and memories into those sweet little birdhouses and they deserved to be on display. They made them especially for me. After trying to find the perfect spot for them I discovered 3 of them fit in a row in the window panel beside my front door. Perfect! They look so cute!

My birdhouses while prettier and more precisely painted, were filled with much less love and were a bit stuffier than the children's. I did loosen up a little from their influence and left the brush strokes a little rough giving them a  more distressed weathered look. Then I tucked them around the potted plants on my porch.

This is my favortie one:

It reminds me of raspberry lemonade!