A Bird Sanctuary

On our small five acre property I have hung, built, and been given many different bird houses.  Now that it has been a few years, we have so many varieties of birds living on our property.  From, Regular little everyday birds to cardinals, turkey, mallards, wood ducks and blue birds.  Its so fun to watch them build their nests and see all their sticks and string hanging from the bird house holes.

Adding finishing touches to attach to a tree.

Hung about 7 feet above the ground near our pond.

One of the duck houses we built about 4 years ago.  No nesting inside but a male wood duck sits on top of it almost every morning.

One of the chicken wire duck nesters I made this spring.  No ducks yet, but it can take a couple seasons.

This is another duck house built 4 years ago and their is a wood duck hen that sits in there.  

Little momma wood duck, no eggs yet, but hoping to have some soon.

I have even made some not so normal bird houses.  This was an empty peanut butter container, I cut a whole, painted it gold and screwed the lid to a tree.  I put this up last year, and this year there is a nest in it!  

This is an old bird house I built years ago.  It is full of straw and sticks, but I've never seen anything nest in it.  It overlooks the pond in some trees.

A Christmas gift birdhouse, and some cute little blue birds house in it.

This is a regular nest outside of my laundry room window.  I was able to watch a mother cardinal raise her single baby.  The day I wanted to take a picture was the day her baby left the nest, so now it sits empty.  Hopefully she will nest in it again.

I am so happy to know that my property is comfortable and that the birds and wildlife feel safe enough to raise their families here.  I love to see them in the yard and in the woods.  I have had a couple turkeys nest on my land, unfortunately one was killed by a fox, but the other had a healthy family and we would see her walk out yard with all her babies.
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Coat Rack Straight From The Beach!

This project was done by Another Crafty woman named Sarah Sergent.  It looks so beautiful hanging in her home and besides her more expensive taste in coat hooks, this is a very affordable if not free project that can be done.

This could nearly be a free project.  This is a piece of driftwood from Lake Huron on the Tawas Bay.

This is Sarah picking up and carrying the large piece of driftwood from the beach near a shipwreck that occurred in the late 1800's

She chose to buy the coat hooks from Home Depot.  She paid $4.00 for each hook.  It looks beautiful.  (if you wanted to go cheaper or free, you could use large nails or screws just as well)  So her investment in this project is approximately $25.00


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The Gun Case Redo!

This is the finished product, with my Let A Girl Show You How To Hunt And Fish decal on it!

This is the before of the gun case.  It was an old nasty brown color.  I cleaned it very good with an all purpose cleaner and let it dry.  After it was Dry I sprayed it with a dark teal spray paint.  I sprayed it in many coats because I did not want to take the chance of running paint.  

I feel like it turned out really well.  It's loaded up with my "goods" and moving it around and opening and closing it has not caused any scratches or peeling.

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Husband and Wife deer skulls.

For this project we found two skulls while out shed hunting.  One was a doe and one was a buck skull that had already naturally shed its antlers, but still neat.  I soaked them in clean water and peroxide for a few hours to clean them up.  They were old and had been dead for a long time, they were already dried out.

To mount the heads I had some scrap wood in my barn so I stained it a drove a 2 inch screw through the backside, so the skull can hang on the protruding part of the screw.  The back of the skull of the deer has a deep hole where the brain would've been so the screw slides into it perfectly.

This is the buck one  up close.  I added some small metal decorative corners to the wood

Here is the finished product with a small latch on the back to be hung on the wall. They are neat conversation pieces, and they were found while out shed hunting with our children.

Shotgun Shell Mirror!

I made this large mirror into a shotgun shell framed mirror.  I found this mirror on the side of the road with someone's trash.  It was covered in soot like it had been smoke damaged in a fire.  I washed it clean, it has no smell, I put a fresh coat of varnish on it to seal it, and decided to hang on to it for a project.....well, the project has arose!

The mirror I used.

I only used shells with the gold bottoms, I hot glued them gold end to the inside,

This is the finished product hanging on the wall.  Turned out awesome!


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Bench

 My In-Laws gave me this bench that they had sitting in their garage for a couple years.  So I decided to fix it up and make it more useful.  So I used a satin paint and valspars antiquing glaze, finishing it with a clear coat Varnish.  The varnish was very old so it gives it a yellowish older tint.

        
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Hang a log from your ceiling.

This is a project my mom did.  She found this large white log washed up on the beach of northern michigan.  She brought it home, and had her husband hang it with white rope from the ceiling.

She drilled a small hole every few inches all the way through the log from bottom to top, she strung fishing line through the holes.  She used a fishing sinker (the round kind that you string the line through and pinch closed) to keep the string at the top of the log and ran the line down through the holes she drilled.  Now she has long strands of fishing line hanging down.  She proceeded to drill tiny tiny holes in seashells she had gotten from a vacation, and tied them randomly through out the hanging string.  

It turned out very nice.  It goes beautifully with the rest of her beach themed bedroom.

this is a pic of the other side of her room.  (I made the pallet shelf over her bed. there is also a how to do on this in this blog)


Thanks,
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