I started just painting store-bought birdhouses, but then I started having so many creative ideas about materials and embellishments so I had to start building my own. I am loving finding so many materials I can use to embellish and personalize my birdhouses.

I had some wonderful neighbors who moved away this summer. They had been here for a long time and they were actually sad to leave. I wanted to do something for them, but with COVID I couldn’t do any kind of gathering so I tried to think of a meaningful gift. She admires the birdhouses I make so I thought I’d make her a birdhouse. As I started to design their birdhouse, I realized that they are sad to leave because we are such a close knit neighborhood. So I couldn’t make just one house, it had to be several houses.

We had a number of garage sales this summer and the signs looked just like this arrow sign. So it was a great personal touch.

I got some stone for some landscaping this summer and I often find a few little pieces and chips. I look at everything with a question about reuse. I quickly thought of some ideas for even the tiniest pieces. I used a couple of tile pieces for the roof. That was fun.

Adding some animals is fun. We watched an owl up in a tree last summer as it watched my little dogs. It was a memorable moment, hence the addition of an owl.

I love reusing random objects for creative uses. The post on this house (for a bird to sit on) is actually made from an old earring, believe it or not.

I started doing a lot of dot paining this summer and it’s a perfect addition to my birdhouses.

Supplies:

New for this project or recent projects: moss, owl and bunny, wooden legs for the stone house

My stash: beads, 1/4″ plywood, paint, glass pebbles, wire for the street sign, dowels (for tops of roofs), earring for bird post on tan/violet house

Repurposed/scraps: tile for a roof, plastic for the Sale sign, stone, legs for the whole neighborhood are scraps of a branch

See My Stash to see the standard stuff I keep around almost all the time.