CHRISTMAS SNOW BIRD

I have a thing for birds.  I can sit on my deck and watch the birds all day long.  I thank my mother-in-law Virginia for this obsession because she knows them all by name and she bought me my first bird feeder and a field guide to birds.  I made this little Christmas Bird frame to sit on a shelf in my kitchen.

When my friend Judy was here, she found these adhesive canvas squares at Hobby Lobby.  I had never noticed them before. 

 You can see that you get 4 of them for $1.99.  How does she find these things?  We each snagged a package of them, without a plan.  Then, in the aisle of all things wooden, I found this little frame.

 Yep...$1.59 AND....those little canvas squares Judy found fit into them perfectly.  Meant to be!  Suddenly, I had a plan.
I painted half of  my canvas a sky blue and left the bottom of it white.  I brushed some craft glue onto the white part and sprinkled some glitter.  Yes, glitter.....are you paying attention Mel from Mellywood's Mansion?...I used glitter!  (She knows I'm not a glitter girl, but she uses it fabulously!)  Now it looked like sky and snow.

I had a little metal bird I wanted to put on the picture, but I didn't want to fix it on there permanently.  You know I like to repurpose stuff and that bird was so cute, I was sure I might need him again.  So, I marked were I wanted him to be on the frame and drilled two holes through it so I could wire him on. 

Then I spray painted the frame and the bird silver.

Now all I had to do was peel the backing off of that little canvas square and stick it into the frame.  Too easy!  I drilled my holes right through the canvas....twice...because I miscalculated where I wanted my bird to be.  Duh.  I also decided to drill some holes in the 4 corner areas to string some ribbon through.  I thought a red ribbon might look nice to outline the frame a little and break up some of the silver.

 I couldn't just wire the bird on because that would be ugly. I thought maybe a wreath around the bird would be cute.  I grabbed a few supplies from my craft room and went to work.

I tied a piece of ribbon around a little gem I had in my jewelry findings and then ran a piece of green pipe-cleaner through the jump ring on the gem.  Then I put the pipe-cleaner through the pre-drilled holes.

I slid my bird in that loop and then fastened it from the back by just twisting it.  Now I can take it off if I want that bird for another project later.
I added a few jewels and then made a pipe-cleaner branch for the hanger.  I just ran it through the two top holes and twisted on the back, glued on a few red beads for berries and called it done!  Now I have this cute little winter bird to add to my hand made Christmas decor.  Do you like it?  

Since I had everything except the frame and that cool little canvas, this project came in under $4.  Gotta love that!  Merry Christmas....

tweet....tweet....so sweet! 

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