Birds and Baths...

We have a ton of birds in our yard, and I love birds! I suspect they love the fruit trees that surround our back yard for several reasons. 

1 they are great nesting sites, 

2 fruit trees have bugs that love to eat fruit, 

3 some of them prefer the fruit to the bugs, 

4 they like to entertain us. 

We have humming birds, finches, sparrows, robins, starlings, and  morning doves, just to name the most common visitors. You know it is spring when you wake up to the sound of lots of birds chirping at 4 in the morning. I always try to accommodate my birdy friends. We used to put out food before we moved to this house. Now there is no need to put out the food. The only food I provide is for the hummers. However I love to treat the birds to a bath.  Yesterday when I was standing outside watching the birds. A starling landed on a storage tote with water on the lid. Before it even started bathing a robin came down and landed on the same tote and was waiting it's turn. Meanwhile a finch flew down and decided it wanted a turn as well. It was amazing to me to see that all though they were different types of birds they were all in need of a bath and they all waited politely for their turn. 

Well as you know bird baths can be fairly pricey, and bulky and heavy. Granted there is every kind of birdbath out there that you can imagine. (even an old storage tote with water on the lid)

Anyhow as I was blog hopping a few weeks ago I came across a very clever way to make a bird bath while recycling or reusing what you might be wanting to get rid of . Or you can do as I did and rescue a few items from your local thrift store. I have no Idea what blog I found it on, but I am so glad I did. I wish I could give credit for the idea to the person who blogged about it. 

Below is a tutorial for making your own bird bath. It is a super easy project. The hardest part is selecting what you want to use!

You will need at least:

 1 vase 

 1 plate or dish

 epoxy

 dowel or pvc pipe 

(Note: I only spent $6 dollars on my materials minus the epoxy.) 

First choose a plate or bowl or some sort of serving dish or platter.  Then get a vase. One of those  that are abundant in your basement or the thrift store or yard sales!

This is what I chose.

Wash and dry thoroughly.

Next you want to get out your epoxy or gorilla glue, basically use whatever you can rely on for a good strong bond. I used a 5 minute cure epoxy from our locally owned hobby shop. It is the greatest stuff I have ever used. I used up so much of my husbands supply that he got me my own! 

Mix equal amounts of epoxy and hardener. I tend to use a small drop more of the hardener. 

Mix together very well and spread onto the bottom of the vase.

Next position the bottom of the vase onto the bottom of your dish.  And leave it be for at least 5 minutes if you are using a 5 minute cure epoxy. 

These are some of the finished pieces. 

Now you want to get your dowel or PVC pipe to fit into your vase fairly snug, you don't want it tight or too loose. Too loose and it won't stand up straight, it will wobble and too tight you won't be able to take it off  if you needed to. 

Next position your dowel where you want it and put it in the ground so it is sturdy.

Slide on your vase and you now have a bird bath!

Fill it up with water and enjoy the peep show!

These are going to end up in my garden. But for now they are in the lawn so I don't have to work around them while I get my plants in the ground. 

This last picture was from up on my deck so they look smaller than they are. I used a generous sized dinner plate , 2 salad plates and a bowl. I loved the colors of lime and turquoise mixed with the chili pepper red and the egg plant. I think they are going to look gorgeous in my veggie garden this summer. 

I won!

Earth Day was April 22. I am so glad that people are finally starting to get a grip on taking care of the earth.  I am not a tree hugger or an activist. But I firmly believe that we need to "be good stewards" and take care of the planet God provided for us to live on.  I think it doesn't hurt any one to recycle and I am really glad we finally moved to a neighborhood that does have recycling.  I think it is a good thing to get people thinking about saving energy and reducing waste.

 Alright moving along.... I follow a lot of blogs and it is a really good thing that they don't all post something new everyday! I am very selective in the blogs that I do follow and I am loyal at that. Mostly they are crafty, or cooking related or they are friends and family. I think they are a breath of fresh air and they give me tons of inspiration. I am constantly amazed by the plethora of wonderful ideas that these ladies come up with. And I am thoroughly enjoying the Craft Quality time with my kids while crafting or cooking.

Back to Earth Day and how that ties in with this blog post. On April 22, the Cottage indutrialist blog that I follow had a blog hop post about Earth Day and Organic Cotton fabric give-aways.  This was a blog hop where you entered to win from 12 different designers' blogs. The give away was different depending on the designer, but the prizes were all organic cotton fabric.  

I entered to win from all 12 blogs, and would you believe it ? I WON!!! I won the give away from Harmony Arts. The prize was 4 yards of organic cotton fabric of my choice from her website.

 I just received my fabric last night and I am so thrilled and feel so incredibly blessed. These fabrics are even more beautiful that the pictures or the website convey. The colors are rich and the feel of the fabric is so awesome. I just can't wait to see what I am going to create with the beautiful fabrics. I do have a plan for some of it. It will be gifted to my mom for Mother's day. By the way she loved them!!! Other pieces will become a dress for my girl or a bandanna for when I ride the bike but ultimately I am hoping that I will have a scrap left for that.

 Harmony from Harmony Arts designed these fabrics and is such a generous person THANKS HARMONY! I love her fabrics and  how natural they look.  So you all need to go over to her site and peruse her designs. You won't be sorry you did.  www.harmonyart.com

April Photos of the Month

I almost forgot my April photos of the month post. 

Ok the first one is of Ashton. He broke his tooth on Resurrection Sunday while horse playing 

We took him to the dentist the next day and he had it fixed. It looks just fine! Now we are just careful not to let him bite into an apple. 

 This Photo is of the brand new babies our good friends Christa and Jesse just had. They are the sweetest things ever! Justin is ever so glad that we are not able to have any more kids ourselves because these too sweet things have made me sooooo baby hungry!

 These are our t- shirts for our church softball team. I love the color. It makes it so easy to see our team coming out to play. We have not been a very sports oriented family in the past but we are really enjoying being on this team. the fellowship is really great!

Hear is another one of my buddies! This is Vahn. He is such a cutie I can't help taking pictures of him when he is around and I have my camera out. This photo was not great due to the lighting. But I decided to experiment with the editing.  I like the results. His daddy is a professional photographer and he does phenomenal work. Mostly weddings and engagement shoots but he is now doing babies as well. I really don't want him to see this photo but it is one of my faves so it goes into the April photos of the month!

I like this one! It proves that I can weld and that I had a great time doing it. Ashton took this photo. 

This pic is after our first game and we lost horribly!!! But we were having a great time afterward. There are a few of us I could not fit in this photo and a few who did not come out with us.

I hope you enjoy these photos. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

You will never guess what I learned to do!!!

 Most of you know I have THE MOST AMAZING HUSBAND in the whole wide world! He is so amazing that when I asked him to teach me how to WELD, He did not laugh at me. He was happy to teach me and I must say he is a really good teacher. He is patient and very encouraging. So yesterday while we had not a lot to do and we were spending a really lazy laid back day together. He suggested we go out and weld. I was more than happy to join him in the garage for my first lesson. What were we going to weld you ask? My tomato cages. You might laugh, and ask why would we weld something that costs a whole 3 dollars at the nearest hardware store? I'll tell you why, They are junk and every year when we buy another set and put them in the ground they always break. I am just so sick of paying for junky products. So I decided that we would make our own and we will probably never need to buy any more.

I am happy with the way they turned out! one of them is a bit wonky but I think it will work just fine. 

I want to thank Sweet Charli

Hey everyone, I have been featured on sweetcharli.blogspot.com
They are featuring some really cool birthday parties over there. make sure you head over and check out some of the incredible birthday ideas! And make sure you vote for your favorite. I so wish i knew how to put together a picture collage and send it. Because I would have!  Like I said they have some absolutely adorable parties. you can only vote once. so make it count. By the way we are number 16. But don't let that stop you from voting for the one you love the most!

Stouffer's House Party

A while ago I came across a blog that made mention of houseparty.com and I just had to check it out.  To my delight I found that this site was super cool! Basically different companies host parties through houseparty.com to promote their products. All you have to do is fill out a profile form and then apply for the house parties you would be interested in hosting. Within a few days of applying for a Stouffer's Toasted Sub Celebration Party, I was accepted.

 Now here is the cool part. They send all of the products to you in what is a called a party pack. The contents of your party pack vary from company to company. In my party pack I received  15 coupons for the toasted sub sandwiches. The coupons were for free sandwiches so I did not have to pay for them.  Also in my pack were 15 red plates, 15 Stouffer's napkins, 1 red pot holder that matched everything, 15 coupons for my guests for $1 off, and 15 tote bags for my guests. The tote bags were a big surprise to me. I really thought that they would have the Stouffer's name on the front, They didn't!  I really liked that. Some people don't feel comfortable carrying a bag with a brand name emblazoned on the front. This bag just had a small tag on the side that says Stouffer's. 

On the houseparty.com website they provide you with tools to send out custom invitations. whether you print them from the site or send them via email. It made it really easy to plan for my guests. They also have a guest manager. Your guests can either rsvp through the site or you can mark their response yourself. Easy, Peasy!  The only thing I would have done differently was to put on my invitation that this was just a time for the girls to get together and hang out, I had few people concerned that I was going to try to sell them something or try to get them to sign up to host some kind of party.  I should have been more specific!  

I hosted my first house party This last Sunday night while the guys were at bible study. I did send a few of the sandwiches with my hubby to share with the guys. 

Instead of making up the subs like a sandwich we both decided to bake them and leave them open faced. Then I cut each one in half so that every one could try all 4 varieties and have enough. I served a simple green salad, chips, mini candy bars and a cake. Along with some hummus and pretzels. I also encouraged my guests to bring a side dish or snack to share. They brought chips of all kinds, Strawberries, and a pasta salad. we had a wonderful spread. I used the boxes from the sandwiches to label the subs so my guests would know which variety they were trying. 

I also used my beverage jar which I absolutely adore! It has been used more times than I can count. every year costco has a different variation or design. I want to collect them all but they are a bit bulky and I would not be able to store them in my home. but then again maybe I could get my hubby to build me a shelf in the shed just for beverage jars. Ah but I digress!

I included a personal party favor for my guests as well as a pen for their purse.

We had a great time catching up and enjoying each other's company. And Eating! I think everybody had a different favorite sub. Mine was the Philly steak and cheese, my hubby liked the zesty Italian with the pepperoni and yellow peppers. 

I can't wait for my next houseparty!  

I have quite a few applications in the works right now. This morning I got notification that I was not chosen to host the red Baron Moms night out party. It's all good! I will just wait until I get to host my next party. Keep an eye out...