Birdfeeders

We have recently finished chopping down and digging out 3 large bushes in our back garden. We started the job back in May but found a bird’s nest with eggs in there so had to stop, since then we have been busy doing ‘stuff’ so hadn’t finished the job until week before last ‘s heat wave. Anyway my main regret at losing the bushes is the loss of bird life in our garden. We have one (or maybe many) family of sparrows that nest under our roof tiles and I used to see them flying around a lot.  In an effort to attract other birds back  we made recycled bird feeders to hang on the new fence.

These are made of an old water bottle with a lid, a stick, some tape and some old cable.

1.We cut 2 holes near the base of the bottle to poke the stick through. This provides the perch for the birds.

2. Just above the stick on each side of the feeder  we cut a flap (leave it attached to the bottle at the top).The plastic was then bent up so that the hole is protected from any rain. This is where the bird will get the seed from.

3. We then taped the stick into place to prevent any wobbling and wrapped cable around the bottle to make it attractive to birds.

4. The feeders were filled with seed- only as high as the flaps- the bottle top was put back on the top and the bottles were hung up.

As yet no birds have even looked at them, oh well. Still it amused the children (and the class teddy bear who came home on Monday night) for half an hour. Will keep you posted on the successfulness of these.

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What we did in the summer Part 2.

Ok, so we didn’t do any more rubbish crafting in the holidays but we did do some  other things. Here are two simple, fairly cheap but effective things we did manage to do.

The first one is a wedding present for some of our friends. They didn’t have a wedding list so my children painted a dinner service for them.  There were four non-matching place settings. The newly married couple said they liked it…. but maybe they were just being polite.

 

We also decorated some canvasses with acrylics and fabric paints. The canvasses were about £1 each and I had a box of acrylics that I had bought for £1.50. When the acrylics are watered down they mix really nicely on the canvas creating a quite impressionistic (is that the right word?) effect. We then used squeezy bottles of fabric paint (left over from daughter’s last birthday party) to draw over the top. Finished results are below- one of them is a spotty lion, I’m not sure about the other one.

 

I was amazed with how focussed my children were whilst doing these, they were much more interested in doing the painting /decorating part than in the finished product. Now I just have to hang up the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyday is Children’s Day.

It’s been a while since my last post. Not much rubbish crafting has gone on, and I now no longer have a toddler so maybe I need to start a new blog (or change the title of this one). But that is for another day, this is just an indulgent post about my children.

Last Fathers Day my daughter indignantly asked when Children’s Day was. I crossly answered ” Everyday is Children’s Day,”  a phrase that she has often repeated back to me- usually when I am trying to get her to tidy her room or some other task she doesn’t like.  To her a Children’s Day involves going somewhere special, or getting something new, something remarkable, different or exciting.  A day spent at home is never going to be considered a ‘Children’s Day’ by a six year old.

We spent all of today outside, the children scooted and cycled up and down the path while I cut the hedge. When they got bored with that  they got the litter-grabbing stick and dragged the recycling box up and down the path picking up the rubbish.  After lunch they dug in the newly made flower bed, emptied a bucket of stinky water on the path, helped me rebuild their den, performed circus tricks on the climbing frame using some blue rope, gathered up grass cuttings to make a nest for…. (I have no idea what for) and then finally decided being outside was boring.

 

After a quick snack we iced my son’s cake for his birthday day out tomorrow and then they disappeared upstairs for an hour. I found out later they emptied out my daughter’s toy box and pretended it was a bed. Apparently one was sleeping in it, the other on top of it (hmm best I didn’t know that until later).  After tea they tidied up and then had icecream (just a cone and a flake for my son) – oh and it was Kelly’s Clotted Cream icecream.  After bath they watched the end of Strictly Come Dancing and then off to bed. 

Yep, everyday is Children’s Day, not just the exciting and different ones, but the unremarkable ones as well. And they are the ones I like best.