Making a Bird's Nest

Remember this post? My poor melting candles needed to be replaced with something able to withstand the hot morning sun. Jennifer suggested a bird's nest, and I set out to create something just right for my hanging lantern. (*Confession: I was hoping to find a pre-made nest for purchase, but had NO luck. This turned out to be a good thing, as I'm quite tickled with how this one turned out!)

To make a nest, you will need:

• A small grapevine wreath
• Moss
  
• Cardboard scrap the size of your wreath
• Eggs or stones to paint as eggs
• Paint (if you plan to paint stones to resemble eggs)

I had the paint, stones and cardboard on hand. The wreath and moss were both 1/2 price at Hobby Lobby. I NEVER pay full price for anything at Hobby Lobby. I just keep a list of things I need, and almost always find the items on sale sometime over the course of a month or two.

1. Cut your cardboard to the size of the wreath. Make sure there's enough overlap to hot-glue the cardboard to the wreath without having the cardboard extend beyond the wreath's edges.

2. Run a bead of hot glue around the edge of the cardboard. Be generous!

I had to apply pressure to the cardboard for quite a while to ensure the glue was doing it's job.

3. My stones were already a pretty color to resemble eggs. If you're using rocks and need to paint them light blue or green, do that before you begin the rest of the project. To attain the speckled egg look, I used watered-down paint and an old toothbrush.

Dip your brush in the paint, and use your thumb to flick the paint. Test the technique out a couple of times on some scrap paper first until you are pleased with your results.

Now transform your rocks into little speckled eggs!

4. I must have skipped taking pictures of how I applied the moss. I just used hot glue to apply the moss in a random way on the wreath/cardboard. I continued to layer the moss until I had the cardboard completely covered. I was sure to leave enough of the wreath visible, as it's what makes this look like a more genuine bird's nest.

5. Now nestle your eggs into the moss, and admire your work.

Here's my nest in it's new environment. I think it's the perfect solution to my melting candles conundrum.

I love the pops of blue and green added by the rocks and moss. I think it makes just enough of a statement in my hanging lantern.




I'm linking to these wonderful parties this week: