A little bling for the birds

by Izzy Winterhart

I am a lucky, lucky girl.

Not only do I have a dad-in-law who builds me jewelry cases,

but I have nephews who build me bird houses.

My two nephews were kind enough to build said bird houses because 

they were on my Christmas list this year.  

Uhm, er, last year.

(Still can't get used to 2012).

Anyway,

I've had these beauties sitting in the garage since Christmas because,

they needed one final touch.

The squirrels around here like to chew the holes bigger so they can

can move in and take over a bird house.

Once this happens, the birds won't use the house, even if the squirrels move out.

So the hole needed to be fortified.

I just needed to make a trip to the hardware store to figure

out exactly what metal I'd use to put around the hole.

One afternoon I was working on some jewelry and

since my workshop is in the garage I kept walking past these little houses

sitting there, waiting patiently to be finished and hung.

That's when a brilliant idea finally dawned on me.

(That's a rarity).

So I quickly ran over to my scrap bucket.

You know, the throw away bucket.

All those creations that, well, didn't quite work.

I dug down deep.

And to my surprise I had three large copper circles

that were a perfect fit for my holes.

I took them over to my disc cutter, added an additional hole

to make them a "doughnut", drilled a few holes for nails and voila,

bling for my bird houses.

I mean seriously, if you were a bird wouldn't you want to live here?

Do you have scraps?  Do you use them on something besides jewelry?

Oh, one final note.

Birds don't just use houses in the spring for their little ones.

They also use them in the winter to keep warm.

So if you want to be kind to our feathered friends,

add some bird houses to your back yard now

while it's super cold.

And, if you'd like, add a little bling.