I have finally got around to dressing my Spring/Summer mantel.  I meant to do this the day after I took down my St. Patrick’s Day mantel.  Fate however, had other plans for me.  First we had out-of-town guests stay with us.  Next, we all had a bout with the stomach flu. And then I got a nasty kidney infection.  So finally after a month, I think (fingers crossed) I can get back to business-as-usual.

This year I recycled a few items, including this bird and DIY piece of art from last year’s Summer mantel.

I made the mossy “S”.  I just cut a sheet of moss to fit my purchased S. The rest of this side was borrowed from other displays I have around the house.

Next, I want to tackle the front porch.  It needs some Summer-izing!  I have not decided on a fun Summer theme yet though.  There are so many possibilities.  I need to narrow it down and get goin’!  Happy Weekend everyone!

I spent the day switching my St Patrick’s Day decorations for some Spring/Easter decorations.

 I have enough decorations now that I didn’t have to make or buy anything this year, which helps because I want to finish up the boys’ bedroom this week and next week we will have relatives visiting from out-of-town.  After that the kids have Spring break and I want to spend the week doing fun things with them, not working on stuff they don’t find very interesting .

I am linking this post up with Layla at The Lettered Cottage.

I have been feeling downright jubilant the last couple of days.  It has been warm and sunny.  The time change was very welcome, I love to have some daylight left after dinner.  And today while doing some yard work, I found these.

 Now I feel confident I can break out the flip-flops, ’cause Spring has sprung!

     I just wanted to share some of the Spring projects I have been working on.  Above is a sign I made.  I had all of the supplies on hand to make this, except the plywood.  I picked it up at Home Depot for about $5.50.    I found a really great website with free vintage holiday clip art Vintage Holiday Crafts for the images of the Easter Bunny.  I played with them a little on Photo shop and then printed them off on my printer.  The writing is from stencils that I have had since my kids started school.  The pretty paper is from a discontinued wallpaper book I got from Wallpaper Warehouse.  I just played around with the layout until I was happy and then decoupaged away.  I finished everything off with a couple of coats of polyurethane.  I used a eye hooks and twine to hang the sign up. 

     It was love at first sight with the cute, little, bluebird.  I got it at Thai Pan Trading but haven’t been able to find a spot for her to nest.  I think this will do until fall and then maybe can find a perch in my laundry room.  I made the nests above in about an hour (not including drying time) and for around $5.00.  The two little ones are just paper bags rolled down and spray painted brown.  The bigger one is made from twine.  To make the twine nest, I blew up a balloon and used it as a form.  I soaked my twine in a watered down glue mixture.  I just wrapped, and wrapped, and wrapped some more.  When the nest was the right size, I squirt more glue on and worked it into the twine.  This was an EXTREMEMLY messy project.  The kids didn’t even want in on this mess.  I was finally satisfied when the twine stopped poking up and stayed where I wanted it.  Then I just let it dry.  I tested the nest’s stiffness about four hours into the drying time.  I felt pretty floppy still.  I got out the spray starch and gave the nest a really good coating for good measure.  I let the twin nest dry overnight and in the morning when I tested, the nest felt perfect, so I popped the balloon.  The nest was almost perfect.  All it needed was a quick coat of brown spray paint.  Here is a close up of the twine nest.

     The little nests were loaded up with the plain plastic eggs from last year’s Easter Egg Hunt.  The eggs in the big nest were decoupaged with scrapbook paper.  The decoupage on the nest did not take only and hour.  It was pretty time consuming and not something I am planning to do again (small roundish objects are a PAIN).  Well, that’s it for now.  I plan on pulling my planters out of the shed and filling them with flowers soon, but that is going to have to wait until I’m sure it’s done snowing.