Found Objects at Gingersnap Creations

The new challenge today over at Gingersnap Creations is to use found objects in your project, to go along with this month's theme of the Good Earth.  I had so much fun with this, as it was my first time making a fairy jar (actually, I think of it as a Bird Fairy Jar).  As most of you know, this is not an original idea - lots of crafters out there have been making variations on this theme, but it was new to me and oh-so-much-fun.  My son had discovered two egg shells that were in pretty good shape last spring, as well as a nest that had been blown out of a tree during a windy day last fall.  I've kept them, not really knowing what to do with them.  Enter the Found Objects challenge.....

I started out with a spaghetti jar, and layered the bottom with strips of the blue pages from an old phone book, cut up with pinking shears.  Next I stuffed in some flowers from a big box bloom and some torn strips of vintage sheet music I had used in another project.



Then came my little nest and the egg shells (probably not from the same species of bird, but seriously, no one will ever know... ssshhhh)..



I stamped the image of the two girls from Artistic Outpost's Birds of a Feather collection, colored them with Copics, then glued on some maple tree seed pods as their wings.  I used a bamboo skewer to stand them up on the edge of the nest.

A few more little details: the green "Handcrafted in Small Batches" sentiment is actually from the spaghetti sauce label. The butterflies are clear stickers from GCD Studios Melody Ross Artsy Urban collection. (Sorry for the glare in these pictures.. even my new bounce flash was giving me fits.  Operator error....)

Also from the same Melody Ross collection is the large bird sticker, which I put on the back of the jar.  I thought it would look neat, the "mama bird" guarding the nest as the fairies visited, plus add visual interest to the less interesting side!  Going around the entire bottom of the jar is an ancient PSX sticker with fairy quotes... a little hard to see, but I wanted it to be subtle.

For now I've just put some twine around the top to hang it in a window, but I think eventually I will paint the lid of the jar and close it up so that it doesn't get too dusty.

You can check out the rest of the design team's Found Object projects over at the Gingersnap Creations blog.  Lots of different, varied creations, and they're all beautiful and inspiring. :)  I hope you'll play along with us on this one.... see what creative things you can do with stuff you might normally pass by.

An interesting side note.... I noticed that my little birdie nest-builder did the same thing... she used found objects to build her nest.  In this case, it was a piece of green plastic netting that my landscaper used to try to keep new grass seed from washing away.  It really hit home to me how much everything we discard, even unintentionally or unknowingly, affects the nature around us.  Something to think about. :)