Creating a Bird Haven at Home

If you are a bird lover, chances are good that your personality is drawn toward bright colors, cheerful flowers, and a wide range of garden and landscape styles. I am the kind of bird lover who is always looking out her windows, at home and in the car, scanning for the flicker of colorful birds! I plant a lot of yellow in my flowerbeds, and I love the counterpoint of purples like hydrangea or climbing clematis. Have you taken the time to create a bird-friendly backyard?

Here are three tips I have found useful for making sure more birds visit my home! In my way of thinking, a landscape filled with beauty is not complete without a bird haven. Do you agree?

Two Major Bird Concerns The two biggest concerns for birds are finding food and being safe. I offer lots of vegetation like trees, shrubs, flowerbeds and vines, and this gives birds choices for safe landing spots. The foods that are most popular in my yard are insects, berries, and fruit. Seeds like no-mess blends are always offered, too, but alone, they are not ideal for attracting birds. 

Watch and Learn My large dining room window is my favorite perch for bird watching, and from there I realized that the neighborhood cat who is left to roam at will has been ruining my bird haven efforts! A friendly call to my neighbor has helped with that issue. The cover of sheltering tree limbs and ornamental grasses has helped birds feel safe in my yard. We often see hawks gliding in the thermals above our home, and a sheltering landscape helps small backyard birds rest easy about predators in the air.  

Stop Tidying Up By nature, I like to put things back into place at the end of each day. I'm a bit of a neat-freak. In my bird-friendly yard, a natural, more wild approach brings better results! Trimming back hedges and flowerbeds every week removes some of the insect-rich oasis for birds. It is good for me to be more casual in my yard work, as it lets me just relax in the lush, colorful space.

I would love to hear about your bird-friendly spaces!

Thanks for stopping by,
Georgianne

P.S. If you would like to see my latest colorful, handmade bird pillows, here is a quick link. Birds look great inside the home, too!

Studio Scene

Please join me as I say "I cannot believe that it's July!"

Hasn't the month of June just flown by? Work in my Nestle and Soar Studio has been keeping me busy, and I guess that is one of the reasons why the past 30 days is a fog. I think we should all remember that it is summer time and for most of us, that means fun times outside (at least some of the time). I simply should not spend so many hours this time of year standing inside my studio.

I have ventured outside a bit though, and gardening is a great way to do that! I am using the veining in the leaves I've been studying to practice continuous-line machine quilting. I recommend that you look into the machine quilting classes and books offered by Heather Thomas of Wild Heather Designs, who teaches nationally and writes books that are extremely helpful to contemporary quilters. I took her popular class, Doodle & Dance, with some great girlfriends at the Golden Fiber Arts Studio, and with her inspiration, continue working on the continuous-line machine quilting she taught that day.

It is almost time for me to place another large wool roving and Paternayan order for the studio. I love selecting the colors and imagining the softness of the fibers. One of my favorite roving suppliers is right here in Colorado, and I know that she has been in the thick of things with the wild fires near Colorado Springs. Grace of  Larkspur Funny Farm and Fiber Art Studio has needed to be prepared to evacuate for the past week. She lovingly runs a farm of animals that supply her with the wool to dye and sell luscious fibers for artists like myself. I highly recommend her and hope you will have a chance to check out her Etsy shop. Once things calm down, and they will for Grace and all the fine folks near the burn areas of Colorado, she will have fascinating tales to tell on her lovely blog. Hang in there Grace!

I do hope that everyone has a wonderful month of July. Let's all take the time to notice the beauty that is everywhere around us! Thank you for stopping by my studio,
Georgianne

Tuesday at the Botanic Gardens

Botanists tend to the water lilies.

I have begun a new ritual here at Nestle and Soar Studio...Tuesday morning is now my inspirational time at Denver's Botanic Gardens. Being one of the first people through the door at 9am is a true joy for me. The temperature is cool, the birds are singing up a storm, and the light for photography is ideal.

The photo I took this Tuesday is of the water lilies being tended to by 3 botanists, each with a plastic tub tied to their leg! As they walked around in their tall waders, the tub of debris would follow them around. They each carefully lifted a flower up off the surface of the pond and clipped or fluffed the foliage, and they moved methodically from plant to plant, so no flower was missed.

They were in the pond for the whole 3 hours I was at the Botanic Gardens and it was a lot of fun watching them work. I'll bet their skin is most from the humidity after a warm day working in the pond!

I hope to share a photo and my experience of the Gardens from each Tuesday visit. I am still going through all of my photos, which I will use as inspiration for a wall felt or a needle-felted pillow. I am so very grateful that spending time in this treasure of a garden is part of what I do for a living!

Thanks for stopping by,
Georgianne

Studio Scene from Nestle and Soar

Folk Art Flowers on Linen Pillow

Photography and Me...

I am learning how to better use my camera this week and here is a practice shot of one of my folk art pillows. I am learning about controlling the light in a shot and how it is half the trick to good photos. I am also learning how to set the timer on my camera -- it seems that my hands are shaker than I realized -- even using a tripod!

My mom used to say that in her business life, she wore many hats. Entrepreneurs often do wear many hats...even all the hats! One task I must do for myself is photography and I am only now getting training. For folks who make handmade items and then sell them through their virtual boutique, as I do, having a photography set up that is convenient to use is a must. When it is too much trouble to get my folk art photographed and up on one of my websites, then business comes to a quick standstill. I would love to hear of ways you have made the photography part of your life easier and of better quality. I am a person who needs to take photos, but doesn't particularly like to take photos! I always seem to forget my camera at family functions, for instance.

Thanks for stopping by,
Georgianne

Planting Seeds -- Within and Outside, too!

"Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate." Alert Schweitzer

"When a seed is put into the ground, the law pertaining to growth operates and a plant is produced...unless a seed is planted, no plant will be produced." The Science of the Mind, page 206

There are flowers growing in my yard on this fine Spring day. The seeds that became these flowers laid dormant for weeks or even all winter long, until the conditions for their growth set them free. Within each of us are seeds as well...seeds of peace, joy, recovery, health, and abundance. The thoughts we choose to keep and nurture in our mind create the conditions for the blossoming of these internal seeds. It is our role to create the right conditions, through our mind and heart, for these seeds to bear fruit. I will begin by making sure my thoughts of constant kindness are directed toward myself.

How does your garden grow...well I hope. Thanks for stopping by,
Georgianne

Garden Walk on Wednesday

Wouldn't it be wonderful if this was a photo of my garden?! This lovely path is one I am walking down more often these days, but it belongs to the nice folks at the Denver Botanic Gardens. This is an ideal place for me to relax, sketch, and design the kind of wool art that I love to make. There is a program at the Gardens for artists to create art; botanical art is very popular. Held on the first and third Thursday of each month from 6:30-8pm, artists can meet one another, hear an informational lecture, and enjoy the Gardens. I will be sketching in the garden again on July 16th!

If you'd like to learn more about all that the Denver Botanic Gardens has to offer, here's their information. Denver Botanic Gardens

I send my best wishes and hope that where ever your path takes you today, it will be a lovely day for you--
Georgianne

Wool Flowers on Blue Denim

My sweet husband, Ted, calls this design "Constellation" pillows. I wasn't sure about that name, especially since constellation refers to an arbitrary configuration of stars. If you know me, you would have to say that "arbitrary" is hardly ever applicable! I'm sure I have faults as an artist, and one of them is being too controlled, too measured. I'd make better art if I simply relaxed a bit. I wonder how many years I'll have to be a full-time artist before I actually begin relaxing into the artistic process? 10? 20? How about you? When you are focusing on the art, hobby, or creativity of your choice, are you relaxed and going with the flow, or are you concentrating on making something very specific and deliberate? I'd love to know how it works for other people!

Hope you like my constellation pillow, aka Wool Flowers on Blue Denim ;-)

Peace,

Georgianne