Artist Trading Block Birdhouse

Hello all and thanks for coming by the blog today. The weather here in Colorado has been so nice lately and I've been watching the birds outside the window dancing around and playing. I just love birds and It gave me the thought to try and create a bird house out of Eileen Hull's Artist Trading Block Die 

I'm going to enter this one into the Eileen Hull - Art With Heart Challenge

This months challenge is "May Flowers" and I added some loose flowers to my birdhouse that I had leftover from another project. 

I started out by creating my background with Wendy Vecchi Crackle Texture Paste and a Crafter's Workshop Brick Stencil. I set that aside to dry for awhile and once dry I used Tim Holtz Distress Paint to color my brick

The two colors I used were Vintage Photo (painted first) and Aged Mahogany, I love the way the crackle paste makes the brick look aged

I cut a circle in the middle of my front piece from the Artist Trading Block to act as my entrance for my birdhouse

 I used a beautiful piece of Kiesercraft card stock and cut out my bird from the print and since I needed my bird to be sturdy I pasted it onto a piece of black card stock and then cut it out (my butterflies are from Graphic45 paper)

Once assembled I used a piece of burlap and cut it into pieces to create my nest inside the ATB

I used various flowers that were leftover from other projects and pieces of torn paper around each side of my block and for the roof, I used some cardboard which I also painted with Distress Paint

You know what is really funny? With this project I didn't use a single stamp! I think this is a first for me!!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have enjoyed my birdhouse project using the Altered Trading Block Die

If you feel so inclined make sure to check out Eileen's

Art With Heart Challenge, you could win a wonderful Sizzix Prize pack!!