a Wren House

My Grandfather gave me a birdhouse gourd, a month or so ago, so I have been working on turning in into a birdhouse for a Wren. I've been trying to attract more birds to our back yard, so I thought perhaps some birdhouses would do the trick.  To learn more about birdhouses to make to attract other varieties of birds to your lawn I highly suggest checking out today's post on The Real Farmwives of America & Friends blog.  They have a great tutorial and a give-a-way for you to win a birdhouse of your very own.

Of course with my sunflower obsession I had to decorate it with some paint and here is how I did it.

I cleaned the gourd with some soap and a kitchen scratch pad.  My grandfather said that Wren's only need a hole the size of a Quarter in order for them to get in and out and keep other birds from taking the space.  So I traced a quarter on my gourd.  Then I took a power drill and drilled small holes around the edges of the circle.and I kept drilling them closer and closer together until I could punch the hole out completely.

Next I drilled a couple of larger holes in the bottom of the gourd.  This is so if rain gets inside the gourd it can run on out and not bother the nest.

After that it was time to pain the gourd.  I used acrylic paint and painted white and yellow flower petals around the center of the hole.  I then used a sponge and sponged brown paint around the hole for the center of the sunflower.

To distinguish my petals I took a black sharpie marker and outlined the petals individually to make them stand out more.

After I was done painting the gourd I realized that I probably needed to spray some type of varnish on the gourd to help protect the paint, but I didn't know which kind.  So I contacted someone who I knew was an expert on gourds..... Ann from the blog Butterflies, Gourds & More.  She recommended a small bottle of exterior/interior water base varnish from a hobby store.  So I found this can of Modge Podge and following Ann's instructions I gave the Gourd 3 coats (one coat a day for 3 days so it had plenty of time to dry in between.)  And just like Ann said, it would smell bad so I did it out in the garage so it was well ventilated.

This post was linked to: Metamorphosis Monday.