Birdhouse Results
I’ve finished four, each representing each season, winter, spring, summer, fall. The decision to color code them like this was so it fit the theme for a competition better; birds won’t really nest outside of spring, but the kind of birds that would fit in the houses (tits, probably) aren’t very picky about colors—though the one I put out, the fall one, blends the best into the environment, so there might be pickier birds I don’t know about who would nest in it.
At the moment, it’s freezing outside, and the ceramic is very, very cold. I don’t know if that’s something that would detour a bird from nesting—they don’t nest right now anyway—because I imagine the sticks and grass make the surface warmer. A typical wooden birdhouse is obviously warmer than a ceramic one, but during the spring, it might not matter. I just hope that it doesn’t get burning hot during the summer; temperature isn’t something I really thought about aside thinking the yarn might regulate the inside’s temperature, but feeling it from the outside, it’s cold all around.
I put one of them outside—I bought a plant hanger so it could be hung from the fence; my old home had a few hooks hanging from awnings so I didn’t really think about how it would hang until later—and it has held up very well. My mod podge experiment worked, I think; it’s been through rain and snow and it’s not ripping at the seams or filled with water—by luck, really; the first birdhouse I made was glazed in the inside, but it shattered to pieces after it cooled out the kiln, as if it was still bone dry; I really have no idea why it happened. So I just guessed that the pressure of the glaze on each side of the work made it crack—though I’ve never had that problem before. The rest of the pieces came out how I hoped they would, except for the sinking glaze looking a bit funky on the texture on the bottom, but it’s not too noticeable when it’s hanging up.
