Bring the beauty of spring into your home with this lovely arrangement.
Tools and Materials
Quince branches
Vase
Hot-glue gun and glue sticks
Dyed quail egg
Bird's nest
Decorative birds
20-gauge floral wire
Wire cutters
Bird's Nest How-To
1. Begin by arranging quince branches in a vase.
2. Affix dyed quail eggs into the bird's nest with hot glue. Attach a decorative bird to the edge of the nest with hot glue.
3. Bend 20-gauge floral wire in half, into an upside down U. Poke both ends of wire through bottom of nest. Attach the bird's nest to branch with the floral wire by wrapping wires around branch. Twist the wires together, and clip off the excess using wire cutters. Press the twisted wires against branch.
4. Glue birds to branches, if desired, by applying hot glue to bottom of a bird and affixing it to a branch.
Resources
Quince may be found at your local florist or garden supplier. Bird's nests are available at Tinsel Trading. Decorative birds are available at your local crafts store. Quail eggs are available at the Feathered Egg.
Bird's Nest with Branches
The Martha Stewart Show, March 2008
i tried it and i think it's a fabulous idea!! it looks really good...
When making your nest, I find that using fresh cut branches from your backyard, (instead of : quince branches) gives your piece a more homemade touch. Happy Nesting!
If you are looking for nests, I believe I saw a selection of them at PETCO when I was there quite a while ago.
Seems to me there are plenty of Easter Candy Eggs on sale right now and some are small enough to look like a bird's egg and small white jelly beans and some are even speckled. Was in World Market, just the other day and got found an Egg Garland with differnet sized eggs and chicks ( I was going to make, but found them cheaper (am retired and on fixed income) at World Market.
Under no circumstances should you use a real bird's nest. Many birds reuse them and the nest site is a part of the mating process. A wonderful nest can be fashioned out of natural materials.
Really liked the bird's nest, went to the website, Tinsel Trading and they had no idea what that was.
There is nothing wrong with having a real birds nest, I found one on the ground and picked it up and brought it home. This is a wonderful way of displaying it. Thank you Martha and her team for their creativity.
I don't think a real bird's nest would be very sanitary in your home. If I made this, I would use some brownish grass, either real dried stuff or man-made. Also, you don't need real eggs. They sell all kinds of fake ones in craft stores. And 'Quince'? never heard of it. I'm sure any branch would do. I love Martha but sometimes she makes it harder than it has to be.
Here's an idea: if you don't have flowers on your branches, try making Paper Cherry Blossom Display on this site. :)
Be careful when choosing a real bird's nest. It is illegal to remove a song-bird nest from a tree as all song-birds are protected species.
This worked wonderfully with forsythia clippings that continued to bloom and sprout leaves while in the arrangement. We used a nest that came in our cut Xmas tree one year, and a collection of found Robin's egg shells. The kids were wild for this arrangement!
I went to a store in town and bought a bird with little plastic eggs. I made the nest from sticks and added it to an arrangement I already had. Beautiful!
I used pussywillow branches and just loved my new arrangement. Thanks for the idea.
great