For me, a day spent in a natural history museum is always a day well spent! One of my favorites, The Harvard Museum of Natural History, also happens to be rather nearby. I've been visiting on a fairly regular basis for years now, and the exhibits there have definitely inspired many of my creative crafts projects. I thought it might be fun to share a few of my favorites that I've made through the years!
"Songbirds" is a pretty big (30" x 36") display that I made about six years ago after finding an old shoebox full of decorative birds at a flea market outside of Chicago. There was such a nice variety of birds in that shoebox; it was like finding an instant collection, so I decided it would be a shame not to keep them all together as a group! I have always enjoyed seeing the various ways that birds are displayed at museums, and determined that I should construct my own display based loosely on some of those at the Harvard Museum.
The background wedges consist of canvas stretched over pieces of Gator Board (a tougher, more rigid form of foamcore) then painted. The title letters are die-cut cardboard letters I found as a set at a thrift store and painted to complement the blue-green background. The birds are perched on painted wooden dowels mounted onto the background; they are each numbered with old-fashioned numbered map pins that correspond to a list of feathered warblers that I silkscreened onto the bottom center triangle. The display is six inches deep, and is a little difficult to photograph well because of its protective Plexiglas face! Following are a few detail photographs:
I Thank You for joining me, and hope you will join me again when I post the next installment of "The Natural History Museum Inspired This!"
