Deanne Fitzpatrick » Diary, Small Town Life » Sharon Macleod you are the winner of our Bird House Give A Way !
Sharon Macleod you are the winner of our Bird House Give A Way !
The randomly picked winner is Sharon MacLeod….. thanks everyone for their inspirational ideas
Oh Deanne! I love Don’s bird houses! I tried to talk my husband into going over for the sale but we had company for the weekend. This is the next best thing. I spent today with a group of crafters who were each doing their own thing and that inspires me. My daughter was here this weekend spinning lace weight yarn from hand dyed roving she bought at the Belfast Mini-Mills. Beautiful blues and pinks. Her son makes stop action movies which are a lot of fun. Discussing everything from technique to colour and creative ideas with them all gets my creative juices going every time.
Dear Diary,
Last week my friend Don Miller had a great week last week. He was on the national news with Peter Mansbridge, my Nephew Aaron Beswick interviewed him for the Halifax Herald, and once again, maybe for the tenth time he was on the cover of the Amherst Daily. All because his honesty is such a good story. For twenty two years Donny has been the youth minister at the local Baptist Church. He has an ecumenical youth group , that you can join once you go to Grade ten, and all kinds of kids, from all religions, all walks of life join and he runs a drama and youth group program with him. They go to church, not in the usual way, but  they go on Monday nights instead of Sunday Morning and they do fun stuff. He is a gem, the whole town knows it.
He is also so honest and funny. When he decided this winter to create a project of making one hundred bird houses in one hundred days and carried it out ending it with a sale. I went the other day and in the first hour, those bird houses grew legs and just walked out the door. People are happy to buy birdhouses because they are funny, and beautiful, but because Donny has helped them raise their kids, or the neighbour’s kids , or because he has entertained them with a play, or been there as a minister when they needed him.
The honesty part is the hook of this story though, when he is asked, What are you raising money for? He honestly answers, “So I can go on a vacation in Florida.”. His last birdhouse sale was so he could buy a new furnace. Everyone loves it, as they love his birdhouses.
So I bought one of his birdhouses for one of you to win.
Just  a little spring celebration to thank you for reading the blog.
It is the one he is holding in the picture, a little “Acadian House” he built out of reclaimed wood. All you have to do is  leave me a comment at the end of this post and tell me how you get inspired! What is your tip to help you get inspired?
We will mail the randomly selected winner the bird house anywhere in North America, so go ahead and enter  (only once per person) by letting us know how you get inspired……..
I will be interested to hear what you have to say.
Filed under: Diary, Small Town Life
90 Responses to "Sharon Macleod you are the winner of our Bird House Give A Way !"
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good point!
Don’t think it comes from the same place twice. It’s quite a nebulous little thing I think.Its a happening–out of the everwhere, into the here.
Discovering something new to me, when I thought I knew it all.
Nature is inspiring .I love that the weather is improving and I am getting out to walk and enjoy the wonderful sights around Newfoundland.I always appreciate what we have here,missed it when I was not here and am now able to be back home again . The trees ,ocean ,sky and fresh air are wonderful…….and inspiring.Will soon be in my New Old family home and will be very content to spend my time with my hook and wool around me creating new rugs………..
I am inspired by your blog and this entry in particular. I wish we had a “Don Miller” in Shelburne, NS. Our youth could use
I get inspired when I see my grandson learning to read, play T-ball peddling his trike. I get inspired when I look out my window every morning
and see the the birds taking their first drink of the day at their bath and the feisty squirrels chasing each other up our trees. I guess I get inspired from just looking.
I’m get inspired when I hear the birds chirping over the sound of my mother in law.
Every morning when I drive to work and see you out for your walk it reminds me to look at things differently and inspires me to do more to create beauty. Another inspiration comes from looking through my wool stash or my quilting material stash.
Love this blog!
Lately my hooking has been inspired by nostalgia including a piece of wallpaper from my grandmother’s house in NS and a picture of my mother taken in 1911, A picture of the ocean bottom at low tide at Blue Rocks is my next challenge.
Family; memories; history; colour – rich ones you can ‘taste’, soft ones you can feel; Encouragement from friends (and strangers!); Nature – just take the time to look and really ‘see’; Enthusiasm – it’s catchy!
The tales told by the generations are those that leave me with a yearning to know more, to feel more, to give more. Recently a beautiful woman in our town, died at the age of 108. She was fully present and alive when she died. Just hours before her death, she was concerned she hadn’t done her daily exercises, and so she did them. Her life was a journey of truth, love and compassion. It is her story and those of my parents/grandparents generations that inspire me…to see more in life, to give more than I receive and to appreciate everything. For it is in the weave of life that we see color, texture, depth and meaning.
Stories like yours, about people who just set a goal, like “one hundred birdhouses in one hundred days”, inspire me to pickup the hook at get at it again. I’m reading this blog post as I wait for my daughter’s hockey game to start- Easter week in Newfoundland means hockey tourneys- but I’m inspired to get back to the mat this afternoon.
Shine on! Kelley
I find inspiration in many things or situations. I have some nice reproductions of art pieces on cards, watercolor paintings and books. But I also need sometimes to touch and feel fabrics and yarn or visit a special shop like yours and it just does it for me. All the colors in nature, in the skies, my flower gardens, as it changes throughout the season. I also find watching other people creating inspiring.
Some very interesting birdhouses that this fellow makes. He is definitely inspired!
google is such an endless resource Janet you are right
I have a number of books on rug hooking, quilting, knitting – many fiber arts – and they are a continuous source of inspiration. Sometime I go back to an image I’ve looked at many times and try to find something new… a color transition I didn’t notice before, an overlooked texture. New books come out all the time, and if I’m not inclined to buy them, I often go to the publisher’s website or Amazon.com or just Google the title and see if I can browse through any of the pages or see images. I also do image searches on Google – put “yellow” into the search engine and click on “images” and see what you get! I also try to fix in my memory certain images that catch my eye just in the process of living… a certain curve, a color combination, a phrase that paints a mind picture, a texture. And, of course, what’s already in my mind can spontaneously combine with something old or new to create something unique to me. That’s really cool.
In life, I am continually inspired by the youth at risk who work with us everyday in my video production company in Halifax, Pink Dog Productions.
In art, I am inspired by YOU, Deanne. And, a few other things as well … the colour of the ocean on a summer morning and then again on a stormy afternoon with the waves breaking and crashing on the shore. How the sky reflects the ocean. The silvery flash of a swallow’s wing or the movement of tall beach grass swaying in the wind. Living on the shores of the Northumberland Strait is inspirational every single day. Lucky us!
Roberta
I had to stop and think about what inspires me. I can’t name one particular thing that inspires me. I think everything inspires me. Inspiration is everywhere, if you just see it!
Oh, I saw that piece on CBC and loved his birdhouses! Two things particularly inspire me: colour and light. There were strange, dark storm clouds alongside blue sky today and the late afternoon light hit the trees along the fence row; the effect was dramatic and compelling.
jill in Ontario
My inspiration comes from meditation, literature, jokes, life-long learning, travel, nature. I have many ideas and want to hook or make them all. Those birdhouses are great. The ones with the wings makes me think of putting wings on my house so that I will always have access to my wool and supplies no matter where I go.
Michele
Some of the things that inspire me are sunshine, song birds on a spring morning, the ocean, sunrises, blogs, pictures, paintings, books, magazines,poems, sunsets, friends, my mother, colorful yarns and wool, Deanne’s rugs and her writing, Lorinda Antonello who got me painting again, and people like Donnie Miller who through their work and their art inspire us all.
a poem , Libby, thanks, that is inspiring.
Yesterday I was inspired by one of our community garden gardeners, Sandra, who was planting seeds and seedlings in her plot which she told me she will use to make dye for the wool she spins. I was thrilled to learn she’s also a rug-hooker who began hooking as one way to use the wool she loves spinning. We decided our garden needs a covered area where we can bring our wool and create art in the beautiful space next to the labyrinth we’re also dreaming about which made me think…..why couldn’t I hook a labyrinth design…..hmmmm……..
blue green yellow orange lilac red
solitude people angles lines intersections
purple brown tan resonating
diagonals petals spirals curves
movement sound gladness joy
growth pulse beginning process finishing
touch fragrance soft sweet
great comment Barbara, very thoughtful
So happy to have a little part to play, thanks
Inspiration has come into my life like never before, sincei have joined the world of rug hooking ~~ the colors, the creativity, the personalities, the amazing friends I have made…every day is a gift of inspiration! Thank you Deanne for your part in this!
I’ve already added a comment so this one doesn’t count. However, if that’s Don’s house, that inspires me! Just the little bit that we see is so beautiful and warm looking. I love the birdhouses, but I can’t stop looking at the home!
Inspiration comes in little whispers, quiet kitty feet creeping into my consciousness, ideas borne by the breeze in my garden, by the sun glinting on the water at the beach, a color combination created by Mother Nature, then the color palette of a piece of fabric on the jacket in front of me in line at the grocery store. Once in awhile a great wave of inspiration and a fully formed idea from a piece of appliqué on a old pillowcase found at a antique show of a blue duck becomes a whimsical pattern for a bedroom throw rug. Mostly, inspiration comes quietly to me and only when I am open to it. It helps if I am practicing living in the moment and being fully present in my life. Hooking, for me is a meditation and tremendously helpful. While I am hooking, the wool often sparks other ideas and if I am smart enough to write them down sometimes they actually become more than an idea.
What inspires me??Hmmmmmmmmm. Many things, my friends, the ladies I hook with, I love to go to our weekly meetings and see the lovely pieces they create. Color, the color of the bay the way it changes with the differences in the weather, sunsets,the wind blowing the branches of the evergreens in back of my house, the deer coming to the back fence, the little raccoon who gets into my garbage(lol), and most of all the smiles on my grandchildrens faces when we make sandcastles, cookies or hunt for Easter Eggs, oh and so much more. Waking each morning to the promise of a new day………….
Don’s birdhouses inspire me – they’re gorgeous!
I have three dogs. Holding them, petting them and playing with them so totally relaxes me that my mind is clear and i have thoughts I would not otherwise have.
I am inspired by colors that catch the eye and hold it and get me wondering how marvelous they are – how many greens are there in the trees, and then how they all change as the sun moves throughout the day. How the sky changes with the sunset, and yes, even with the pollution. (I used to live in Los Angeles – it made lovely sunsets!) I sailed for many years on the ocean, loving the blues, but when land approached, I was so grateful for brown and green. Colors inspire me to take a deep breath and enjoy!
Like most of you so much inspires me. Just lately the kindness of the ‘quilting ladies’ in our town of 1200 inspires me…they have ‘adopted’ my friend and I. There are about a dozen of them who get together one weekend a month to quilt, chat, and eat (delicious food) and this winter they started invited us to join them and to bring our mats if we’d like to…oh we do!!! The colour and fun in that room when we’re all together…pure joy!
….well, inspiration comes in three ways for me.
sometimes it’s….visually… The color of the spring buds on the trees, a winter sky, the fading purple light of the fall, a leaf,or a bug…an add in a magazine….a peach!!
…or, it could be the textiles themselves….the colors of wool make me want to cut it and apply it …to lay purple next to yellow ocre….or a deep red plaid against a smokey forest green….then there’s plaids!!! it’s like touching all the chocolate you want…but but not getting fat!! lol
….lastly is the idea….the inspiration for an idea comes from wanting to share it with others.i want to share a vase of flowers, so i’ll do vases…or i want toshow someone a red barn, so i’ll do barns……it has to be simple, because i hook large, and details are a bother if you hook large……usually it has to be uplifting….i don’t hook sad things…
reciently i had a bunch of ladies at work give me all the (clean!)four letter words they could think of…..and, from there i will make mats with words…it will be fun to do, and show them when i’m done.
they know that they have helped in my creativity…and that makes them curious, and happy!!!
thats my process!!
I am inspired by the wool, by the patterns, seeing someone hook a beautiful rug, I love the colors, the feel, the smell of wool, it inspires me on…
how nice it is to see that in your daughter
Lately I have been inspired my 12 year old daughter. She has just found a love for drawing and often takes her sketch book around the house or outside. She has pushed me to get out and explore more in our community. To look at different art forms and to not be afraid of very bold colors! To see life through her eyes and watch her fall in love with all forms of art has truly been a blessing.
Taking photographs and playing with a photo editing app is inspiring and gives me ideas for hooked rug designs. I also like the magazine called Cloth Paper Scissors. I make small collages so this magazine jump starts me with ideas. The bird houses are so wonderful. Thanks for the photos of those.
I am inspired by all of the beautiful and changing colors in nature.
I am inspired by a phrase in a book or a song.
Carol