Nest Building

There are times in our lives that we all want to build a nest. That place that is distinctly our own. My final block for my 2008-9 BJP is a nest. My magpie wanted to have her own nest so she got it. The idea for the nest came and went as the year went through but I finally went with the idea since it felt right.
The nest was made free form with several cord pieces and imitation raffia I had no idea what it was going to turn out like but it was kind of fun just putting and weaving the branches together into a nest. I made a lining for my nest of feathers and after attaching it to the tree I let the magpie decorate her nest with beads and buttons and more feathers.
For me the nest was very timely since we are building a house and I will get to decorate it in all of the colors, fabrics and other goodies that I want. After years of making other people's houses that we were renting into a home for us, we will get to have our own house and really personalize it. We now have drywall up and the house is really starting to come together. If you want to see the progress we are making visit My Web Gallery. I will be putting a new post of my main blog when I have time this week about how things are going and my upcoming projects to get ready for the house.
Magpies build their nests in forks of trees or thorn bushes, thorn bushes often guard doorways to the spirit and fairy realm. Forked branches represent intersections between worlds (again a doorway.) Birds nests in upper branches of trees are emblems of celestial messengers or souls.

For anyone interested the registration for the next years BJP is now open. We will running the new years from January through December 2010. If you are interested please go to the registration page for the Bead Journal Project website. Registration runs through December 15th 2009.