Ever since those regular beach days we had a few weeks ago and chasing sea gulls over the sand, Ellie has been noticing birds a lot more. While she was sick we you-tubed some Elizabeth Mitchell music videos and one of them was this one. She loved it so much we downloaded the album (I, myself am a big Mitchell fan so downloading the whole album was no big deal) and Little Bird, Little Bird has been on repeat ever since. I have also been wanting to replace the hot air balloon residing in our master bedroom (we have three from Ellie’s birthday, placed all over the house) with something a bit more natural looking. I loved Dawn’s Alphabet Glue migration birds and I thought it might be something my 18 month old and I could work on together. I cut out some card stock birds using  the pattern from Alphabet Glue and let Ellie paint away (this child surprises me every time with her painting skills. She knew to stay right on the birds and did a marvelous job).

And during an afternoon nap one day this past week, I was able to sneak away long enough to paint two of my own little birds. I used our Western Bird Field Guide as inspiration and decided to try for a sea gull look inspired by Ellie and my favorite beach visits.

My pictures do not showcase the light, airy colors Ellie and I both chose. It’s hard photographing a mobile.

But, I’m enjoying it hanging in the bedroom next to the nightstand. It gives the room a natural feel with the beachy stick we found on our weekend seal walk and it makes me happy to think that Ellie and I both worked on it. Ellie smiles and signs “bird” every time she sees it.