On the 4th day... Four Calling Birds

"On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me four calling birds,
three french hens,
two turtle doves
and a partridge in a pear tree."

Hi, I'm Sherri from Design to Shine . I am very excited to be writing my first guest post here at ReDeemed! I am so honored Noel asked me to take part in sharing along with all the other very talented ladies.

Today is the Fourth Day of Christmas and I truly love crafting something up on a budget. Today my true love gave to me 4 calling birds, plus a few more!

Tradition has it that the calling birds in the song are actually 'colly' birds. In England, a coal mine is called a colliery or colly. So a colly bird is actually a black bird, due to being black as coal. A gift of black birds then would have meant another gift of food. The religious meaning behind the lyrics of this line are referred to as the Four Gospels or the Four Evangelists.

My four calling birds are actually red! They adorn the Christmas Tree in my home.

I decorated my tree with an entirely new theme on a handmaidens budget of $20. Here are the elements of my inspiration.

See the cute red birds? I found them several weeks ago at the Dollar Tree; 3 to a card for $1. They also had them in white.

I wasn't wild about the idea of hanging them. My vision for a natural country inspired tree had them sitting cutely on a limb. How do you get really cheap birds perched dainty on a tree limb?

Very simply with a household item. In fact, it's SO easy your kids can help. The first thing I did was snip off the gold string hanger on each bird.

Then I gathered a few clothes pins from the laundry room, along with green craft paint and a small foam brush. I painted the clothes pins and most of my fingers green to match the tree.

The cute little birdies had flimsy wire on the bottom to wrap around a limb. So I snipped it off from under their tiny feet.

Heat up your hot glue gun. Little ones will need help with this step!

Put a dot of glue on the painted clothes pin and hold the bird in place for a minute. I faced all my birds toward the end that clips.

And now you have Four Calling Birds ready for your tree, garland or wreath!

I actually made a total of twelve to place on my tree. Which is the perfect pop of red, along with the berries.

If you would like to find out how I put together a totally new theme tree on a $20 budget and to learn about pine cone pickin' down in the south, stop by my blog Design to Shine. I love visitors and new friends! May each of you have a wonderful Christmas season full of joy and love. Remember, It doesn't have to cost a pretty penny to SHINE like one!

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Don't forget about our gift certificate giveaway - with a drawing, from ALL the comments on all the days!

To enter:

• Post a comment (1 per day – so after you check out the next day’s blog, come back here and enter again – just like the song builds every day, so do your chances!
• If you haven't already, post the button (then a comment letting me know)
• Blog, Tweet or Facebook about this giveaway with the link (then a comment letting me know)
• Follow me (then a comment letting me know)
• BONUS entry! Visit Sherri's blog and look around, then come back and leave a comment to tell us what you like best!

The fine print:

• You must leave a SEPARATE comment for each entry – this is the only way to keep it fair and straight (and keep me from having to kill a tree printing them out and cutting them apart!)
• All giveaways will be held on December 13th
• A random number generator will be used to determine the winner(s)
• If your e-mail address is not publicly listed on your profile, please include it with your comment(s)
• We reserve the right to re-draw if the first winner does not respond within 48 hours (please don’t let this happen – that would just be sad!)