Bird Cage Organizer

In a 2007 issue of Flea Market Style was this cute Birdcage Desk Organizer.

I yanked it out and filed in my idea book for future reference.

While organizing the other day, I spied it and thought it was time to make one.

It is spring after all and don't we love to fluff our nests this time of year?

While my cage is not vintage or as large as this one, it was FREE and

FREE is always GOOD!!!

Starting at the front, I used wire cutters to remove the front wires.

Trying to reuse everything I can, I sat the wires aside...

The original concept used bird perches and glass for the shelves.

Having neither, I decided to use the excess wires I clipped away...

Bending the edges and then going diagonally to another post and bending...

I basically ended up forming a sort of web to rest the shelf on...

Next I needed a shelf...Hmmm.

The cardboard back of a tablet would do...

7.5 x 7.5 would do for me as I only wanted 2/3 of the interior to have a shelf.

Next, to cover the cardboard I chose

some vintage dictionary pages and copies of Christina Rosseti poetry from 

a Vintage English Literature book I have.

My goal for this piece was to create a stationary holder.

It saddens me that in our digital/facebook/texting age that the HAND written word

is slowly disappearing and it is a goal

of mine to connect more the old fashioned way.

My daughter Emily has a friend named Juyoung who moved to DC after 1st grade.

They were so close.  They are now in 6th grade and they letter write with each other regularly.

I am really happy with it.

Ironically, the poems I decoupaged on the shelf are actually profound 

in what this cage is meant to hold.

Letters for friends, a couple journals,

a little book of Passages, a box of idea cards for Mothers/Daughters...

And in the nest in the rear is a tiny Precious Moments Momma and three baby bunnies

that my mother gifted me years ago when I only had my three young sons.

The clock case that says "Live your Dreams" is another tiny reminder.

I will leave you the poems and hope you like it as much as I...

Remember

by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more, day by day,

You tell me of our future that you planned;

Only remember me: you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve;

For the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

A Birthday

My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a watered shoot;

My heart is like an apple-tree

Whose bough is bent with thickest fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles on a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladded than all these

Because my love has come to me.

Raise me in a dais of silk and down;

Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

Carve it in doves and pomegranates,

And peacocks with a hundred eyes;

Work it in gold and silver grapes,

In leaves, and silver fleur-de-lys;

Because the birthday of my life

Is come, my love has come to me.

One of the words that struck me the most was "Vestige" in the first poem.

ves·tige/ˈvestij/

Noun:

A trace of something that is disappearing or no longer exists.

My birdcage is almost a shrine to the handwritten word,

journals, letter writing instruments.  For like the first poem, 

it will be the physical things we hold in our hands such as paper letters, photos, artwork

that recall a person to memory.  Emails and digital communications will be gone.

The case below my cage holds poems, journals and 

handwritten letters of my own and from others that were gifted to me.