How to make cootie-free birdy nests

making nests for my Easter babies, a photo by patiencehouse on Flickr.

Today, as I was pulling out dried Alyssum stems from around my Fairy roses I was thinking, "hey, these have some nice bendy in them," and it sparkled this idea ... Nests! I could jam them into teacups to shape them, and then maybe add some glue? Then, hopefully I'd end up with some nifty birdy nests, minus any birdy cooties! Easy peasey, right?

Hrmm, not quite sure how to do this...
Actually, first thing I did (after curling the stems inside the cups) was to put weights on them to squish down the wilder pieces.Later on I put some plastic wrap inside the teacups and then randomly squirted on glue.So far, so easy.

And then I waited...and waited....and waited.
Hrmph! Not so good - the glue did not want to dry inside the teacups, so I took the nests out and resorted to the hot glue-gun.At this point it became a full-on PITA and I felt about as coordinated as a third grader, hot gluing my dang fingers together every other dang minute!{I will confess to a fair amount of cussing at this stage.}

Eventually, I did escape from the glue trap that I had laid for myself and I ended up with nine pretty, cootie-free birdie nests.
Lastly, I topped them with tiny punched butterflies of pale green vellum and vintage sheet music and also some dried hydrangeas and ferns. So darn purty!

That's my Felix up there.
Always a help, that one {well, he tries to be a good boy}.