Free Digital Scrapbooking Designs Page Inspiration and Another Fun Free Chicken Design Life is Better with Chickens

Welcome to The Cherry On Top.

I've got some more freebies for ya, a fun pic of my angry looking chick and some notes about chicken runs. I'm so thrilled you are here.

Above is a little tease at what's to come with my chicken kit. 

I found a really, really cute pack of elements from Design Bundles for some of these designs.

Isn't it so cute?! I love the color palette, too.

There's Daisy! My son got this funny picture when I had him working in the chicken run. As you can see, it is absolutely nothing special. We only have this little space behind our garage. The long and narrow shape is ideal for a run. We only have four girls because our yard is too small for more. Four chickens will fit fine in this size space, but I let mine out in the backyard most of the time.

I do have a little bit of green net that you can just barely see, all the way in the back so they don't jump on their house/nesting house and then over to our neighbor's whose dogs would shred them to smithereens. The side you can't see is a tall wooden fence and a long, high shrubbery from our neighbor's.

I tried planting some plants in the run, but it isn't going all that great. I still have my raspberry bush that's growing well. It's surrounded by a wire cylinder like the one you see I use for my compost. The ladies keep digging all around the new plants despite my huge rock borders. They even started sitting on the one lavender I had left! Grrr...

This was our first batch of chickens that didn't want to sleep in the house where they nest. Every evening when we came out to check on them, they were huddled up behind our house and perched on our BBQ grill. So, the hubs quickly fashioned that open, wooden contraption with spare wood. There are a few perches in there and they love it. It didn't cost us a penny to make and it went together quickly.

You can see the wood chips and hay, under the clear, plastic roof. That was about 100 Euros to construct. It's rather handy, but I'd like another section of it because it gets mega windy and rainy, here in Belgium. Also at the corner of the roof, is a water container. It's easy to clean and give the girls fresh water when it's right there. Be CAREFUL! We had a lovely drown in a large bucket that we forgot to empty. So tragic! I have a large rim around the container to prevent that from happening, again.

You can see my super cool compost heap. All we did was bend some rigid chicken wire or fencing into a cylindrical form and folded over the places where we cut it. It's about 3 feet in diameter and around 5 feet tall. This is also a super idea I found on the internet.

I can easily scoop out the poop from where they sleep and chuck it in my compost bin and or spread it around the run. I have to clean up the run at least once a week. I simply fill in the holes they dig and rake around until it's all evened out and clean. When it gets rather dry, it turns into lovely compost because we also throw our left overs back in the run and the wood chips and poop from the nesting house.

The cylinder is great for our food scraps, grass clippings and garden left overs, too. We don't have any kind of large space for composting. So, this is really great. I plan on putting a few more of them in the run. What the person did whose idea I stole, was add seeds and soil every few inches of compost. She also added some baby plants that she had too much of and stuck them all around the compost pile, too. This way, the girls can pick at it. Add some sticks and the girls can perch on them while they nibble. It keeps them busy. The woman even had a tree growing on the top of one of her compost bins that she replanted when it was bigger. Cool, eh?!

I've got another pack from the new collection for you. The commenting isn't going all that well and I get sick of coming back and forth looking and counting. Hehehe...I need a lazier way to do this. Ooh! It just dawned on me. I could have it where it only takes a few people to unlock the next freebie by asking a question or making up something fun with what we have so far. I hope I don't forget! It will be easier for all of us.

Keep scrolling for the link for the free pack and chicken freebie.

Click here for the second pack of freebies from the Catalonia Collection.

Hilary designed a nice page for us. I love this salmon shade! It looks neat with the blue.

Click here for the new free chicken design.

This image is linked up to the product at Design Bundles.

I'm not sure why I didn't mention where I got the design for the other freebies. I'll do better, next time. Of course, it is from Design Bundles. I have a shop there and because I do quite some promotion for them, I get a free Plus Membership, though not a gold one any more. Hmmm...I will admit, I don't make any money affiliating for them or from the shop. It used to be a lot better, but now it's like a few bucks a year. 

This image is linked up to the product at Design Bundles.

If you are here only for the freebies, then you'll love bombarding Design Bundles freebie section. You can find the link in the side bar, near the top.

Last week I showed off JoCee Designs new endeavor, Chai Eighteen Designs. I recently saw she's got a freebie in her group. Pop over and grab it and say hello to the other fans. Go back to last week's blog and find more of her designs as well as how to get more free stuff from CED.

Thanks for popping in. Enjoy the free goodies and help us unlock the next free pack. I'll be asking that you use the two packs you've got so far to make a fun cluster. As soon as someone makes a GOOD cluster to share with us in the group, I'll unlock the third free pack and give another instruction. Make sure ya tag me! Thanks for your help!

Happy scrapping!