My grandmother was an environmentalist before her time. Cultivating a bursting acre of organic flowerbeds, vegetable rows, grape hedges, rhododendron walls and fruit tree groves for decades, she used natural, safe growing techniques and welcomed the wildlife instead of shooing it away.

She taught me to respect the bees and move the slugs to the compost heap, but the really cherished visitors were the birds. I spent many childhood afternoons swishing the old, dirty water out of her half-dozen birdbaths and filling the feeders with various sweet concoctions and seeds for the hummingbirds, robins, chickadees, swallows and jays. She taught me the different local species and their chirps, and I developed a lifelong love for birds - their cheer and their secrets and their music and their oddness.

Style is for the birds this spring, and I think that's pretty irresistible. Whether it's a bag, a soft tee, or stationery like these enchanting hand-stitched recycled cards, the bird motif is a much sweeter alternative to the morbid skullies that have dominated looks over the last few years. $6.50. Handmade.

Image: EthelandIris