Make A House A Home

I love a craft challenge and was thrilled to be invited to take part in the Make A House A Home competition.



Make A House A Home

As the Summer days are fading and I am crafting for Autumn and Christmas (yes the C word in September!) it was great to get my craft on with bright Summer inspired colours.

I was sent the pretty wooden bird nest with the brief to get crafty and to 'make a house a home'. With the inspiring craft materials at Buddly Crafts  to choose from, I put together a colour palette of homely happy colours; greens, pastels and reds. I then chose the a basket of pretty materials to reflects this.

I saw the Fimo Effect polymer clay with a great shimmer to the classic Fimo I have used before. Fimo polymer clay is great for modelling so I bought a pastel palette of  six pretty colours Aqua, Light Pink, Lilac, Mint, Peach and Vanilla.

I had to include the Tilda fabric in the project as I have used them to make cotton dolls, cushions and bunting and the prints looks really homely. I chose the green to look like the trees.

To start the project, I broke off a strip of each of the colours and rolled it out with a old wine bottle a 3 mm thickness. This was for my flags for around the bird house roof. I played around with the flag shapes until I got one I was happy with. I then cut out the flags six times in each clay and wetted them to bend them into a shape so that the bunting flags looked like they were blowing in the breeze.

They were then baked as per the packet instructions and left to cool down whilst I decorated the bird house.

I used the Tilda fabric for the roof and the side panels of the bird house leaving the inner panels ready for a white acrylic paint wash later in the project. I used a hot glue gun and a heat proof mat (the red dotty mat just seen) to protect my craft table.

I bought a pastel pink, pastel blue and white ric rac trim to add to the bird house around the sides and over the Tilda fabric as a contrast.

Over the Tilda fabric - so pretty!

Then the white wash was added.

I crocheted a bunting flag in red using devil red #666 .

The flags were then fixed into place and with the remaining thread and fabric I embroidered a 'Home' banner and decorated the bird perk ready for my reveal.

Our little Home sign

The bunting fimo flags were glued in place on a crocheted string with a ric rac trim. I used a staple gun to attach the thread to the house and strong craft glue to attach the flags to the string.

And a hanging loop on the back.

And our new bird home is finished.

I am over the moon with my finished bird box and it's going up in the house tomorrow. I want to thank Ocean Finance for inviting me to take part.

How would you decorate a bird box?

Samantha

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