February Stamp Club

Birdhouses

When I first saw THESE paper birdhouses by Nichole Heady, I thought this would be a fun 3D project for the Stamp Club as well as cute Valentine's gifts for the boys' teachers. I plan to fill them with chocolate.


The Papertrey blog has a downloadable and printable template of the birdhouse with instructions on how to make the "siding" on the front of the house. Click HERE if you want to make one (or another one!) for yourself. I find that her instructions are fairly clear so I won't go into detail on how I put the front of the house together.


There are a few details that may not be clear from the photo so I will go into those a little bit:


Roof:

1. Fold the Chocolate Chip card stock in half and place one half in the Perfect Polka Dots Textured Impressions Folder. (Unfortunately the Impressions Folder does not cover the whole piece of card stock.) Run through Sizzix Big Shot.


2. Flip card stock around to to emboss other side of card stock making sure that the impression will imprint the same way as the first time. You want both sides of the roof to have the dots poking up/debossed, not indented/embossed.


3. Use Scallop Trim Border Punch on ends of the roof.


4. Punch holes with paper piercer, hand held punch or horizontal slot punch in center of roof. Add hemp twine and/or ribbon.


5. Use Tiny Tags stamp set, Jewelry Tag Punch and White Embroidery Thread to create small tag. Add to hemp/ribbon.


House Front:

1. Complete bird house front by following THESE directions. Just a HINT: When you are punching through the card stock with the 1 1/4" Circle Punch, make sure you are not going through more than TWO layers. The card stock will be too thick for the punch to work.


2. Use the Two Way Bird Punch to create bird and branch image with Sweet Pea Designer Series Paper. Adhere with Tombo Liquid Glue. HINT: Instead of "wasting" precious patterned paper and punching the Bird Punch three times in three different paper patterns with two images going to waste each time....Cut three strips of patterned paper to fit each image - branch, bird and wing. For example, I cut a strip of Old Olive patterned paper in the width of the branch and placed it in my punch so that I would only the branch would be punched and nothing else. Hope that makes sense.


Completing the House:

1. Adhere house front/siding with bird punch to front of birdhouse.


2. Score on all dotted lines using a ruler. On the curved lines you will have to score free-hand.


3. I placed Sticky Tape on the four edges of the inside of the house. The six curved tags will be taped to these edges.


4. If you want to place anything inside the birdhouse, now is the time to do it!!


5. Place four pieces of Sticky Tape to outside of birdhouse. Attach roof.


Here are a couple more examples that I made. On this second pink birdhouse, I made a template by taking a strip of card stock and punching a scalloped trim border. I then began at the bottom of the roof and sponged along the scalloped edge using Chocolate Chip ink. I moved it up 1/2" and sponged again continuing until I reached the top of the roof. I repeated the steps on the other side of the roof.





Dimensions: Listed when you download the template.


Supplies:


Stamps: Tiny Tags
Paper: Sweet Pea DSP, Pretty in Pink, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
Ink: Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink
Accessories: Scallop Trim Border Punch, Two Way Bird Punch, Jewelry Tag Punch, Horizontal Slit Punch/Hand Held Punch/or Paper Piercer, Sponge Dauber, Hemp Twine, Pretty in Pink 5/8" Satin Ribbon, Perfect Polka Dots Impressions Folder, Big Shot, Sticky Strip, 1 1/4" Circle Punch, Scissors, Bone Folder, Ruler


Well, I'm off to make a couple for the boys' teachers. Thanks for stopping by.