DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Bird House Craft

Contributed by Leanne Guenther

Kaitlyn's favourite toys of late have been her bird stuffies.  Of course, how can a little girl play with her bird stuffies when she does not have a home for them.  She begged her daddy to build her a bird house and while Darren was not prepared to build one out of wood he thought that he could whip something together out of cardboard boxes rather quickly.  I think that it turned out rather cute and decided to put it on the site.

Materials:

• 3 boxes
  • 1 large box (roughly square) to make the roof
  • 1 slightly smaller box for the walls and floor
  • 1 chocolate box for the base
• cardboard roll from paper towel or gift wrap
• scissors or utility knife
• tape (preferably packing tape or masking tape as opposed to scotch tape.).
• Optional:  String to hang the house instead of the third box and paper towel roll.
• Optional:  Paint

Instructions:

• Begin with the larger box.  We used a box from mandarin oranges.  Cut out two sides or the top flap and one side keeping the corner intact.  The idea is that the fold between the two sides will become the peak of the bird house.
• Take the second box and cut it to form the walls.  We let Kaitlyn draw the size of the hole she wanted for her bird house and then cut that out as well.
• Tape the roof to the second box.  Depending on how big the hole is you may be able to reach in and tape it from the inside.
• Tape the paper towel roll to the bottom of the bird house.
• Cut a small 'X' in the lid of the third box about the same size as the paper towel roll.
• Slide the paper towel roll through this 'X' in the lid and then tape it to keep it standing.  As you can see from the picture,  Darren did not scrimp on the tape and he managed to make it strong enough to stand up on its own.
• Optional:  You could use string to hang the house as an alternative to the stand.
• Optional:  Paint the bird house and stand.