Make your own bird box!

Hello everyone,

I hope you have all had a good Easter and managed to safely get outside to enjoy the sunshine!

For today’s activity you will notice I have had a couple of helpers. My two sons, Henry and Thomas, aged 10 and 7. We had great fun creating these bird boxes out of old juice cartons.

You will need:

• A clean juice or milk carton
• A knife or scissors
• Acrylic paint and/or permanent markers (this should make it waterproof)
• String or garden wire
• Sand paper

Firstly we started off by sanding down our cartons. This isn’t essential but it does make the paint stick better later on.

Secondly, we carefully made a hole in the carton about the size of a two pence. I used a sharp knife to make the first cut and then made the circle with some scissors.

Next we got creative and decorated the cartons using acrylic paint. (Remember to put down something to protect your surface.) I chose to paint mine green and then using my finger I made some daisies and ladybirds. When it was dry I finished off the bugs with a black permanent pen. Henry decided to paint his red but ran out of ideas so (much to his dismay) I finished it off and made a pretty poppy pattern. Thomas painted his brown with no details. His reasoning is that it’s more realistic and the birds might think it’s part of the tree trunk!

Once all the pen and paint was dry we made some holes at the top and threaded through some string to hang them. If you have some garden twine or wire I think that would be more durable, but we only had string.

Now you can find a good place to hang your bird box or perhaps if you don’t have an outdoor space it might make a nice gift for someone.

I hope you have enjoyed this art session. If you would like to ask any questions or you have any comments or ideas, then please get in touch via my social media. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as: The Crafty Hare UK (@thecraftyhareuk) I would love to see your creations so please share a photo! You can do this by posting in the comments of the post or by sharing your photos and tagging me and MFT.

Thanks for reading and I will be back next week with another activity,

Beccy

Want to write a blog for us? We’d love to hear from you! Contact Connie at connie@maryfrancestrust.org.uk

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