The last time my in-laws visited, they left my girls with these cute little wooden birdhouses. I tucked them away to paint on their next visit, but my 3 year old couldn’t wait that long. In fact, about a month after I stored these, and an hour before leaving the house to meet friends in the park, my daughter suddenly remembered the birdhouses that were, as far as I could tell, out of mind.
“I want to paint birdhouses today!” she said. After explaining, for the 80th time that starting a sentence with “I want” isn’t okay with me, I further shared that there was no way we could get the materials out, set up, paint, clean up, and be out the door in time.
Well, in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation, it can almost be done. We were ten minutes late.
Materials
- Wooden birdhouses. My MIL found these at Michael’s, and I think they’re very reasonably priced.
- Acrylic Paint
- Paintbrushes
- Paper Plates
- Bird seed
- Funnel or paper + tape for a DIY funnel
Paint
Squeeze paint onto throwaway paper plates. Paint as desired. The challenge of painting a 3-D thing is entirely different from painting a flat surface, and there’s something magical about it. If you have a child who doesn’t normally enjoy painting, I’d suggest you try painting something with width and depth and see what happens.
By the way, acrylic paint will almost never wash out of clothes, so be sure to cover up properly.
Fill with Seeds
Unless the paint is quite thick, acrylic paint dries really fast and you could move on to this step within an hour. When the paint dries, the bird house is ready to be filled. If you don’t have a funnel, you can easily make one by spinning a piece of copy paper into a cone shape and taping the side shut.
Hang
The last step is to hang it. If you have squirrels be sure to hang it somewhere that squirrels won’t reach it. Our squirrels are sneaky and go almost anywhere birds go, so unfortunately our seed has been poached…once again. But I’m determined to attract some cute little songbirds around our house one of these days.
More Bird Feeder Inspiration
Juggling with Kids made these cool cookie cutter birdfeeders
If I were a bird, I’m not sure I’d venture close to this feeder
Biodegradable Orange Bird Feeder from the lovely Rhythm of the Home
Recycled bird feeder, made from a plastic bottle and a couple wooden spoons, over at Heck Fridays
Try safflower. The squirrels don’t care for it, but many songbirds do. Also, starlings and grackles don’t care for it either. It’s more expensive, until you calculate the cost of feeding squirrels instead of birds!
Oh, my son loves painting these little birdhouses from Michael’s. They are so whimsical and I think that’s a huge part of the attraction. He usually avoids using paints, but with these he goes all out and can spend a very long time painting. We usually can’t hang them outside because of the squirrels, but I’ll try Tango’s advice and see what happens.
In the UK we nail these houses up for the birds to nest in, not for feeding them!
so lovely! such a fun springtime project [and can make for a sweet handmade gift for (grand)mom’s day!]
You can certainly see your enthusiasm in the article you write.
The world hopes for more passionate writers such as you who aren’t afraid to mention
how they believe. All the time follow your heart.
Sweet blog! I found it while surfing around on Yahoo News.
Do you have any tips on how to get listed
in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there!
Many thanks
[…] Paint Birdhouses. TinkerLab. Pic up inexpensive wooden birdhouses at the craft store, add acrylic paint, and you’ll have a birdhouse or bird feeder for summer. For non-toxic acrylic paint, you could try Reeves non-toxic acrylic paint set (affiliate) […]