Teeny Cute Birdhouses With STAEDTLER Fimo

 I was recently asked to reproduce this STAEDTLER design to use in a advertising project.

I must say I've fallen in love with it.

I've posted the instructions here with the blessings of STAEDTLER's marketing team.

Thanks for letting me share.

They are teeny little birdhouses to use for decorations or place cards. I think I see some pendants in their future. They would make the sweetest little necklaces and earrings scaled down a bit.

I broke open my STAEDTLER fimo soft colour pack. Aren't these great colours? 

SUPPLIES & TOOLS:

STAEDTLER fimo soft in a variety of colors
Wooden skewers or dowels
Acrylic paint to match clay colors
#4 flat paintbrush to paint dowels
Clay cutter
Clay roller
Ball point pen housing
20 gauge wire
Wire cutters
White craft glue

1.   Choose a color of fimo clay to make the birdhouse body. Condition the clay by kneading it in your hands until it’s soft and workable. Shape some of the clay into a house shape. Mine were no larger than an inch and a half tall. Poke a hole into the bottom of the house with a skewer.

2.   Condition another color of fimo clay for the roof of your house. Roll this color out to about ¼ inch thick and cut to fit the roof of your house. I used a hollowed out pen to make texture on my roof. Add the roof to the house by gently pressing the two clay colors together. Make a base of the same color you made the roof from by forming a cube of clay a little bit wider than the base of your house. Poke a hole in the base with a skewer.

3.   Wash your hands to remove any of the previous clay color from them. Condition some white fimo clay and make a 1/8 inch thick worm. Cut off little sections of the white worm and roll these into teeny balls. Apply these teeny balls to the walls of your house to decorate it. Use the end of a dowel to push a door way hole into the birdhouse.

4.   Make some birds to decorate your houses by putting two flattened teardrop shapes together. Choose any color to make the birds that you like. Add a beak of orange clay and add some feather texture with the end of a skewer.

5.   Cut a 2 inch piece of wire and curl it around a skewer. Add a bird to one end and poke the other end into the roof of the house. Bake all the pieces in a preheated 230 degree F oven for 20 minutes and let them cool. Cut a piece of skewer to fit between the house and the base. Paint the cut skewer with acrylic paint to match the house.  Assemble the pieces adding white glue to the joins.

6.   Add flowers to some of the houses by making little teardrop shapes and flatten them onto the houses to make petals. The center of each flower is a ball of clay.

Adorable right?

I can almost hear the teeny birds chirping.

Spring time......... come on back!

You can make these houses hanging pendants instead of standing pieces by poking a hole through the peaks of each roof and threading floss or ribbon through to hang the pieces.

Hope you all enjoy these little houses as much as I do.

A big thanks to STAEDTLER for sharing this project from their archives with us.

I'm honored to have been asked to recreate it in instruction form.