Peekaboo

Alright, with Patrick's Day out of the way (belatedly happy Paddy's Day, all afiliated Hibernophiles out there!), I can finally get down to the first decorating highlight of the year. Easter is around the corner. And don't I know it - this year's fasting exercise is streeeeetching my patience. No chocolate since mid-February. A self-imposed Facebook ban. No crisps. I am surviving, but I *am* looking forward to a chocolate feast on Easter Sunday. But I digress. It's still about a week too early to bring the Easter eggs out. Mr Craft-Werk objects, as you know. Especially when we are talking silly relics of religious rituals. But where there is a pair of scissors, there is also a will.

"Peekaboo"

I came up with these whimsical little bird houses with chicks peeking out of them after I found a whole stash of those pipe-cleaner chicks in my craft-materials box. "What can I do with them?" I thought to myself. I came up with a little paper birdhouse that is very easy to make - all it needs is some nice cardstock, glue and a pair of scissors.

First of all I made a template from which I could cut a number of those shapes. I drew it up simply by estimating and experimenting. Feel free to use the image to the right: Print it on a piece of card stock to use as your template. (I scanned it at the highest resolution I could - just resize in the size that you need.)

When you look at my template you will hopefully see the lines that I drew on the template. They are the folding lines. Fold up the two main bits - the front of the birdhouse with the hole in it, and the back. before you then fold the sides over so that they form the two sidewalls and the roof, fold the edges in, in order to glue them to the front and back of the house. Ah, you'll work it out as you go along.

For some nice, colourful paper in spring colours I "blasphemed" and ripped photos out of a book on funky wallpapers. (I feel bad about destroying a book - there is something sacrosanct about books, isn't there?) The pipe cleaner chicks were simply popped into the finished birdhouses and secured with a drop of glue.

And that is it - here they are, my colony of chicks, frolicking in- and outside their houses. They blend in pretty well with the first branches of forsythia from my garden. They bring a smile to my face, every time I look at them.

Happy spring time!

Best,