Does a bird live in it yet?

That's the question Blake asked me every 30 seconds while we made this craft....he's really excited for a bird to live in this little birdhouse we made together, but for now it's sitting next his Babba Fett alarm clock and dinosaur nightlight on the shelves in his room.

I found this little wood birdhouse for $3 in the Target "OneSpot" section and gave it to him for Easter.  He was really looking forward to painting it (and so was I).  I was going to have him just paint the raw wood, but thought if I gave it a base coat of paint it would turn into something really cute to display in the house in the spring.

So I gave it a quick coat of primer, and a coat of the leftover ceiling paint that we had (which is a tiny bit off-white and really flat so it made a great base).  I thought for a minute about painting it a fun color, but thought in the end the white would let Blake do whatever he wanted.

 

 

On the next Tuesday he was home from school (which was an incredibly rainy day so perfect for being crafty) I broke out the paints and the newspaper.  The birdhouse came with a tiny 3-pack of tempera paint, but those looked pretty dried out, so I bought some cheap bright acrylic paint instead.  I limited the colors to just 4 because I didn't want the whole thing to just end up brown when he inevitably mixed all of the colors together.  Overall we had a good time, with only one knocked over water cup!

Since he seems pretty adamant about putting this thing outside now, I bought a can of glossy acrylic sealer to give it a nice polished, waterproof coat.

So here's our finished product for now....will probably end up drilling some small holes in the top so we can hang it from a tree, but with all the rain I'm kinda hoping he's ok with it being an indoor birdhouse at least until we move.  Then we can ceremonially hang it somewhere outside and see if any winged friends take up residence.