Birdhouse Gift Boxes

Joanne recently ran an SU! workshop for my card group ladies.  We made a card for our Make & Take but she demoed how to make this cute birdhouse using the Mini Milk Carton and Top Note dies.  Oh my goodness, everyone LOVED it!  Jan and I asked Joanne if we could make one at our monthly SU! Make & Take evening and Joanne said yes and let us loose with her dies!

We cut the milk carton out of Crumb Cake CS, folded all the crease lines (apart from the pouring spout bit at the top 'cos we didn't need that) and stamped the Sanded stamp all over it using Crumb Cake ink.  We assembled the carton bit together and then made the roof.  We die cut two Early Espresso Top Note shapes, scored them at the halfway point on the short sides and then we cut them at just over the half way point on the long sides.  We glued the two shapes together to form the roof - you can have a roof with a curly edge front and back or you can have a roof that's straight at the back.  We had a discussion about what was best and decided that if you were going to make a row of houses as a decoration and they were going to be lined up on a shelf the straight back would be a better option.

To decorate the birdhouse, we punched black 1" circles for the hole and stamped and punched the bird and wing.  We stamped the bird on Marina Mist CS using the same colour ink, punched it out, punched the wing from Pacific Point CS and added a tiny pearl for the eye.  The bird and wing were sponged around the edges.  We punched three Pear Pizzazz branches, one for the front of the house for the birdie to perch on and we trimmed two to decorate the roof.  The bird is popped up.  The tiny flowers were made with a punch from the Itty Bitty punch pack, we pressed them on a moulding mat with a ball end embossing tool to give them some shape and put a dot from a marker in the centre.

The birdhouse Joanne showed us wasn't a gift box, it was purely decorative but a few of us wanted to use the birdhouse as a gift box.  So when it came to fixing the roof onto the milk carton we used permanent adhesive on one side only.  On the side with the flowers on we applied a small strip of sellotape to the carton and then put a couple of glue dots underneath the roof and this holds the box closed but enables the recipient to open it easily.

This is the front view of the box.

This is a side view.

The ladies at card group want to make these next time and Jan very sweetly said she will lend me her milk carton and Top Note dies so that we can.  I borrowed the dies straight away so I could put another one together as a tiny gift for Debbie and Mike.  I discovered that three tealights fit inside perfectly! I had a box of herb scented tealights in three colours of green so I popped one of each inside the box.  This box was made more or less the same as the first one - the differences are I used a woodgrain stamp, made this box with the roof straight at the back, used a different flower punch and added some gems.

Another difference you can see in this photo is that I added a 'LIFT' tab so the recipient knows to lift the tab to get inside the box.  I used the Modern Label punch to make the tab - I cut the label in half and glued both pieces together before gluing the tab under the roof.  I wouldn't like someone to rip the birdhouse open after all that effort - so that's why I added the tab!

Supplies:
Stamps: SU! Sanded bg stamp, bird from SU! Punch Potpourri set, Hero Arts Designer Woodgrain bg stamp
CS: SU! Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Pear Pizzazz, Marina Mist, Pacific Point, Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo & Basic Black
Ink: SU! Crumb Cake, Marina Mist, Pacific Point, Peach Parfait marker
Tools: SU! Mini Milk Carton & Top Note dies, SU! Two Step bird punch, flower punch from Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack, SU! Modern Label punch, 1" circle punch,  X Cut mini flower punch, sponge daubers
Embellishments & accessories: pearl, gems, SU! Dimensionals

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