Treehouse Toy Craft

SUPPLIES & TOOLS:

• Tree branches
• Wooden birdhouses
• 1"x 10" piece of wood (poplar is used here. Length needed is determined by desired size of your finished toy.)
• Sturdy cardboard tubes from recycle bin, such as fabric tubes, oatmeal canisters, baking powder containers, etc.
• Jigsaw
• Hacksaw
• Gardening shears
• Drill
• Sandpaper, various grits
• Craft knife
• Self-healing craft mat
• Wood glue
• Craft glue
• Acrylic paint
• Brushes
• Twine
• Scrapbook paper
• Brown kraft paper
• Duct tape
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Miniature wood fencing

DIRECTIONS:
BIRDHOUSES
OPEN DOORWAY SHAPES

1. Use hacksaw blade to cut straight line from left and right edge of circular opening in birdhouse to base of birdhouse. Remove excess wood and sand edges of doorway.
2. Paint birdhouse base as desired. Create special features below.

ARCHED DOOR

1. Draw arched door shape around circular opening of birdhouse. Use a craft knife to score shape. Score repeatedly until door is cut out. Sand edges of door and opening. Break off bird perch and sand remainder smooth.

BORAD AND BATTAN STYLE DECOR

1. Trim 1/8"-1/4" square dowel rods to size using craft knife or sawblade and miter box. Paint rods, then attach with wood glue.

SHAKER SINGLE ROOFS

1. Laminate popsicle sticks with wood glue, moving each layer down by 1" as you glue. Cut laminated plank in half. Attach to roof with wood glue. (See diagram)
2. Create laminated planks for roof eaves by cutting plank in the middle at matching angle to bird roof. (See diagram)

TREEHOUSE STRUCTURE

1. Cut 1"x 10" board into lengths for the base and tiers of the treehouse. Use a jigsaw to create wavy, natural edges to each tier. You can use sandpaper to round the edge of the wood, or router the edges.
2. Cut a couple of the sturdy cardboard tubes to be about 2" taller than the birdhouse you plan to place on the base of the structure. Place them on top of the base and stack the next wood tier above them. Repeat this process until you have dry-fitted each tier of the structure, arranging the birdhouses as you go to see what looks nice and is balanced.
3. After determining where all of the cardboard supports should be for each tier of the structure, use wood glue to glue the cardboard tubes into place.

TREE BARK

1. After the wood glue has dried, create the look of a natural tree with bark on the cardboard tubes. Begin by crumbling up pieces of the brown kraft paper and duct taping them in place to give a more natural tree trunk silhouette to the cardboard tubes.
2. After making the natural tree silhouette, rip up lots of little, long pieces of brown kraft paper to use as bark. Mix together 3 parts wood glue with 1 part water in a bowl, and dip the torn paper pieces into the mixture, then place them on the tree trunk of your treehouse structure, completely covering the cardboard bases and duct taped sections.

ACCESSORIES

1. After the kraft paper bark has dried, place the birdhouses into position, using wood glue on the bottom to make their position permanent if desired. Add decorative accents like rope ladders, swings and fencing. (The fencing used here was purchased from JOANN and was not crafted.)

SWING

1. Cut small tree slice from fallen branch. Drill two holes through right and left sides. Thread twine through holes and affix into place either with glue or through drilled holes in the treehouse platforms.

ROPE LADDER

1. Cut several small branches to 1 1/2" lengths. Cut two pieces of twine about 1/3 longer than desired ladder length. Knot ends. Tie twine around ends of small branches. Repeat until desired length is achieved. Glue rope ladder to birdhouse base.

BANNERS

1. Tie twine to tree branches. Cut out flags using pattern. Fold flags over twine, glue closed, using thin layer of glue.

LEAVES

1. Use green acrylic paint to paint both sides of cotton canvas or muslin. Trace leaf pattern onto canvas when completely dry, and cut out. Tie leaves onto branches and pull leaves taut.

JOANN HACKS:

• When creating the natural shape of the tree, you can add little platforms for smaller birdhouses by taping smaller cardboard tubes onto the larger ones, and building out the natural shape with crumpled kraft paper and tape.