As summer slips into those first cool days of autumn, it is time for me to prepare my flower gardens for the winter months ahead. The gourd bird houses that I made last spring need to be cleaned and checked for needed repairs, the fallen leaves needed to be raked and moved to the compose pile, and its time to harvest the flower seeds for next year’s plantings. This portion of the project focuses on the Basic Construction of your house, the second portion teaches how to add Roof Accents to your Bee House, and then you will want to visit our Bee House Gallery of ideas.
The original idea behind this project was to make a few simple, quick bee and bug houses that I could place throughout my garden as winter nests – miniature bird houses. I wanted them to be as biodegradable, eco-friendly as possible, so I chose to use some of my thinner shelled, small craft gourds and dried plant materials from my yard for accents.
As I worked, this project took on a life of its own! What were to be quick, easy gourd houses soon became fun, decorated Autumn ornaments for my door wreaths, Christmas ornaments as gifts, and even several Seed Houses which contain the flower seeds from my garden that I want to share with my family and friends.
If you are a wood carver try this roof technique on your basswood carving eggs. Use your bench knife and straight chisel to cut the flat sides of the roof line in your wood, carve the remaining portion of the basswood egg, then have fun adding a decorative, natural accents roof. This flat roof technique is perfect for paper mache eggs that you can decoupage. Even real turkey and goose eggs can be cut to receive a decorated roof bee house.
Small, dried bottle gourd – 4″ tall x 3″ wide
Craft-paper colored scrapbook paper
Bamboo kitchen skewers
Craft knife, exacto knife, or bench knife
220-grit sandpaper
Pencil
Ruler
Hot glue gun