Spring Bird's Nest

Spring is on its way!! We hear the birds chirping their morning greetings. This month Chloe and I decided to make our own bird's nest.

We used Creative Paperclay®, a clay extruder (my favorite clay toy tool), and a canape cutter.

Chloe rolled a piece of clay into a log and put it in the extruder; I did the plunging. We coiled the extruded strands into a nest shape.

Next, we rolled out a piece of clay to about 1/8" thickness, and cut a circle for the back of the nest. We used a thin layer of slip between the nest and the circle to be sure the two pieces fused. This circle serves two purposes—it closes the bottom of the nest and provides a flat surface to attach a pin back or necklace bail.

Three small pinches of clay were formed into egg shapes to fill our nest. 

After the nest and eggs were complete dry, we began the painting process. Before applying paint I always seal pieces with PPA. A short wait for the PPA to dry, then painting. We used raw umber acrylic paint for the nest and turquoise, golden yellow, and maroon for the eggs. (Game of Thrones fans do you see a connection here???) When those were dry, we dry brushed both the nest and eggs with a gold metallic acrylic to add highlights. 

Our nest and eggs are tiny!!

Here's our finished bird's nest—the perfect decoration for spring. And don't forget that you could add a pin back or jewelry bail to have a wearable piece of art.

Carole	Chloe
Table Cell	Table Cell

Creative Paperclay® Bird Nest

I love collecting little things... even more I love making shadow boxes with the little things.  Sometimes I can't find everything I would like to put in a shadow box, so I make them!  I wanted a birds nest and couldn't find one small enough.  My Creative Paperclay® BIRD NEST with EGGS is the focal point.  

Here is the finished nest! 

To make the nests I took Creative Paperclay® and made long skinny noodles. Then laid them in a circular nest shape. The noodles are very delicate and were not adhered to each other.  When they were dried I used Sakura Crystal Lacquer to hold them together.

With small amounts of clay I rolled out very small eggs!  

 Here is the nest and eggs in the center of the shadow box after they were painted with acrylic paint.  

In this box a frozen Charlotte made of Creative Paperclay® is holding one of the eggs! 

Here is one of the eggs balanced on a shoe from Monopoly sitting on a dollhouse chair.   

 

In the back is a Creative Paperclay® heart cut with a mini cookie cutter, painted with burgundy acrylic paint.  

Left over from a previous project the bird is made with Creative Paperclay® in a mold! 

 

Close-up of the top of the bird themed house.  

The finished house

Just think of the endless items you could make with Creative Paperclay® to add to your collection of little things to make a shadow box!