Simple Craft: Little House in a Watercolor Aurora Borealis

This little house could belong to one of Santa's elves and so turn into a Christmas craft, or it could simply celebrate such beautiful and unique natural phenomena we have on this earth of ours.

After looking at pictures of the aurora borealis in post cards I have from Alaska put out by Accent Alaska and in Donna Walsh Shepherd's book of Light Shows in the Night Sky Auroras, I attempted similar skies in watercolor.

Humble beginnings of four future crafts

Updates of these watercolors: 

The bottom left watercolor became: Watercolor Craft: Little Igloo Under the Northern Lights  (Dec. 16th).

The top left watercolor became: Reindeer Against the Watercolor Northern Lights Sky (Dec. 20th).

The bottom left watercolor became: Snowy Pine Trees Framing the Watercolor Aurora Borealis Sky: Paper Craft (Dec. 27th)

If you check out www.accentalaska.com and search northern lights, you'll find impressive photos of auroras so fabulous you won't want to take second look at my creative interpretations here. I myself felt like throwing them out except that the beauty of watercolor skies is that the foreground can make all the difference and complement the colors as to make attractive what at first may have seemed to have very little potential. Above, again, then is the humble beginnings of what turned out to be future crafts.

Below is the background, not pictured above, I chose for the little house in the aurora borealis craft.

Little House background

Watercolor skies are great crafts for all ages and abilities as it's all in what you do with it, and how you decide to view it.

The northern lights are so varied, that each artist has so much room to let his or her imagination run wild. Donna Walsh Shepherd's little book is rich in essential facts about this phenomenon and it is from her that I learned southern and northern lights can reflect each other. It's a book older children could read themselves. For me it's a quick read with enough detail to accurately help me understand these unique lights.

I love combining learning and crafting.

Now back to the craft.

Materials:

• 2 sheets of letter size printer paper
• 1 sheet of red construction paper
• 1 sheet of brown construction paper
• 1 sheet of yellow construction paper
• 1 cotton ball
• watercolor paints and brush
• glue
• scissors
• and a ruler if you want straight lines ( I don't always use one.)

This is a craft that I like to do a lot of estimating and playing with pieces and placement.

I've put my little house in the snow. Since I used white 8 1/2 x 11 letter size printer paper for the background, it was easy to take another sheet and to cut a wavy line about 2 inches up from the bottom for the snow.

Snow on the ground

It fits nicely along the bottom of the watercolor background.

Just place it --the snow-- on without gluing it yet.

For this craft, I like to cut out all the pieces first before gluing, so I can make adjustments as needed.

After cutting out the snow, I cut a square out of red construction paper about the size I wanted my house.

Red base of house

I tucked the square under the snow--again only placing on the background without gluing--to see if it was the size I wanted.

Next, I placed a piece of brown paper on the top of the red square and marked how large I wanted to make the triangle for the roof. 

Brown triangle roof topping the red square

Then I cut out the door from brown paper and a knob from red paper, and put them both in their place.

Door and knob

Next I chose the windows to be yellow paper to give a warm glow for the inside. I also used a brown marker to add the look of wooden frames into the panes.

Windows with marker frames

Almost finished, I cut a small rectangle out of red construction paper.

Rectangle for the chimney

and tucked it into the top of the roof.

The chimney all tucked in

Last I stretched out a small portion of a cotton ball and tucked it into the top of the chimney for the smoke rising up out of the fire in the fireplace of the cozy little house.

Smoke out of the chimney

After I was happy with the size and placement of all the pieces, I glued them all on , putting a small puddle of glue on a scrap of paper and dipping a cotton swab into the glue to run across the edges of each piece of the picture.

The order I glued the pieces on is the same as the order I used to cut them out: 1. snow, 2. red base of house, 3. triangle of the roof, 4. door and knob, 5 windows, 6. chimney, 7. smoke.

Apply glue with a cotton swab to the back edges of the snow first

Glue on pieces in the same order as they were cut out

Since all the gluing is done at once, it's easy to tuck pieces under one another as long as you leave the edges loose. That is, don't smooth all the edges down after gluing them in place. Wait until all the pieces are exactly where you want them before smoothing all edges over and sealing them down.

Leave the edges loose to easily tuck under other pieces

To  attach the chimney smoke, put the glue on the background instead of the cotton, so the cotton swab doesn't get stuck to the cotton smoke and tear it all apart.

Little House in a Watercolor Aurora Borealis Finished

Cork Bunny Craft

This cork bunny craft is like the cork penguin craft except I am choosing a natural cork instead of a synthetic one.  Once we got started with the penguin, so many other animals came rolling into our ideas that I decided we would stop at the bunny. Since my goal with this blog is to inspire creativity using only a few inexpensive materials, I'll let your imagination take over to create your own animals, for now at least. :).

Choice of color to wrap around the cork for the body can make us think of a whole range of animals; black and white may become a panda or zebra; brown may become a bear, hedge hog or beaver; Grey may become an elephant.

The techniques we use with cork animals can easily be applied to toilet paper rolls only on a larger scale. For a penguin's eyes fit to the scale of a empty roll, instead of a hole punch to form the circle a small lid might be traced.

So here's this sweet little cork bunny craft.

What's fun about imagination is you can chose any color for your animal. We chose pink, but you don't have to. You can make big eyes and round the top of the ears if you'd like. Feel free to create.

Cork Bunny Craft Materials

• White printer paper
• Construction paper, your choice of color--whatever color you'd like your bunny to be--we chose pink
• not toxic washable glue like Elmer's White or Clear
• Clear tape like Scotch
• Hole punch
• Scissors, kid safe
• Black marker, non-toxic, washable
• Ruler
• Natural wine cork

Natural Wine Cork

In my last post describing the Cork Penguin Craft, I contrast the benefits of using natural cork or synthetic cork. For the penguin, I chose synthetic, and for this craft, we are using natural.

1 3/4 inches long

4 1/2 centimeters long

These measurements of the cork are approximate.

15/16 inches in diameter

2 4/10 centimeters in diameter

Bunny body 1 --width of strip

1. This is the beginning of measuring the strip of paper which will wrap around the bunny body and be the main color of the bunny.

You can see we've chosen to make a pink bunny.

We laid the cork down on the pink paper and marked the paper on a point a little longer then the cork because when it is wound around the cork, it will make a stable base and compensate for the natural cork's irregularities. We marked the strip here for a width of about 2 1/16 inches or 5 3/10 centimeters.

Bunny body 2 --length of strip

2. Measure the length of the strip for the main color of the bunny body to wrap all the way around the cork.

Here we made it about 4 1/2 inches or 10 7/10 centimeters long. It turned out to be a bit too long, but that's okay.

Bunny body 3

3. Roll this strip around the cork.

Since the cork's diameter may be slightly different at each end, sometimes it's helpful to line the edge of the paper up with a word or emblem across the cork.

Roll loosely, so you can adjust it around the cork, so the bunny will be able to stand up without falling over.

Bunny body 4

4. Tape at the back.

Ears and paws

5. Fold a small square of colored paper (used for the body) in half to cut out the ears and paws.

Starting at the edge opposite the fold, cut a long thin rectangle for the ears.

Ears and paws 2

6. Since the paper was folded, you should have two rectangles. Mine are about 2 1/2 inches or 6 1/4 centimeters long and 1/4 inch or 7/10 centimeters wide.

These ears turned out to be too long, but it is easier to trim them down while assembling the bunny than to lengthen them.

Ears and paws 3

7. At one end of the long rectangles, cut the corners off for the tops of the ears.

Ears and paws 4

8. Snip off the bottom of the ears, about 1/4 inch or 1/2 centimeter, for the paws.

This will give you two mini rectangles to use for the paws.

Ears and paws 5

9. Round off the bottom corners of the little rectangles for the paws.

You may not be able to clearly see from the picture, but there are two little paws in it, one on top of the other.

Ears and paws 6

10. Fold back the bottom 1/2 inch or 1 centimeter of the ears.

You'll use this little folded back tail to attach the ears to the top of the head later.

Inside of ears

11. Use the same steps for the inside of the ears as you did for the outside.

Except, eliminate steps for paws. use white paper and keep in mind they should be smaller to fit inside the ears.

Inside of ears 2

12. Glue the inside of the ears onto the ears.

Here's where a toothpick or popsicle stick might come in handy to apply the glue. I squeezed from the bottle and got way too much as you can see in the picture.


Put the ears aside to dry.

Bunny eyes

13. Punch the eyes out of white paper with a hole punch.

Bunny belly

14.  From the white paper, cut a rectangle about 1 inch or 2 2/10 centimeters by 1/2 inch or 1 2/10 centimeters.

Bunny face and belly

15. Glue on the eyes, the belly, and then the paws in that order.

Set aside to let dry.

Top of bunny head

16. Carefully trace around the top of the head without touching the face you just glued on.

Perhaps, it would be easier to trace the top of the head before gluing on the face :) If you trace the top first, take note of which end you traced because the two ends may be different sizes.

Top of bunny head 2

17. Cut out the circle you traced. Notice the pencil marks at the edge of  the circle. Later when putting the bunny together, make sure they are underneath so they can't be seen.

Top of bunny head 3

18. Glue on top of the head.

After it the glue has dried, attach the ears.

Let the glue dry.

Bunny face

19. When all the glue is dry, draw the face on with a marker.

Wine Cork Penguin Craft

Wine Cork Penguin

Materials for wine cork penguin

• Wine cork
• Black construction paper
• White printer paper
• Orange construction paper
• Pencil
• Glue
• Clear tape
• Ruler
• Scissors

Two wine corks: natural and synthetic

You can use either wine cork to create this little penguin, but if you would like one that stands up, a synthetic cork usually has a flatter bottom. So the penguin can stand wherever you place him, and create your own arctic scene.

You could also add an ornament hanger to the top and use the penguin to decorate your Christmas tree. In this case, using a natural cork is fine.

First I'll give instructions for cutting out all the pieces then put them all together.

Creating the shapes needed for the penguin 

Penguin body

1. Cut a strip of black construction paper to wrap the cork with for the body--for this 7/8" diameter cork, I used a 4" x  2" rectangle. 

Top of penguin head

2. On the black construction paper, trace around the cork for the top of the head.

Circle for top of head

3. Cut out the traced circle.

Penguin tummy

4. Using white paper, cut out a 1" x 1/2" rectangle for  the tummy.

Penguin tummy-2

5. Cut off the top two corners of  the white rectangle to round the top of the tummy.

Penguin wings

6. Trace the tummy shape onto black construction paper for the wings.

Note: Keep the white tummy piece with the same side up for both wings in case the edges get pencil marks on them. Then when

gluing on the tummy, make sure any pencil marks are on the

back. As you can see from my penguin, this is hindsight

wisdom.

Penguin wings-2

7. After cutting out the two black wings, place the flat ends up. The flat ends are the tops of the wings. Whereas, the flat end of the tummy is the bottom.

Penguin wings-3

8. Trim up both sides of each wing to make the tops of the wings narrower than the bottoms.

Penguin nose

9. Cut a very small triangle from orange construction paper for the nose.

Penguin eyes

10. Use a hole punch for the white circles of the eyes.

Penguin eyes-2

11. Use a black marker for the eye balls.

Putting the penguin together

Attaching the penguin body

12. Roll the black strip around the cork and tape together in back.

Gluing on the tummy

13. Glue tummy on front.

Gluing on face

14. Glue on eyes and nose by putting three little dots of glue above the tummy. The two for the eyes, across from each other, and the third for the nose at the top of the tummy.

Then carefully place one tiny eye then the other, and last the nose on the dot of glue reserved for each.

Gluing on the wings

15. Glue on the wings; one one each side.

Gluing on the top of the head

16. Glue on the top of the head.

If you'd like the penguin to be a Christmas ornament, poke a hole in the middle of the circle before gluing it on. 

Through the small hole, thread a loop of yarn leaving the tails underneath to be included in gluing the top of the penguin head on.

This is your penguin to remind you of refreshing winter breezes in the heat of summer.

Here's the trailer from March of the Penguins. The Wine Cork Penguin Craft was modeled after the Emperor Penguin, but you can see from the trailer, I didn't include some details. Perhaps you'd like to create a more accurate penguin.

We've been watching Wild South America on HuluPlus. The Penguin Shores episode about the Humboldt penguin is amazing, and if you watch it, you'll notice differences in the penguins. Perhaps you would prefer to model your penguin after Humboldt penguins instead of Emperor penguins.