Wood Houses : Art and Poetry Project

This is a project that I came up with a few months ago.  I used it at Christmas time for the Grade 3's but you can use it anytime.

It's a house that also has a poem incorporated with it.

Mine states:

" My House
Is warm and snug
full of people I love
and a DOOR
to shut out the
world"

(I think I was  a little stressed at the time)

The kids had a great time making them and it was fairly easy to execute.











MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- piece of wood 5 inches high, I used 1 1/2 X 3 1/2 timber ( or 2 by 4's)
- saw
- sandpaper
- acrylic paint
- wax paper
- white paper, colored paper
- pencil crayons, fine sharpies
- tacky glue
- thin cardboard or chipboard
- Mod podge
- a poem printed out in computer text or hand written

PROCEDURE:

Now the timbers I bought were 8' long.  My volunteer carpenter (thanks Mr. B) cut them on an angle in 5" sections.  He cut a 10" piece and then cut into 2.

You get 19 houses for each 8' timber.

I had the kids sand all the edges.  They loved that part.




We wrote their names on the bottom in sharpie.

I then had the kids paint the houses with acrylic paint.  No need to paint the top or bottom.Place each house on a small piece of wax paper.

The kids tended to paint the front first and then we set them upright and turned the wax paper so they could reach all the sides.

Let dry.

Take your cardboard or chipboard and cut out a roof.  We used rectangles that were 4" by 2 1/2".

You want a little overhang at the sides.

 Paint one side of the cardboard.

Let dry.

Now we will work on the windows.

For the Grade 3's I made up a sheet of windows for them.

This way they could do their drawings and then cut out the windows.

The top windows were 1"x1"
- the big front window was 1.5"x1.5"
- we had a back window that was 2" by 2.25"
- and 2 side windows that were 1" X 1.5"

Using pencils, pencil crayons, colored paper and fine sharpies the kids made little scenes in the windows. For the Christmas houses there were a lot of Christmas trees and decorations as well as family members.  Make sure you don't use washable markers as they will smear when you go to Mod podge the house.

Glue windows into place.  Make sure the top windows are about an inch down from the top edge of the wood so you can see them after you attach the roof.  The door was a rectangle cut from a piece of colored paper with a door knob drawn in.

For the roof cut little shingle shapes out of colored paper and glue into place starting with the top row.  Stagger each row so it looks like real shingles.  The kids also drew in some of the shingles with a white gel pen to mix it up a bit.  Attach roof to the house with tacky glue.  You want the back of the roof flush to the back of the house giving you a nice overhang in the front.

Print out or nicely hand write your poem.  Cut out sections and glue into place on the house.  Finally Mod Podge the whole thing for a nice shiny finish.  If  the windows wrinkle a bit don't worry everything will flatten out as the Mod Podge dries.

That's it.  The grade 3's wrote a short sentence starting with "My House at Christmas....."

I can envision a nice Valentine themed house.

See you soon.

How to Make a Christmas "House" shaped Book

I introduced this "House" shaped book project at my last conference.

Here is a Christmas version.

I have been playing around with books alot lately.  Trying to find ways to make them more interesting, ways to make the creation of a book more like an art project.

Here I utilize 2 front and back covers (one for the roof and one for the house).  The neat thing about this "house" book is that it can stand up on it's own, like a house for display.  Very cool!









Inside you can put in as many pages as you want, whatever type of paper you want.  It can be a story, Christmas poetry, photos, whatever you wish.

So let's get started:

MATERIALS REQUIRED 

- cardboard, I used corrugated for the roof, chipboard (cereal box) for the house
- book pages, scrapbooking paper, or colored paper
- glue
- scissors
- paint
- pencil crayons, gel pens, sharpies
- glitter glue
- white paper for pages
- jump rings, 15mm
- hole punch
- Mod podge for sealing, optional


PROCEDURE:

Take your cardboard and cut 2 pieces 4" x 5" and 2 pieces 3.5" x 7".

These will be the front and back covers.

Paint one side of each piece.  Pick contrasting colors for your roof and house.




Let dry.

Take some colored paper, scrapbooking paper or whatever you have and cover the other side of the cardboard.

Place the roof piece on top of the house piece, line up the tops.  Make a little mark with a pencil where the bottom of the roof is on the house piece.  

This will help you put the windows, etc. in the right place.

Start making your door and windows.  I like to have a nice frame around mine.  So it looks like the door frame and the window sills.

I cut out either the window or door and then glue that shape onto the paper I want as the frame.  I then trim with the scissors.
For example here is my black door glued to the white paper I want for the door frame.  I did not show any white at the bottom.

I then glue it to my house.  Using a white gel pen I add a house # and a door knob.

For the windows I sketched out some details in pencil and added color with paint or pencil crayons.

Using a fine sharpie I outline a few details in my windows.

I then add some glitter glue that I brush on.

 As I've said before I always have the kids use a paintbrush to apply glitter otherwise they just put gobs and gobs on!

Do the same for the back cover.

For the roof I cut a few shingles out of colored paper and glued them on.

Because this is a winter scene I also cut out some icicles out of white paper.  You could also use white felt.

I then added some white paint and glitter for an icy snowy roof.

I used my gel pen to draw in some more shingle shapes.

Cut some pages for your book just slightly smaller than your house cover.

Punch 2 holes into your front roof.  I then take a pencil and mark the subsequent pages and punch holes in them as well.  I'm trying to get everything to line up together.

Take 2 jump rings.  These are 15 mm, the largest I could find.  I found these at Wal mart, 90 rings for about $3.00.

The rings are aluminum so they open quite easily.  I start with one hole and then put all the covers and pages on in order.  Close up the ring and then do the other side.

Finally you can add a title to your house if you wish.  You can also apply a sealer like Mod podge to your covers to make them more durable.

That's it.  Now that you know the basic construction for these "house" books I'm sure you can think of other ways to use them.

I'm sure there's someone in your family that would love one!

See you soon.