twelve days of christmas ornament crafts (two turtledoves)

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me... (image from Brian Wildsmith's 12 Days of Christmas)

Juliet and I are on a 12 days of Christmas ornament adventure. Today we made two turtle doves. (Also known as "pigeons" in our house. For some reason, Juliet thinks all the birds in this song are pigeons...)

I was VERY inspired by Wildsmith's turtledove illustration and took on a slightly overly ambitious project. (Sometimes I forget that Juliet is only two years old...)

Basically, I built the house while Juliet was in bed one night, and the next day we decorated it together. Here's what I did: I cut an orange juice container in half to make the birdhouse.

Then I cut two pieces of cardboard for the roof. (I cut a hole for the juice spout which is our "chimney")

Taped it on.

I didn't get a picture, but I also cut two triangles for the sides of the roof. I taped those on as well. Took a few tries to get those exactly right as I don't like measuring things even though I know I should.

This is the basic house ready for Juliet's decorative touches.

To make the turtledoves, I used an old milk jug. I free-handed some bird shapes--the plastic cut really easily with my x-acto knife.

I punched a hole for the string and Juliet glued a googly eye on both sides of its head.

We raided the craft box for the decorations for this one. Juliet glued feathers on the bird shapes and then decided they needed a bit of sparkle.

And by "a bit" I mean a whole capful. This is one fancy pigeon.

We glued bits of foil to the walls of the house and then glued some sequins on for shine. (When I say, "we" I mean Juliet glued two pieces of foil on and maybe 3 sequins before she ran away and decided chasing the cat was more fun than craft time. I pretty much did all house decorating. Remember how I told you this was overly-ambitious?)

As for the roof--who needs shingles when you have "beangles?" We glued navy beans to the roof. And while it looks good, the beans really weighed this ornament down and made it very top heavy. Juliet actually liked this part and did a whole side of the roof on her own. I think the beans were just the right size for her little fingers to manipulate.

We added a decorative piece above the doorway, tied the birds inside using gift wrap ribbon, and hung it on the tree.

Here's a turtledove close-up (most of the sequins fell off after drying time.)

Ta-da! Hanging proudly on our tree--a little skewed due to the copious amounts of beans on the roof, but glittery and fun none-the-less!

I'm linking this post up with stART at A Mommy's Adventure! Check out her site for more great stART projects!