Creating Norwegian Woods

Norwegian Wood Birdhouse

As scatterbrained as I usually am, believe it or not, I usually sketch out each project I do, a holdover, I guess, from my graphic design days. I can work out the design, what gets painted and where, what gets added on, even color schemes. The classes of Dr. Allen in Journalism School live on in the 21st century! However, as we all know, things change A LOT but it gives me a roadmap.

NORWEGIAN WOOD was originally going to have smaller birdhouses glued on but after playing around with crackle finish, I decided to use them on another project. They morphed into my BIRDHOUSE NEIGHBORHOOD. I discovered that drilling each one at the base for dowels, painting front and backs with different Pennsylvania Dutch designs over slightly different crackled finish, finding a platform, legs, that I had another original craft item! This was a more original and fun to create item. Each birdhouse can be moved about both in the three base holes and front to back.

The addition of a fence hides many sins!

The tree on the roof breaks up a huge space

The original birdhouse, painted black, was designed for layers of crackle paint. I kept using lighter and lighter green paint over the crackle medium adding houses and farms I saw in Norway when they had dried. It is an amazing effect, almost like adding a layer of paint with a palette knife! In fact this entire birdhouse was an experiment that I had to cover and start over several times. 

Beware YouTube! In learning how to use the crackle finish, something DecoArt is not too good about explaining, I discovered that some people use plain old Elmer's White Glue for the same affect! Well, they might but my attempt was a disaster causing me to paint the base of the birdhouse several times. By using a fence up front, a country scene on most sides but with with mountains and water over the crackled finish, I was able to recreate a form of painted scenery (and hide a multitude of sins)! I added large trees to the roof to break up the dead space. It was a challenge as I painted making up a unique birdhouse that became a blend of art and crafted birdhouse.

What I created here was a Nordic four sided landscape birdhouse. Not everyone has to have Pennsylvania Dutch, Rosemaling or other kinds or designs. Some birdhouses can be exciting as a kind of three dimensional art that sits on a tabletop!

I have a store, KrugsStudio.etsy.com, so if you are interested in a variety of birdhouses or crafts and photography plus one of a kind fine art paintings, please be sure to check out that store as well. KrugsStudio.etsy.com. Thank you for visiting!