Peep-O! Happy Easter!

How do you like this cute little hen house?! It's super easy to make, let me show you how!

First, take an A4 sheet of Crumb Cake cardstock.  Along the long side, score it at 7cm, 14cm, 21cm and 28cm.  Along the short side, score it at 5cm and 14cm.

Cut as shown above.  Basically at the far right hand side you need to cut out the little pieces at the top and bottom.  Cut down the score lines at the top so you have four squares.  At the bottom, cut out the piece at the far left, and the piece third from left.

Now is the time to stamp your woodgrain on your hen house. The easiest way to do this is to fold your cardstock in half on the score line.  Ink the Woodgrain background stamp (117100) up with Crumb Cake ink, and stamp on the cardstock so the middle squares are covered.  Flip it over and do the same for the other side, so all four middle squares are stamped.  Don't worry if you get the image on parts of the top and/or bottom squares.  It doesn't matter and it won't show.

Next we need to make the door hole for our hens to go in and out! Turn your cardstock over and, with the five cm score line at the bottom, (the side with only two flaps at the bottom) fold the second flap inwards as shown above.  Centre your punch between the vertical score lines and push it in as far as it will go.  Then punch the hole out.

Now you're annoyed because you've punched a hole in your flap as well as your house - don't worry!

As you can see from the photo above, trim the flap off just below the hole, so you have a piece of flap remaining that is approximately 1cm wide. Apply glue to the small flap at the far left, and all three bottom squares apart from the one with the hole above it - see photo above.

Fix the small flap to the edge of the "wall" and fold the bottom flaps inwards to make the floor.  It doesn't matter what order you do them in, but obviously the one with no glue gets turned in last. Ta-dah! You have your hen house!

Now we need to make a little "roosting bar" for our little chick to "perch" on. Here goes:

You need to cut a square of Crumb Cake Cardstock 8.8cm or 88mm.  That's just a fraction short of 9cm.  This measurement is important as you need your perch ever so slightly smaller than the box so it slides in easily.

You then need to score it on all four sides at 1cm. Stamp the cardstock again with your Woodgrain background stamp and Crumb Cake ink pad. Cut up to make the little tabs on each of the score lines by 1cm to make little tabs and attach glue or sticky strip to these.  Punch a hole in the centre using your 1 3/8" punch (you will have to bend the flap down as you did before with the main box, but it won't punch anything out of the flap).

Fold your sides up and stick the tabs.  Your perch should now look like this.

Slide it into your hen house.

Now we need a roof to keep him warm and dry.  Let's make one!

Take a piece of Chocolate Chip cardstock measuring 9cm x 14cm.  Score it in half along the 14cm side at 7cm.  Then put the whole piece through a paper crimper (or ribbler as I like to call it, just because I love that word!) so it looks a bit like corrugated iron or something......!

Attach one half of the roof to the back flap of the box, allowing a little overhang at the back.

The front part of the  roof can be held in place with either a small glue dot or a piece of velcro if you've got some handy.

To decorate the house I used the Bird Builder Punch (117191) for the foliage which I punched in Old Olive cardstock and the flowers were made using the Boho Blossoms Punch which were punched with Melon Mambo cardstock and small pearls (119247).  The sentiment on the roof is from the Easter Blossoms stamp set (122057 - from the Spring Mini catalogue) and punched out using the Extra Large Oval Punch (119859).

The chick I have used is a Smarties Easter chick available from most newsagents and supermarkets.  Here he is nestled in his coop (he fits very cosily in the hole of his "perch" at just the right height to be seen through the "doorway", with a few other eggs that haven't hatched yet. ;O)

The "straw" to make his nest is made by cutting very thin strips (about 1-2mm) of So Saffron cardstock and feeding them through the ribbler.  Then arrange them around him and putting the other eggs on top of it.

Close the roof down with your glue dot or velcro and there you have it! A lovely little chicken coop with chocolate eggs and a little chick that's already hatched!

I hope you like this tutorial.  If you have any queries or would like to order all or any of the components to make these Easter boxes, please just get in touch.

TFL! Joanne x