DIY painted bird house

Banksy flower girl stencil bird house

I decided to put a couple of bird houses in the trees around the house so the kids could watch the birds come and go. I could only find either really dull wooden houses or really expensive extravagant ones – that don’t look like they’d be suitable for birds anyway! So I set about making my own painted bird houses starting with a cheap bird box, a little imagination, some paints and a couple of stencils. Here’s what my favourite finished one looks like (keep reading for the guide on how cheap and easy it is to do this) –

Banksy flower girl stencil bird house

DIY bird house – Step by step guide

Step 1 – The base coat.

I picked up this bird house from amazon (See the exact one here) and I liked it for the black roof.

Bird house ready to paint

The first step was to get a base coat on it to paint the stencil on. It took 4 coats to get a decent cover on it and this was done using Cuprinol Shades – Silver Birch –  A 1 litre tin is the smallest you can get and this will cover the bird houses and leave loads left! Here’s how they look after the first coat.

Base coat applied

You need to do all the coats on the same day to get a complete cover look. I’d say stick to darker colours as you don’t want make the bird box stand out too much in the trees.

Step 2 – Apply the stencil

I got the Banksy stencil here- Banksy flower girl stencil and it was in the  11cm x 17 cm size – the smallest one they offer and it fits just perfectly on the front of the box. I then tapped it into place and stencil painted the girl in black and the ballon in red – as the original was done.

Stenciling a bird house

I’m really pleased with how it looks and think it’s a simple way to make a bird house unique with out spending a fortune. I’ve positioned it quite high up a silver birch tree which I can see from my home office window so I get to see it all the time. Here it is in the tree.

IMAGE – Will appear once I get the ladders out and actually get it up a tree!

Other stencil bird house ideas –

I did this Robins nesting box at the same time with a really simple bird on a wire stencil. This just adds a nice little design to keep it unique without changing the look too much or using bright colours.

Robin box

Bird on a wire painted robin nest

I didn’t get the stencil right on this one but I also liked the idea of 2 love birds on the front.

Love bird bird box

I hope you like this idea and if you do make one yourself please let us know in the comments below 🙂


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