Making miniature birds is easy and fun. And you don't need a whole lot of supplies. I show you a few different technique and if you have a parakeet or other type of small bird you can even use it's feathers for this project.

Materials:

• Some kind of a clay that will dry. We used the crayola air drying clay. You can use that or some kind of a polymer clay that is baked like Fimo or Primo. Here is a link to the clay we use: Crayola Air Dry Clay 2.5lb Tub-White
• Paints -
• A little bit of thin wire. Florist wire is good for this
• Small Feathers (optional)
• Toothpicks - for shaping/sculpting and for the beaks
• Small paintbrush

'

Start by making a bird shape with the clay.

Sky is the limit here. Look up pictures of birds to get an idea for the different body shapes.

Cut the tip off a toothpick and you have a nice beak for the bird.

If you want a bird body that is a bit more complex like this heron you can start by shaping a piece of florist wire and then apply the clay to it. The wire goes completely through the body.

Note: This is challenging. We had a bit of trouble with this. The clay tends to crack when it dries.

The polymer clay is quite ok though. the air dry clay tends to crack with this.

I know somebody that has birds as pets so I got a whole bunch of small feathers.

And you can paint the feathers too. Keep that in mind. Just use some kind of acrylic paint.

The florist wire is perfect for the legs. First poke a hole by pushing a piece of wire in. then remove the wire and dip the end in a bit of glue. Then re-insert it into the bird.

Here are some of the bird bodies we made. And they have just been coated with modpodge. It will protect them and keep them in nice shape. Bodies, beaks and legs are all set. Let's decorate them.

Ok, now let's have some fun painting the little bird bodies. Oh my! I love this step. It has something to do with the fact that birds often have such wonderful colors. You can paint each bird a single color or you can even vary the color on each bird.

To adhere the feather bits to the birds we mixed 50/50 Mod Podge and water. You can also mix 50/50 white glue and water.

Mixing it like this makes it much easier to work with on such a miniature scale.

Cut yourself off a little piece of feather.

And go ahead and shape it by cutting it - tail feather, wing feather etc.

Apply a liberal amount of glue mix to the bird and attach the feather. this can be a bit tricky! Keep at it, wipe off excess glue if necessary.

Yay! Looks good!

So that's It! We are making miniature birds. have some fun with this. Try different bird sizes and shapes.

And be sure to send me pictures.

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