"Dark Side of the Loon" (a.k.a Spaceship Birdhouse)
My husband and I banded together to create "Dark Side of the Loon" (Thanks Steve for the help on the name!) for Magnolia Park's birdhouse competition. As the flyer states: "All entries will be on display at the Robbins Library (700 Massachusetts Ave, Arlington, MA 02476) for the week of May 13 to 21 during which time the public will vote for their favorite designs. The finalists will be reviewed by members of the Arlington Park and Recreation Commission for safety, appropriateness, and sturdiness."
I (Allie) was inspired to create a spaceship shaped birdhouse because I wanted to paint a galaxy and I thought a spaceship would make the galaxy look even cooler. Recently I worked on screen printing some t-shirts to support female scientists and sold a few though my etsy shop (TwoofaPear) right before the March for Science. Right now I am into Syfy's new series called The Expanse so you can say we are looking to the stars for inspiration.
Landon thought hard about how to create the shape of the birdhouse. We bought supplies at Home Depot last Thursday and Landon glued the wood together on Friday night. Shaving off the chunks of wood into a football like shape took a lot more energy than we expected. We had to take some breaks between cutting off chunks. It was physically draining and we could tell if we pushed ourselves we could give ourselves blisters.
The painting of the birdhouse went pretty smoothly. The one thing that was annoying was even though I was trying to avoid bright colors the polyurethane reacted to the acrylic paint to make them brighter. The polyurethane helps make the wood water proof. I peeled back the areas I thought were too bright and went back over them again with the polyurethane paint and crossed my fingers it would be clear this time. Luckily it was.
Below are photos of our process:
