How to make a butterfly house from a small gourd

Hi everybody.   It's me again, Carol and I am going to show you how to make a really easy butterfly house using a small gourd, some Proxxon tools, and beautiful Plaid paints.  It's going to be easy, fun, and colorful. 👍

What I like about this project is how ugly it starts out but then we make it pretty

enough for butterflies!

Supplies and equipment

1 small gourd

small branch or piece of bark

steel scouring pad (if your gourd is dirty)

scraper to clean the inside.

thin piece of scrap wood

wood glue

Proxxon mini jigsaw

Proxxon mine bandsaw

Proxxon OZI/E delta sander

rubber bands 

Wire or dowel to hang it

Plaid paints to make it pretty

paint brushes

small screw and screwdriver

First we need to pick out a gourd.  I chose a small but well shaped one.  It is about 7" tall, and oooh so dirty.   Actually this is generally a good sign, the dirtier the better.

 I used a steel scouring pad and some cold water to clean the outside.

Next step is to mark a line around the gourd to cut it in half lengthwise.  Then I drilled a small hole using the Proxxon professional rotary tool so that I can insert the Proxxon mini jigsaw blade and cut on my line.  Now I have 2 halves.   

The surprise will be what you find inside.  

Looks like I got fluff and seeds.   So I will use a small scraper to clean the inside.  

I read somewhere that butterflies need something inside "their home" to hang onto.  I am going to use a small piece of branch with some bark still on it inside the "house"  I found a piece that fit pretty well.   I used the Proxxon rotary tool to drill a hole in the bottom of the gourd where I inserted a screw through the hole and into the branch.   I also used some glue up top where the top of the branch sits against the back of the gourd.   It is pretty secure now.  

To make the front of the house I traced the outline of the gourd onto some old paneling wood I had saved as scrap, then I cut it out using the Proxxon mini bandsaw.  The paneling is ugly so I will have that facing inside the house.  Boy it sure cuts easy on the bandsaw.

I used some good wood glue to glue the paneling piece to the gourd and fastened it with rubber bands until the glue dried well.


 Then I drew in my slots (for the butterfly entrance) and cut them out with the proxxon mini jigsaw.  Again I started with some holes drilled with the Proxxon rotary tool.

Everything gets sanded well.   Using the Proxxon OZI/E delta sander it is easy to sand everything to a perfect fit.

   

 

I base coated my butterfly house with Plaid paints.  I chose too blue  Then sponged on some added color to attract the butterflies  

  I put together the other half of the gourd in the same manner to make a second butterfly home.  Waste not want not and I painted it in Plaid's pretty oranges and yellows.    Note I cut the slots on rounded gourd side this time as opposed to the flat side on the blue one.   The Proxxon mini jigsaw cuts on flat or round just as easy.

I drilled some holes and added a wire to hang the blue one and a small dowel to hang the orange one.

In the peach tree

...and I found them both a nice home.  Hope the butterflies like them.

on the fence in the garden

It was a fun and easy project.   Thank you all for visiting

Thank you Proxxon and Plaid for making "making" possible and fun!


Thanks for visiting, Hope to see you next time. Have fun & play safe