Thursday, November 5, 2015

Paper Owl Tutorial


Hey Everyone! Today I am sharing the last DIY taxidermy stuffed animal from June's Room.

I really wanted to do a bird for June's animal room, and my husband came up with the brilliant idea of an owl! June loves her owl & points up at it every night, saying, "Owl mommy!" I was worried that it might be too scary for a two year old to have above her bed, but apparently not for her! Haha! :)


I am not doing a pattern for this guy, because I totally "WINGED IT" (haha!), so this will just be a good old fashioned tutorial post.

First, hot glue gun two "twinkie" shaped body pieces together, leaving a small opening for adding poly fill. Stuff it and glue the opening together.


Next, cut rows and rows... and rows of scalloped paper strips. These will be our feathers.


Add the scalloped paper strips to the body layer by layer, gluing as you go. 


Spray paint a light coat of white. You want the brown paper to still show through. So light spurts of paint work best. 


Cut the tail out. For a symmetrical pattern, fold over in the middle and cut together. I did two layers for the tail feathers.


Make sure to protect your tail feathers from curious puppies... :)


Attach the two tail feathers together by gluing together the centers, as illustrated above.


Stuff your tail.


Attach to the oval body, and add more scalloped strips to blend it in with the rest of the body.


For the frame of the wings, I made "bones" out of pipe cleaners, sticks (really old paint brushes, lol!) and clothespins. 


I mimicked actual owl wings and cut out four identical wings.


Next, add the "bones" to the wings.


Glue together the "bones" and the paper wings.


Add some fluff in between the two wings & glue them together.


To give the appearance of feathers, cut slits on the wings & stagger the feather layers.


Attach to the back with glue and incorporate it with the body by adding some ruffled scalloped feather strips.


Now for the face!


Glue a rounded heart shaped fabric onto the owl's body.


Press your fingers into give the eyes an indent.


Glue eyes and a paper beak onto the face. You can add white paint dots to make the eyes seem more real.


Go over the body with light spurts of gold spray paint, and draw on some textured details with a pencil. I snipped the edges and bent in the feathers in to make them look more realistic.


Dry brush the feathers with some white paint for even more realism.


Lastly, add some paper feet to the body.


And your Paper Owl is done! We just ties some twine around his wings and hung him up with a tack on the ceiling.


If you can't already tell, I had a BLAST designing and making everything in this room. And now I am brainstorming for Baby Boy's room, which I will hopefully start on when we move into our new house late December.


I can't say how much I love this little guy! He was the perfect last touch to this room.

To see more fun projects from June's room, check out the links below!

Have a wonderful Christmas Season Everyone! XO
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