Mr Owl Collage Greeting Card...

This morning I was watching a kid's TV show with Miss S when I saw a gorgeous applique owl cushion and I thought to myself "I'd love to make one of those".   Unfortunately I have no time for such involved projects at the moment so I decided to make a card instead.

Mr Owl is a bit crinkly and needs to spend the night under some heavy books...

Mr Owl is inspired by the illustrations of children's book author Eric Carle (The Very Hungry Caterpillar).  I don't know how Carle did his illustrations exactly but they look to me as though he painted blocks of colour, then cut and collaged them to make the pictures.  So that's what I've done here.  I just think it's nice sometimes to make something that doesn't require expensive card stock and craft punches, don't you?

Furthermore, this is a craft you can do with your kids.  Get them to paint the blocks of colour and help do the cutting & sticking.  That's what I Miss S & I did, and we had a "hoot" doing it too.

To make one you will need:

A blank card
3 pieces of white A4 printer paper (this will give you enough painted paper to make 3 or 4 Mr Owls).
Glue stick
Scissors
Pencil
Watercolour paints (or acrylics would be fine too)
Paintbrush
Range of small bowls/ other round objects to draw around.

First cut your 3 pieces of A4 roughly in half.  Paint each piece in your chosen colours.

I chose these nice Autumn colours, but you could choose whatever scheme you like.

Use 5 or 6 colours.  Do an undercoat and then come back over with a bit of dry-brushing to get a nice texture.  Leave to dry.  Iron your pieces of paper to get them flat.

Cut out a piece of the medium brown to the same size as the face of your card and stick it down.

Using a small bowl cut two semi circles from the dark brown for wings as shown, but don't stick them down yet.

Start cutting small triangles from your orange, pinky-red, dark brown and purple papers, for the feathers.

Cut about 8-10 triangles from each colour.

Make your first row.   Try and randomise the colours a bit.

Build up the triangles as shown.  You don't need to put them right to the edge on all the rows as the wings will cover them anyway.

Cut out a larger triangle from the orange for the beak, and two large circles from the purple.  Cut out two small circles for the inside of the eyes, and two triangles for the ears out of the dark brown.  Don't try to be get the shapes too perfect - I think they look better if they look cut by hand.

Arrange them on the card to get the layout right and then stick them down.  Lay the card under some heavy books for a few hours to flatten it off.

I think a set of three of these made with slightly different colours would look amazing framed-up in a baby nursery or kid's bedroom.  Just a thought, but one I might have to revisit at some point.

Anyway, see you in a few days - I'm off to Prague for three days with a girlfriend - a very well-deserved break!

LM xx