I don't have access to woodstains, so I wanted to experiment with what looks best on balsa wood. I decided, to do that, I would need to build a few tiny birdhouses.  It's convenient and necessary, considering how many tiny birds I have.

I can't escape from birds. They're in my writing, they're in my artwork, and now they're in my dollhouse.  That's okay, though.  Poe is the type of guy to dig incessant chirping... right?

Erm, gulp.  I'll get back to you on that.

If you've never used balsa wood, this stuff is epic.  It's so soft that it feels like it has fur.  It literally seems impossible to get a splinter with the stuff... but with my luck, I totally will.

I spent almost an hour staring at the cardstock I was going to use to make the patterns with before I decided, nah, I'm too lazy to make a pattern.  This is probably going to be a mistake.  To the Batmobile (ruler and boxcutter and pencil)!

...it was a mistake.  It looks good now, due to a lot of extra work, which would have been saved had I made patterns.  No matter how lazy you feel, make a pattern missies and misters!   And scratch that about balsa being awesome.  It's awesome until the third time you try to put a hole through a piece and it splits on you and you throw a massive tantrum.  I wanted the holes to be large enough for the birds, but now I see that the birdhouses must have TARDIS technology to make them bigger on the inside.

Soooo painting.  No lie, I always end up with acrylic on my clothes and in my mouth.  I'm like a chef; I eat more than I make!  Not on purpose. I just sometimes put the wrong end of the brush in my mouth to hold it and... thank heavens for nontoxic paint.

The blue birdhouse is exactly what you think it is.  The sides and back are done the same way that the front is.  I probably should've done a flat top for it.  And the primary colored one is for if anyone in the dollhouse adopts a child, who is sure to grow up demented.  Those two are also glazed glossy, which I think really makes the colors pop.

Moral of the story part one:  both watercolor and watered down acrylic sort of looked like wood stain, except it gravitated to the cut edges and stained them darker.  That can be fixed with some blotting.  At any rate, it's something to experiment with! 

Moral of the story part deux: if you have shaky hands sometimes like I do, there's no shame in hitting pause and not arting until your hands are working properly.  Well, maybe a little bit of shame, but not a lot, and no one but you needs to know.

Moral of the story part trois: not really a moral, but I've had Birdhouse in Your Soul stuck in my head alllll day.