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Cuckoo Clock

Holly Czapski

Who doesn’t love a cuckoo clock? Full of surprises inside and out, there’s nothing more charming. These Cuckoo Clocks bring the same lovable quirkiness to your home - and they are easy to make. Start with a house (from the Original Mac&Cheese House or Universal House Maker posts), and go plain or fancy with the decorations. Lots of ideas below to get you started. You’ll want to make more than one!

  • Made with any empty box

  • Decorate as much or as little as you want

  • Makes an eye-catching feature on your wall, alone or in a group

  • They’ll even give you the correct time twice every day!

Ready? Here’s how:

1

You’ll need:

2

Make a hanging hole in the back. Make a starter hole with a pin, then snip out a square big enough to fit over a push pin.

Cut off the bottom flaps of your house. This makes it easy to attach the pendulums.

Now you’re ready to add the fun stuff below (in no particular order).

3

Clock Face

You may find it easier and neater to make a separate clock face and attach it (this also gives you lots of chances to mess up or change your mind). Cut a circle from box scraps or scrap paper. You can draw a border around if you like. Put a dot in the middle . You can write the numbers all around or make dash marks, whatever you like. Add hands, which can be plain or fancy.

4

Pendulums

In real life these are weights on chains that run the clockwork. Sometimes they are shaped like pine cones, so you can go with that and use real pine cones if you have two that are small enough. Tie twine around their top ends and tape the twine to the inside of the clock.

Or, just draw a pine cone shape with a long stem at the top on a box scrap and cut it out. Tape the end of the stem to the inside of the clock.

Pine cones are just one idea. Make yours any shape you want.

5

Decorations:

Roof

Color the roof all one color with markers, or make it look shingled, or striped, or whatever you want.

Trims

Cut strips of paper or box scraps and attach them to any of the edges on your clock. You can give them any kind of decorative edge (wavy, zig zag, etc.) and you can color them with markers or draw lines or designs on them.

Recycle old greeting cards by cutting them into strips or shapes. The coloring is already done for you but you can add more with markers.

What else can you put on your clock? Anything! Dry oak leaves, leftover craft supplies from other projects, stickers, bottle caps, buttons, fabric trims. Really, anything.

Drawing, etc.

Add color or designs anywhere on the clock or the roof with colored markers or a white chalk marker. See this post for more ideas about decorating brown paper.

6

And the Cuckoo!

Cuckoos generally live in a window with a little door or shutters. Make a window by just drawing one on your clock, or make it out of paper (click here then scroll down to see how), or cut out an actual window with a craft knife, then draw or glue on some shutters beside it. There are a lot of ways to do this, and even the simplest ones look great. You can also test your window idea out on a scrap first.

Draw your cuckoo on the clock, or cut one out of paper and attach it Also, you might have some little odd or end that you can use for a cuckoo - it doesn’t even have to be a bird. Have a finger puppet sticking out. Or a mini-figure. Or that cupcake decoration you saved, or a plastic dinosaur, or a picture from a magazine.

Or, just have a window. Some of these clocks don’t have a cuckoo in them at all and they still look great.

When your clock is finished stick a push pin into the wall, and fit the hanging hole over the pin.

and try this:

Special Occasion Clocks

You can make a Cuckoo Clock for any holiday or special day, like this Valentine’s Day clock. Or maybe you like to have a coffee break at three o’clock every day - you could write “coffee” instead of “3” on your clock face. Your clock can be totally you.

Thank you for reading! If you have questions, please drop me a line.