I handcrafted this Baba Yaga hut for my younger child. She has always loved Slavic folktales and collects some unique paraphernalia around themes found in these stories.
Baba Yaga is a common witch caricature associated with these foreign folktales. Sometimes she plays the villain, sometimes the hero, depending upon the author, time of harvest, culture or country where she is found. Her hut is always trying to run from her and any persons who might try to enter it's curious enchanted rooms.
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| Baba Yaga's reluctant hut, from Russian folk tales. This is a home that deeply resents it's own keeper! Some of us are all too aware of that scenario in real life . . . That's o.k. little house you just keep on runnin'! |
- scrap cardboard, both thick and thin
- one small recycled box for the lower half of the hut
- one large, recycled Quaker Oats paper can or a salt box for the upper tower half of the hut
- white school glue
- hot glue gun and hot glue
- acrylic paints - browns, white, yellows, black, grey and green
- chenille stems (for chain)
- 2 identical blocks of wood for stand
- two identical dowel rods
- masking tape
- faux wooden scrapbook paper
- dismantled pine cone scales for the chicken legs
- giant lotus pod for the roof
- paper mache pulp
- one nail
- one paper, recycled toilet paper tube
- Mod Podge
- wood glue
Step-by-Step Instructions:
- Cut two identical wooden blocks for the base of this project. The wood should be heavy.
- Drill holes in the same locations on both blocks, large enough to insert two identical wooden dowels several inches apart.
- Insert the dowels using wood glue and let this stand dry overnight. (see photo below)
- Now tape and glue a small box on top of this platform.
- The top part of this box should have it's upper flaps ''peaked'' using masking tape and glue to form a simple ''V'' shaped roof line.
- Cut the bottom of a large Quaker Oat can to fit snugly over the peaked roof top. This should be in a ''U'' shape.
- Glue an up-side-down, dried lotus pod to the top of the can to assemble a unique roof shape for this old fairytale folk hut.
- Crush masking tape in an eyeball shape for the window attachment to the tower. Stick this on tight and shape/glue a window frame from light weight cardboard to frame around the eyeball.
- Smooth and fill in this window to the soul of the enchanted hut using paper mache pulp. Save the remaining pulp to shape the ''chicken feet'' of the hut at the hut's platform base. Wait for the pulp to harden and dry completely before painting these crazy features of Baba Yaga's home.
- Next cut the window frames and door from scrap cardboard and attach these to the hut with glue.
- Move on to cutting the shingles for the roof and sides of the hut walls and glue these firmly in place.
- Cut a hole into the side of the hut for the chimney flu using the recycled toilet paper tube, masking tape and several types of glue. You can assemble the larger elements of the hut using hot glue but then save the white glue for the finer details excluding the pine cone shingles; these must be applied with hot glue and adult supervision.
- At this point in the project you will need to prepare the work area to use a hot glue gun in order to make the faux stone tower. Apply the hot glue in small random lumps about the tower's surface. Let dry.
- Shape a large bulky chain using the chenille stems. Wrap white glue and paper about the surfaces of the stems to make these smoother and thicker. Make and attach a cuff from cardboard and attach the chain to a large nail hammered into the base of the base and also to one of the chicken legs on the hut.
- Hot glue the pine cone seed scales to form both the small arbor over the door and also the upper feather-like parts of the chicken legs. These scales are torn from the peduncle of the pine cone using pliers and strength.
- Now you may paint the entire cardboard home for Baba Yaga using natural, weathered-looking acrylic paints. I applied thin washes of brown, green and gray on the shingles and roof.
- I painted the hut's eyeball green and also the platform.
- Use warm yellows and orange to paint the chicken legs too.
- Paste faux wooden papers on the window frames and door the make these look more realistic.
- I painted the interior of the window flat black and grey. Later I made a bone shaped handle for the door knob at my daughter's request. However, you don't need to attach one if you wish, Baba's hut is always trying to keep both her and any visitors from entering the house anyway...
- Paint the stonework about the tower grey.
- Mod Podge every surface to seal the finished hut.
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| Left, the beginning of a Baba Yaga hut craft for an eccentric daughter with a passion for everything Russian folklore. Where are you gonna buy it? Well, I can't so I guess I'll just have to make my own gifts for her? Right, door and window details. |
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| Left, the painted details of the roof's wavy patterned shingles are painted in shades of brown. Right, the ''witchy'' stone tower has an eyeball window! Who knows what this pathetic, unhappy hut used to be at one time, a person or a chicken, or both . . . |
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| Left, the back of the hut. Center, details of the hut's shingled walls. Right, see the rickety stove pipe sticking out from the side of the house. |
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| Left, see the hut in it's basic parts. Center, the chicken's feathered legs are made using pine cone scales and a hot glue gun. Right, the roof top is an inverted lotus pod! |
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| Left, the hut's chicken legs are always moving the hut about the fairyland forest, so these must be chained down so that Baba can find her home at least some of the time anyway... Right, Baba's home is done and ready to be gifted to my younger daughter; she is crazy about Slavic folk tales. |
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