Habitat bright ideas with Fleur Thorpe – DIY projects
Bring the magic of bees into your home with this cheerfully coloured project.

Wall painted in Resene Triple Blanc
Step 1
Start by painting your toilet rolls with two coats of Resene Pirate Gold.
Step 2
Once the rolls are dry, flatten them and cut them into four equal lengths.
Step 3
Fold the cut lengths to form hexagons and staple these together to make a honeycomb pattern.
Step 4
Paint five Easter eggs with two coats of Resene Pirate Gold.
Step 5
To make three of the bees, take a pipe cleaner and wrap it around the middle of one of the Easter eggs. Twist the two ends together a couple of times and then trim off some excess length but leave enough length to form two legs. Repeat this for the front and back of the bee. Secure these in place with a couple of blobs of hot glue.
Step 6
Cut a length of pipe cleaner about 12cm long and hot glue this to the top of the head as an antenna. Bend this into shape. Cut two wing shapes out of newspaper and hot glue these to the back. Finish by painting on a face with a Resene Black testpot or drawing on a face with a permanent marker. For the other two bees, only attach two sets of legs in the middle and at the front and don’t attach any wings.
Step 7
Tie some white cotton to the three bees with wings and hang them from the bottom of the honey comb. Push the other two bees without wings into the honeycomb.
Top tip
For the wings you can recycle any old paper. If it’s not the right colour paint it with a Resene White testpot and allow to dry before cutting into your wing shapes.
Styling and images by Fleur Thorpe. Sep 2021.