How to make a plywood tea house?

For many, tea drinking is considered a special tradition that brings not only gustatory but also aesthetic pleasure. For the tea ceremony to be held at the highest level, it is recommended to replace an ordinary box with tea bags with such a beautiful accessory as a tea house. It can be either purchased ready-made or made independently from plywood, while the second option is more popular, since it allows you to translate any design ideas into reality.

The process of making a teahouse is fun and simple. Therefore, everyone can please their relatives with such an exclusive gift. In order to make it yourself, you will need to prepare a set consisting of the following materials and tools:

• rulers;
• scissors;
• glue gun;
• a simple pencil;
• twine;
• brushes;
• multi-colored acrylic paint;
• a piece of fabric;
• office knife;
• PVA glue;
• varnish.

As for the main material from which the house will be assembled, it is best to choose plywood with a thickness of 6 to 10 mm. If in the household there are scraps of plywood sheets with a thickness of 4 to 12 mm, then they are also suitable for crafts.

Before you start making a teahouse out of plywood, you should make drawings, according to which plywood parts will be cut in the future, and a blank will be assembled.

When everything is in order with the dimensions, it can be transferred to plywood, then cut along the contour of the part. To cut more complex lines, you need to use a circular saw or jigsaw as a cutter. It is undesirable to bring the tool close to the contour of the parts; it is necessary to leave a few millimeters, which will then be removed with a file.

All details of the future tea house should be carefully processed with a file, then the corners should be finished using a file. It is important to ensure that the ends of the parts are strictly perpendicular to their plane. Then you need to sand the inner and outer surfaces using sandpaper. First, this should be done with medium-grained sandpaper, then fine-grained.

The next step is the assembly of finished parts. For this, a diagram is selected that was drawn up earlier with drawings. You can assemble a teahouse out of plywood using polyvinyl acetate glue. It is applied to the ends of the parts that need to be connected together. The glued parts should be well pressed and secured with hair ties or masking tape. In this case, it is worth paying special attention to the assembly of the roof - it is performed depending on where you plan to lay the tea bags: usually either the base or the roof remains without adhesive fastening.

After finishing work with glue, all its excess must be carefully removed with a rag or a regular napkin. If this is not done, then streaks will remain, which will require additional grinding.

Then you can start puttingtying, it will hide all visible seams and irregularities at the joints of the parts. For puttying, a narrow steel trowel should be used, since the rubber one can leave errors in the depressions. As soon as the putty dries well, the corners of the house are re-sanded, and painting with acrylic paint begins (it is advisable to prime the surface before painting with PVA glue diluted in water). Often, when applying water-soluble paints to plywood, a problem arises - the material "leads" it. To avoid this, it is necessary to paint the completely assembled structure with the base installed and the roof on.

When painting a tea house, you can apply several original artistic techniques.

• Create a simple embossed drawing. To do this, it is enough to fix a special template on the roof surface or walls, then apply several layers of putty, and after it dries, paint everything with paint using a stencil.

• Create an "old wood" effect. With a semi-dry brush, thin stripes are applied. The color of the paint should contrast with the background.

Lacquered teahouses look no less interesting. In order to design an accessory for tea drinking in an original way, it is necessary to apply varnish on its surface in two or three layers using a soft brush. It is advisable to varnish the structure in a horizontal position, separately on each wall, in order to avoid the appearance of drips. It is important to ensure that no excess varnish remains on the sides of the house - if this happens, then they can be easily removed by sanding.

At the end of the varnishing, the slots of the removable roof (base) and the spikes may not align with each other, since they have become a little thicker.

If a paper pattern is glued to the varnished surface, then varnishing will have to be performed at least 5 times, with intermediate sanding every two layers. As a result, you will get a perfectly flat surface, and the drawing will not stand out in relief on it.

After the tea house is assembled, it remains to decorate it, with the help of which this accessory will become the main piece of the interior. For decor, you can use the maximum imagination and materials. Printed napkins, flowers, cinnamon rolls, beads, star anise stars or dried fruits can serve as decorations. If the teahouse is preparing for the New Year's table, then glitter and cotton wool are perfect.

Tea houses decorated with decoupage look interesting, blanks for which can be purchased at a handicraft store. In addition to the basic blanks, you will need to additionally purchase glitter, paints, varnish, PVA glue and decoupage cards. The decorating process itself is as follows:

• first, all parts of the house are grounded in a light tone;
• then the edges of the napkin are manually cut off, creating the basis of the picture;
• the drawing is placed on the walls of the house, glue is necessarily applied on top (it will penetrate through the napkins and reliably fix the drawing on the surface of the plywood);
• then all overhead parts and the roof of the structure are covered with a contrasting paint, when it dries, the surface must be covered with acrylic varnish;
• then the contours of the teahouse are decorated with glitter, and the finished product is filled with tea bags.

Today there are many ideas for decoupage of a tea house; not only tea themes, but also retro, floral motives are especially popular. A decorative product designed in this way fits perfectly into any room design and gives the tea-drinking ceremony a special atmosphere of comfort.

Thanks to the beautiful tea houses, you can not only decorate the kitchen in an original way, but also pleasantly surprise your guests. Many housewives prefer to make this accessory with their own hands, since it has a simple assembly technology, has a miniature size and gives a lot of positive emotions to the author during the manufacturing process. The most common material for such crafts is sheet plywood. Very interesting teahouses can be created from it, embodying various design ideas into reality.

• House in vintage style. For its design, a special type of needlework is used, which is called scrapbooking. In this case, decoration is done with lace, ribbons and rhinestones, which are fixed to the surfaces of the house with glue. Such a house with snow-white lace and pink beads looks especially gorgeous.

• Multi-section tea house. This option is perfect for a large family whose members prefer to drink different types of tea. The product can be decorated in several colors, and metal inscriptions with the type of tea can be attached to each section. In addition, it does not hurt to make miniature handles on the sections to make it easier to push them out.

• The craft will look no less interesting in the oriental style. To do this, you need to arrange the walls of the house under a tree, and make the roof from artificial bamboo. Such a product will be decorated with a beautiful display of decorative multi-colored pebbles.

A master class on assembling and decorating a plywood teahouse in the video below.