As soon as I saw this post on Lumberjocks I wanted to make this bird house design.
I downloaded a photo of the google place marker. Imported it into Sketchup to use as a guide for the proportions. I'm still learning sketckup but once I found the "offset" button things went really smoothly --hint the inner boarder is an offset of the outline. I set the print to 1:1 and printed off a number of blank pages. If anyone knows how to control how to position a drawing on a page please let me know--I still have not figured it out other than printing only page 5 of 9 pages.
I spray glued the template on a piece of 1"x 10" pine; roughly cut it out on the bandsaw; then sanded up to the line. I then cut some scrapes to the shape of the can and attached to the back side of the facade; drilled some pilot holes and attached the facade to the can.
The can is a reused coffee can. I drilled holes in the bottom for drainage and attached some "L" brackets on the back. If I was to make another one I'd just drill the holes though the back of the can and then attach the facade.
Up until this project I've only spray painted things using one colour. I traced out the wood shape on a piece of cardboard and cut out the shapes to mask out the areas. I think it turned out pretty good as the paint didn't bleed as much as I thought it would.
Enjoy making your own google place marker bird house.
A Designer, Shu-Chun Hsiao, has installed his google map bird houses around his city, ccheck out his site here.