Tuesday, March 6, 2012

In Progress: Gnome Dollhouse

As many of you know (or you have found out if you follow me on Pinterest), I am obsessed with all things miniature. It stems from my childhood, when my grandmother got me a dollhouse kit for Christmas. She and I worked together on it, only to never finish it. Many years later my mother found the kit in storage. Unfortunately a ton of pieces were missing.

Never fail, husband to the rescue! That same year he got me a dollhouse kit for Christmas. It is in a box under the bed in the guest room/craft room waiting to be assembled. That's the plan for this summer, when school is out of session.

In the meantime, I've been itching to start some miniature projects. I decided to turn a formula can into a simple, two-story house for a special gnome. Each night I add to the house. This has been so much fun!

Here's the progress so far (oh, and sorry for the grainy pics, but I took them at night):

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The first step was removing the paper and cutting part of the can away to see inside. Next, I covered the interior wall with some thin kraft wrapping paper. I'm going to paint over it, so the design wasn't important. I chose kraft because it was matte. I could have used regular kraft paper, but I find that to be a little on the thick side and I wanted a thin paper so I could smush it around.

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Next, I began on the outside. I cut an egg carton into various shapes resembling stones. I kept a small area clear for a door.

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I could have left the stones the grayish color, but I used pieces that had text printed on them. So, I painted one coat of brown craft paint.

Dollhouse-9055 

Up next: Grouting the stones. My initial idea was to use modeling paste, but I can't seem to get my jar open. Lol, this is what I get for not cleaning up properly. I want the "grout" to resemble real grout, i.e. have a sandy texture. I thought I could mix something in with the modeling paste. But, I also have some grouting material for craft mosaics. I might use that. Once I grout, I'm going to stain the stones and grout some more to give it dimension.

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