I've hung onto for a lot of years, a metal inner tube from electrical cable with the idea of upcycling this into maybe a birdhouse or something, but I never got around to this with lack of creativity time or mojo.
However I was inspired after watching a YouTube video by Marta Maremi small art where she created a little wooden fairy house link here https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=144s&v=hfJ-Ae1ifz4. I combined this idea with the building a wall inspiration too.
This is my wee fairy house, see her trying to slip by me when I took this photo. Fairies are very shy and secretive, she didn't want to be caught creeping into her wee house.
I didn't photograph every step but if you want to know how I reached my fairy house goal, grab a cup of your favourite beverage as this is a bit of a long post.
Here's a bit of an idea and description of my process.
This is how I started, with the metal tube, I glued tissue paper over the surface to give it a texture to help stick and make a sandwich layer for my little card bricks, which I cut from the Sizzlits, Tim Holtz Alterations Brick Wall Decorative Strip die. Building this brick wall around the tube was time consuming but a labour of love.
Next I covered this with a second layer of this time, crinkled tissue, using Mod Podge and then I sealed this with more Mod Podge over the surface the tissue gave the bricks a rough brick texture, which I'd then coloured with acrylic paints and sprays, using a couple of greens, grey, mauve and black, knocking the colour back with a wet wipe and re-applying, darkening and lightening until I was happy with my wall.
I then added "stones" to the base of my wall, (more upcycling, hot gluing silicone "beads" from the wee bags that are packed in with some goods to absorb moisture, usually they are labelled "Do no eat" "Do not open" but I'm a rebel, opening up the wee bags, not rebelling with the no eating part though, lol)
I painted the beads with gesso then coloured them with sprays in green and black ink .
I added a "wooden" arched door cut from a furniture photo in decorating/ paint chart booklet. I mounted this on card to give it more rigidity, then I die cut some "windows" and I also found a rub on fairy to live in my house. The windows which you can't see much of here were originally flower shapes but I wasn't happy with them, also this door was re-modelled and door handle was changed in the final steps.
Next for a base, I created papier mache from an egg box softened down with hot water squeezed to a firm dough consistency then I added a couple of good dollops of PVA glue and mixed it in well then I pressed this paper clay/papier mache mix to coat over an old coaster. I pressed the tube base into this base to make a circular dent then I left this to dry overnight. I hot glued these together the following day.
The lid or roof was next. I cut a circle of firm card the same size as the diameter of the top of the tube, then using a narrow strip of thick card, I wrapped it around the outside circumference and secured the circle ring with washi tape and then glued it to the card disc to form a lid for my tube.
Then the roof was constructed using a larger circle of card with a quarter cut out, then I curled the remaining 3/4's into a cone then glued this cone over the lid I had made. To add the tiles, I coloured a large sheet of lightweight card with same ink combo I had used on the walls. I dried the card, then embossed it to add texture.
I cut the card into long narrow strips, reserving about 5 inches wide section to make the top of the cone roof, which was a small 2 inch circle, and a bit more to cover both sides of a neat fitting card disc to glue inside the bottom of the tube for a base inside the tube
to create a container for my pencils.
I cut the rest of the textured card into strips then into about 1 inch tiles and proceeded to glue these around the base of the cone roof, starting from the bottom then working my way progressively up the roof until I reached the top finishing this with the small circle cutting away 1/4 section, rolling into cone shape and glued into place. I cut very small "v" shapes around the bottom edge of this to mimic the tile edge.
I finished off the roof by hot gluing on a glittery pinecone (from an unused Christmas decoration) to look like a wee chimney.
I decided the base needed a bit more detail so I created a small set of steps with leftover section of roof card rolled into about 1 inch long "logs" flattened, then hot glued as steps at the door. I added some hot glue stones around the bottom edge of the house and sides of the steps, filling in some gaps under the "stones", but the new hot glue "stones" looked odd so I used a black mica texture paste over these to cover the glue then I
also added some around the door frame, I filled in sides of the steps with the texture paste and spread it over the papier mache base texturing it with the flat of a painting knife to create peaks and smoother areas. Then added mica flakes sparingly. I sprinkled a tiny amount over the base while it was still wet in just a few places using a mix of tea dye, bronze and green flakes, to add a bit of fairy sparkle.
This definitely photographed better outside. It looks right at home here, doesn't it. I had to run back inside with my wee house though when the rain started shortly after snapping this picture.
The roof lifts off to hide away my pens or pencils.
Thanks for visiting my blog and taking the time to read about my latest creative ideas and projects.
Let me know what you think, I really enjoyed creating this one.
Love Alexandra xx
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