Fairy tree with little fairy lights

Here is the fairy tree with little battery powered fairy lights on, very magical and looks fun at night!!

Fairy garden

As a present for a special 3 year old I made this fairy garden. Using things I found in my garden I compiled a collection to then cover in spray paint, coat in glitter or paint.

I made it so it can go outside-the butterflies on the tree are cut out of photo paper which is the only waterproof thing I could find that my stamp would cut into.

To create interest I tried to make various sections and levels such as pebble stones with drawings on. These houses are just branches with a plastic cone covered in deconstructed pinecones.

I then brushed the tips with a gold enamel paint and the other with pva glue and glitter. 

To draw on these pebbles I tried using a  white pen but it didnt't work too well. So I used a fine paint brush with watered down white paint.

Strings of butterflies to be dangled around the fairy tree (which I coated in a silver/gold spray paint and touches of glitter) 

This butterfly stamp is a Martha Stewart one I brought for £22, there are cheaper ones about but I don't think they look as good. 

Valentines hearts

I found this really cool idea off Pinterest but they were in the form of pancakes. I wanted to make mine out of white chocolate.

I looked everywhere for a piping syringe but I had no luck, so I brought some little icing tubes and piping bags. I used the lid of the icing tubes and I cut off the end, I dropped the lid into the piping bag and filled with white chocolate. Very easy to control! 

White chocolate lace hearts-valentine gifts!!!

Making my Georgian Dolls House

To start:
I ordered some plain, untreated wooden shelves from Homebase costing around £20 and I measured the height and width of these. Then I worked out how much MDF wood I would need making sure I had extra on the top for the roof. Using a Jigsaw I cut out the windows, doors and the roof shapes ready to begin painting. The MDF wood was £7.50 from Homebase.

Here is a working drawing of the shapes to go around the windows-to be kept simple!

Next step was the exciting part where I selected the colours I wanted to use. I knew that pink was a definite so I found about 20 sample pots of shades of pink and then painted them onto some lining paper. Once dried I could see which ones went best together…This is the outcome.

The main colour on the outside of the dolls house was painted in this Crown Easy Rider. I originally brought 2 pots of Farrow and Ball paint thinking it was on special offer and got home to realise it was £7.00 for sample pots. So I took those back and noticed Crown paint samples were on sale for 93p each.

I wanted to test what colours would work best and how they would come out, so I stamped straight onto the lining paper sample paints I did earlier. I found the glittery ones looked magical-I picked this up from The Works for £1.49 and it does go a long way.

I have a selection of woodblock stamps which aren't the easiest to print with onto wood, but they do look very effective as a collection. You could try using foam stamps but the design wouldn't be as intricate.

This is what the final background looked like before I glued it to the shelves. I left a small space in-between each section so the glue stuck better to the wood (wood to wood sticks best). To glue it together I used Evo-Stik which is a wood adhesive and I left over night to set with loads of books on top to weigh it down. I also banged in small wood nails/pins to hold it firmly in place.

Finally I brought some decorative wood from Homebase, cut it down to size and also two little door knobs and using some metallic spray I coated them in a silvery/gold. 

Nearly finished-To add the finishing touches to my dolls house I used a metallic silver Sharpie pen and drew around the windows and added some little trees on the steps by the front door. Then I printed two stamps-one on the top of the house and the other above the door.

And this is the final outcome:

Georgian Dolls house

For my god daughters birthday I decided to her something special and a one off piece. I came across these Dolls House cabinets by Andrew Martin in January 2014 edition of Homes and Gardens magazine. I love the simplicity of these especially the chalk grey colour-very in this year!

From here I did a google search of Georgian style houses and created a mood board of some of my favourite houses and even little features I liked for example the patterning around this door frame.

I then looked at patterning I would put around my windows and door frames as Georgian houses are typically very simple with touches of pattern but mainly a few clean lines around the tops of windows. 

I looked at dome and triangular shapes.