For The Boys...

While this Fairytale Treehouse Project is full of what is traditionally thought of as "feminine" aspects like flowers and frills, I didn't want to forget that there are a couple strong masculine personalities living here who bring just as much joy to the story. Wayne and Rozario, having strong opinions on their own design aesthetics, gave me plenty of ideas about what kind of beds they wanted to spend their nights in. This week's focus was for the boys. 

I first consulted with Rozario to give him a bunch of options for bed styles. He, being a beloved pet, wanted a pet bed. But not just any old fabric covered floor cushion. No. His bed had to befit a creature as special as he is. After all, you don't see pet dragons every day! I jotted down things that were important to him (comfort, grandeur, outdoor elements and, because of his limited bedroom nook's size, storage), then got to work in Design Space.

Rozario thought it would be really fun to pretend he was sleeping in the yard every night like a lot of dogs get to do. But he didn't want a dog house. A roof that is too close to his head can be dangerous, as he sometimes breathes a little fire when he snores. He discovered that the hard way, long story. He said a yard would have a fence, so he wanted some kind of fenced in feeling. His wish was my command! I created a three sided fence atop a princely platform.

In order to make it easier for Rosario's tiny legs to climb into bed, I made a pull out step drawer.

And included a storage cubby in the back of the drawer so he can store some of his favorite toys. I also added a couple fancy fence posts to the opening. He can pretend that he is guarded by powerfully magic staffs as he drifts off to sleep each night. 

While I was busy on Rozario's bed, Wayne popped in to share his ideas. He's a busy guy so I gave him my full attention. Wayne told me his wishes were pretty simple: he's a craftsman, so he wanted Craftsman styled furniture but with a Tudor twist. And he'd love a comfortable mattress and bedding. Wow! I love a guy who knows what he wants! 

Designing Wayne's bed in Design Space was fun, especially since this was my very first piece of furniture in true half scale. It is so adorably tiny, but at just 2", so is Wayne!

His bed is pretty simple: a three layered headboard, a three layered footboard and a simple mattress support piece to bridge them together. I couldn't resist including a few fun trim accents to the posts, which Wayne really appreciated. The assembled bed measures just 2" W x 3-1/2" L x 3-3/8" H.

Before I could begin to accentuate the beds with paint and detail, the boys needed mattresses. They got the same cushy models as the girls, only their ticking is a dark purple stripe with no hearts or flowers. Way more masculine! Rozario needs just slightly less sleeping room.

With that done I could get to the fun parts! I added many "carvings" to Wayne's bed to make the simple craftsman design feel more Tudor-like, as requested.

Then gave it a base coat of Coffee Latte.

Then a glaze coat with a darker chocolate color. Wayne loves his wood fairly unadulterated.

And with the mattress...

Let's see what Wayne thinks... Hooray! He approves! And with all the work he's got on his plate, he really appreciated my help.

But he said the ultimate test required him to take a nap. He'll get back to us shortly...

Rozario's bed needed a base coat of white.

After a little sanding of the rough spots, I gave it a base coat of Purple Cow followed by a couple coats of Amethyst metallic paint. Some areas were highlighted in Emperor's Gold paint, then I added metallic domes and Dresden trims, leaving them gold. Now it's fit for royalty!

 And with the mattress and the drawer step deployed.

But the final test was to present it to Rozario. He seemed thrilled, but it was hard to tell.

Because once I showed Rozario how the drawer worked and he saw the toys, the consultation abruptly ended. Time to play!

I am so happy that the beds for the boys were a success! And don't worry! I haven't abandoned the girls' and Roz's beds. It's just that for the sake of organization it seemed more efficient to get everyone's actual beds completed before I drug out the sewing machine to make all the bedding for everyone. Me + Sewing = Knots In My Stomach so any sewing project is always preceded by a little avoidance and/or procrastination. But, I'm determined to become a decent seamstress, one day, so off I go... Wish me luck! 

Back next week with, hopefully, something resembling bedding for everyone!!!

xo xo,

Jodi

Fastidious Floral Fairytale Fireplace

I got a little sidetracked and engrossed on something which was completely unplanned for the fairytale treehouse, and it took all week. Surprise! Surprise! 😜

I had intended to work on getting the balcony assembly installed. In fact, I earnestly started that goal by attaching the flowering vines to the balcony posts. 

Repainted vines from last post.

Flower vines wired to balcony before filler flowers were added.

I even filled in empty areas with supplemental mulberry roses and buds. All was going well...

After mulberry roses filled in.

Until I put it in place for a dry fit. Then I began to ponder whether I needed more vines adorning the panels or if there was enough going on on the posts. What about the structural beams holding the balcony up from the first floor? Maybe just green vines there? Yeah, but despite it being two weeks since I ordered them from the Etsy shop, they hadn't even shipped yet. So, I put that decision aside and carried on with the dry fit instead. 

Dry fit with wall and floor/ceiling to decide placement of fireplace.

I had questions about how the girls' fireplace wall would tie in to the balcony. I had always intended to have a railed portion so that you could look down into the great room, but on which side? The balcony or the back of the treehouse? The wall, being a couple inches short, would need to slide one way or the other. In order to know for sure, I had to look at the actual wall, floor and ceiling in place - not just imagine it. Once I saw it in place, my ideas for the fireplace began to bombard my brain. From past experience I know to seize this kind of creative momentum, lest my ideas float right on out into the nethersphere, never to return. So, the balcony got put aside once again until my vine order and solid ideas for it are at hand.

As per my M.O., I designed the structural pieces of the fireplace in Design Space and cut them with the Cricut Maker. Straight cuts? Cheap chipboard? Yes, please! I covered the kit's wall with scrap paper leftover from the girl's cubbies. Because the kit wall is only 1/8" thick, to give a more realistic chimney feeling, I also made a chimney breast, covering it with another scrap. The fireplace itself has a top, a hearth, a back, double layered front, and sides. To the inside, I added egg carton bricks in a herringbone pattern, just for fun. To detail the fireplace, I had a few packs of resin column fronts with an artichoke frieze. They were the perfect size to flank the firebox. Dresden appliques adorn the front, edges and sides.

While the fireplace assembly was drying, I worked on the fire basket. I made a log holder with firedogs out of kraft card. 

No need to point out anything salacious about the firedogs. Believe me - Russ already has. 🙄 

Resizing things down to 1/12th scale doesn't always translate well.

Double layer firedogs, log basket, bracing.

Layers glued to create thickness and detail.

Bent, assembled and painted.

It's always a perfect fit when you make it custom, lol!

For the fire, I placed a half water bottle cap (it's translucent so the light comes through) under the fire basket/log holder and placed a red LED chip light inside. Like the Log Fire With Glowing Embers tutorial, I surrounded it with glowing "ash". I used hot glue to make Sharpie colored orange/yellow translucent flames to go between the wood logs, but it didn't work out as swell as I'd hoped. I need more practice and patience. At least one of the glue strips worked as intended - it almost appears to be flames due to the other three chip lights under the logs.

At this stage I had the fireplace assembled to the wall, toned down with washes, aged with washes, added trims, put the fire logs in place, added sconces and of course - installed a mirror. But it still wasn't nearly finished yet!

It had to be adorned with flowers. A swag above the mirror, a swag on the mantle and then a vase with buds just popping. The carousel horse is pot metal painted with gold to tie in the mirror frame. Accessories will likely evolve later as I switch my concentration from structure to accessories.

Testing the lights.

With the room lights off.

And at the same time, there were also flower vine valences created for the girls' cubby windows. Fairytales are full of flowers, especially fairytale treehouses!

Alice's Bed Cubby

Goldie's Bed Cubby

But fireplaces need other things, too. Not just pretty things, but useful things. I wanted to make a fireplace screen for the girls and I was fairly certain I could find something to make them from this hoard of mine. Sure enough, I had a set of six half scale chipboard gothic windows from Alpha Stamps. 

I applied Fast Grab Tacky Glue neatly to the back of three of the windows, then placed them on top of some very thin acetate from Cricut Chipboard packaging. Once set, I carefully cut around the edges. Then, to solidify the panes, I filled in the windows with Crystal Clear Gallery Glass.

Once the Gallery Glass was clear and dry, I glued the other three windows on, sandwiching the acetate between them. Then I wrapped them in 1/8" kraft card strips to smooth out the edges.

I painted the frames with a Krylon Gold Leafing Pen, then filled the other side of the glass with more Gallery Glass.

I added some purple and green polka dots with the Sakura Glaze Pens. To attach the window panels together at the correct angle (so they'd fit on the hearth), I sliced 1/8" quarter round in half, making it 45 degrees instead of 90 degrees. Then I glued each half to either side of the center window. When that was dry, I attached each side window. Sorry Betsy - hinges and chipboard do not good bedfellows make. 😊

I also painted a set of fireplace tools and added a basket of logs. The fireplace wall is ready now to help me make my railing side decision.

And it is ready to install into the girl's room.

After flooring, of course!

Unfortunately, my real life house could really use some fastidious focusing. See ya in a couple weeks!

xo xo,

Jodi

P.S.A. On Blogger Issues:

Sometime in mid 2022 the comments I leave for others on their blog posts were mysteriously disappearing, even days after they had been posted - I saw them post! After many searches, I finally found a thread that confirms that I am not (crazy) the only one this is happening to, and a reason for the mystery. Apparently, if your comment disappears from someone's blog, it has to do with their spam filter within the Comments section of their blog. So, it is ultimately up to the blog owner to resolve - nothing you can do.

If you receive comments saying this is happening on your blog, go to your blog dashboard and click on the Comments page. You may see the comment there which has been spontaneously marked as "Spam" for unknown reasons. You can manually approve the comment.

If you don't see the comment, click the question mark symbol at the top right of the page to tell Blogger about the problem. Apparently, they will reset your spam filter which eliminates the problem, at least for a while.

Some others have reported the cause as security settings on specific browsers or a need to clear your cache. Because I have also been unable to backup my blog content since last summer (stalls out and does not save), as well, I suspect that as things are broken in Blogger, they are just no longer being repaired. I hope it is not the case, but I recommend you look into Google Takeout to protect your work. I have mine scheduled to automatically export quarterly and they send my backup files to my email. If ever Blogger ends or starts to charge for hosting, at least we'll have our archives to decide what to do with them.