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.

Good Gaudy!

A fun play on words, dangerously close to blasphemous, but also true! Where else can you get away with so much embellishment, color, florals and texture but in a dollhouse? I took full liberties with every opportunity as I worked this week, and though it might seem gaudy to some, it's good gaudy when it comes to my idea of a fairytale treehouse! Let me share with you all the gaudy details! 😊

First, after installing the bay window's light fixture, it got me thinking about window coverings. I didn't need to actually cover the windows - it's not like the treehouse will be in a housing development where you can look out your window and see your neighbor brushing his teeth. So, maybe just a valence... a valance of flowers!

How it came to be... I had this polymer/resin rose vine floating around in my landscaping drawer for a very long time. It came as part of an ebay lot of furniture I bought a long time ago. Unfortunately, it was red, a color I haven't had the need for in any mini setting, so far. But, with a little paint, first a neutralizing coat of white and then a shade of petunia, it was perfect! I even changed the color of the leaves and applied a dirty water wash to bring out more of the vein details.

After its color transformation, Wayne found me a length of grapevine from a wreath in my stash, cut it to size for the bay window and then helped me wire the rose vine onto it.

Perfect shape for the bay!

Painted petunia then wiring to the grapevine.

To hang it, he painted some gold cup hooks bronze, then installed them between the bay window frames.

I had some mulberry paper roses in my stash to supplement the vine. Originally white with pink centers, they got painted, too, then interspersed among the rose vine. I have left room on the ends so I can add hanging herbs and maybe a birdhouse when the full kitchen decorating happens. Viola! Fairytale window coverings!

Wayne and I continued working in the kitchen, adding the sconces on the sink wall and then another flower valence with mulberry paper flowers above the window alcove. I found some leftover leaves from a flower kit to add as filler.

I wasn't thrilled with my first idea for the kitchen's ceiling light. Luckily, Wayne found a metal fairy garden lantern in my stash he thought could work. He salvaged parts from a beat up ceiling fixture and came up with a scheme using a plastic bowl from my stash. He removed the metallic "flame" from the fairy lamp, drilled a hole into the plastic bowl, slipped it over the light fixture base (after painting it bronze) then glued it to the lantern. To help conceal the wire, I painted it green like a vine, wound it around the lantern and then wove in a mulberry paper flower. We make a great team! I hope it will provide enough light. Otherwise, we'll have to come up with something else to make an additional fixture. We'll test it once we start the ceiling installation process.

Rustic metal fairy garden lantern, lamp base removed from a
beat up ceiling fixture and a plastic bowl.

While I was working on lighting again, my "new old stock" ebay fixture for the girls' ceiling arrived in the mail. I had made a reasonable "make offer" offer and it was accepted. This time, I painted it green, wove a piece of grapevine wreath through the arms, then added more flowers. I think the girls should have plenty of light in their bedroom now.

Working out the 'Chicken and Egg Conundrum', it seemed prudent to stay focused on kitchen tasks this week. Before all the upper floors/ceilings can be installed the stove wall has to be fixed in place. Once the stove wall is in place it will be much more difficult to reach into the kitchen. Better to finish the big and challenging stuff before the walls/ceilings are in the way. That meant making the sink cabinet and shelving. 

As you can see, I went full Tudor "carving" mode on it. And boy was it fun! I cut it from chipboard on the Cricut Maker, then added basswood trims, Dresden and other embellishments from my stash. I made the tub sink from Kraft card with a chipboard base. 

Painting the sink cabinet in a neutral, monochrome color really took down most of the garishness, but still left such wonderful details. Especially once the dirty water wash settled into the crevices. The sink is painted in the same "bronze" effect as the lighting fixtures and then given an eyelet drain. The girls insisted on having lavender knobs.

For the countertops, we went with 1/8" x 1/4" "butcher block" stained with the Fred's Weathering Stuff. Wayne made rustic open shelving with scrap basswood to match. The rusty water pump brings fresh well water up for the girls to use whenever they need it. Goldie has been sorting through my stash of kitchen minis and doing a little shopping for some of the things I don't have, while Alice is looking for new places to adorn with flowers.

Wayne insists that before the kitchen ceiling/girl's bedroom floor can be installed, we have to install the great room's balcony. It has a support beam that the girls' floor needs to rest on. But it needed lots of prep work. First, Wayne and I added Betsy's "glue trick" bark in several layers, letting each one set before the next layer. Then we painted its base color, dry brushed highlights and added an overall dirty water wash. At that point it was ready to be attached to the balcony floor. You should have seen how Wayne expertly affixed the clamps - he is incredibly strong for such a little guy! Notice that we also applied Dresden "carving" to the face of the floor beams. Wayne has such creative ideas, but who knew treehouses could be so much work?

Once the balcony assembly was ready, it was time to add the rustic wood flooring strips. Wayne is a math whiz and taught me that for 90 degree cuts placed corner to corner like these, each floor board row progressively increases in length by the same amount as the width of each board: 1/2". His angles are pretty amazing, too, given the age of the wood and how brittle it is. Only the small folk using the balcony will ever get to see his craftsmanship once the balcony is installed.

He really likes the Fred's Stuff stain and used it on the floorboards, too.

Before the balcony can be installed, we had to install the sconces that will live above and below it. It would have been harder for me to hold them in place while Wayne nailed them to the wall with the balcony in the way. The sconces on the first floor, flanking the staircase, went in easily enough, though the left sconce seems to be a wee bit crooked. Wayne says it adds character. Ah well, at least the lights still work!

Then we installed the balcony sconces on either side of the French doors. Our luck is holding out - these sconces are still working, too! 🤞

You'd think at this point, after all our prep work, that we'd be free to get the balcony floor installed. Nope. Things just weren't quite gaudy enough yet! Once we'd experienced the fun, success and ease of beefing up the flower vines for the kitchen bay, we realized we'd need many more for the rest of the treehouse! Luckily, Christine, the owner of MiniatureCrush had just what we needed and shipped them out lightning fast! Now we can continue embellishing flower vines to drape over the balcony and other places before we take the next steps. Wayne is working on the landscape design while he waits for me to finish the flower vines. 

White flowers...

Become lavender.

So this, my friends, is where I'll leave off for this week. Next week, I hope to share all the florals, all the resources, all the progress and more Good Gaudy!

xo xo,

Jodi