Make a House a Home

My friend Michelle from Faerie Dust Dreams was recently cleaning out her studio and gave me a bunch of her stash...what a great friend!  You know what they say about one woman's trash being another woman's treasure...  Some of the items were small wood blocks, which I decided to make into little houses.  I started by painting each one with acrylic paint, then accenting with Inka Gold.  Each house is a little different, with either stamping or rub-ons to decorate.   The roof of each house was just a strip of thin cardboard, folded and painted, then embellished with stamping, rub-ons, or punched shapes.

I made a door for each house using thin cardboard (cereal boxes are great for this) then painting with acrylic paint.  The door "handles" are brads and each door is accented with Inka Gold.  Inka Gold is a thick metallic paste/paint that comes in a variety of colors...I use gold and silver the most, but I also have a beautiful lime green, bright metallic blue, and copper. You can apply it with a brush, but I usually use my finger.




The green house door has a heart cut out of the same paper I used to make the crown.  I realized later I should have paid more attention to the words on the heart.  I have no idea what those words are!  Next time I'll cut out the heart so you can actually read a word on it.

Each crown was made out of paper and then accented with Inka Gold and little jewels.  A big dollop of clear glue holds the crowns in place.

After quite a bit of trial and error, I'm finally getting better at taking photos, especially close-ups.  Taking photos was one of the reasons I put off creating a blog for so long.  The technical part of the blog (uploading photos, editing photos, posting, managing) was another reason I put off the blog.  I wanted to share my art, not fuss with my computer!  Again, through some mistakes and lots of practice (and asking my daughter for help, you should see her roll her eyes...) things seem to be coming along nicely.

Thanks as always for stopping by!

Materials:

*wood blocks

*acrylic paint 

*Inka Gold 

*thin cardboard

*brads, stick on jewels

*rubber stamps, rub-ons

*patterned paper for crowns