Setting up the Fairfield Dollhouse for Halloween and putting the gardens in place.
It's been a couple weeks with no post, but I've been busy! (Click photos for full size; they look better that way!; see other posts in left column archives.)
Actually, I got inspired in the last few days to work on some things for the exterior garden areas of the Witch Cottage between shingling. Yes, still working on the roof; painting and finishing up two small sections but I have to take a break from that. So tedious.
I was setting up some Halloween decorations around the Fairfield dollhouse (more pix to come later) and thought how nice the garden flowers looked, if I do say so myself (see top photo). Well, I didn't really plan on making more, but they're easy enough to do so never-say-never. So I decided to make a few more flower beds to set around the Witch Cottage, too. (See sunflowers now used with the Fairfield dollhouse.) I also moved the bases around. The base for the Witch Cottage was one I made a while ago using foam core board. I made a new wood base covered with green felt for the Fairfield.
So that is in the planning. First was making the flower beds themselves. I tried something different this time. I'd found these odd plastic plants at Walmart a while back and always thought they'd be fun for Halloween.
I'm still figuring out the placement of where the beds will be, but the bed with this orange plant and some spiky yellow plants looks good on this side of the house. I also found a tombstone candy mold at Michael's, so I made a few tombstones from plaster. The flower bed is a double layer of thin foam core board glued together with loose grass mixture and brown railway ballast (stones) glued on top. I'm making another bed with the round yellow ball flowers and some flowers I'll make.
Here are two more flower beds that I'll fill, set temporarily in the front of the house.
Stairs:
The house actually comes with a set of four steps that are rather tiny in size. I didn't like them and thought it really only needs two stairs so I made some new ones cut from 1/2" wide square wood rods. I covered the sides and front with the matching brick paper from the inside, which I also added on the exterior bottom of the house. (Textured brick from
Starboc2 on Etsy.)
I used some 1" scale door molding wood to make the top of the steps. I really like how this came out. The steps aren't glued yet; I see that I also have to add another small strip of brick on the wall above the stairs. I added a paved walk made from cardboard, grass, and cut out egg carton stones in front of the steps. I might add some moss between the stones; have to see how that'll look. This isn't glued yet. I'll add more flower pots on the steps. And I want to add pumpkins, of course!
Here's another tiny flower bed I made with one of those Lemax zombie gnomes, I have to add more impatiens petals to it yet. I used purple lichen/moss and green grass mixture. The other smaller beds are made from Crayola Model Magic air-dry clay covered with grass and railroad dirt. I might use these elsewhere and use the larger flower beds on the side instead.
So, that's the plan. Still working on what flowers to make but I'm leaning towards the sunflowers and yellow daisies (see top photo.) I really liked the hollyhock, but that one is more work. ha! We'll see if I feel like it.
One more thing:
Didn't dawn on me at first... but the cut-out design on the bottom of the house makes it perfect to hide some Halloween lights underneath! So I added a dollar store string of purple LED battery lights for fun that I'll glue to the bottom floor. Ignore the blurry pic, but no other way to show it lit up. I thought it made a great accent!
That's it for the moment. Come back soon for more flowers and updates.
And Halloween is coming so planning some posts for that and some fun on Instagram. (add me there:
cwrite12).
Thanks again for visiting. I appreciate your interest and sharing our fun hobby!
