Painted Bricks!

My husband's in a band and they practice in our house. Needless to say it gets kinda loud on practice nights. Can't watch any TV or the sort, so I figured that I would paint the bricks on my 1/4 scale cottage. The paper clay worked out easier then I had thought. Unfortunately, on the first wall that I papered, the clay was a bit too thick. As a result my wall did warp a tiny bit, other then that it turned out good. I painted the bricks with acrylic paints. I mixed different colors and applied them in a random fashion. Below are my results.

1/4 inch scale house exterior and fireplace

I made the walls for the attic in the same nature as I did for the walls in the first floor. I cut out a cardboard template, glued my wallpaper onto it and dry brushed a little color in the corners and bottoms of the walls. Then, used YES glue to apply it to the walls.

The chimney stacks on the exterior needed to be thicker at the bottom. So I cut out triangles out of foam core and glued them to each side of the chimney so I won't have to use as much paper clay later on.

Then it came time for the paper clay... To afix the paper clay to the exterior walls you need to put a thin layer of white tacky glue. I prefer Aleen's Tacky glue. I found that it was easier to put the glue onto the exterior of the wall before rolling out the paper clay. The paper clay I was using seemed to dry out pretty quickly (within a matter of minutes it was getting a bit crumbly and dry on the surface). I would then roll out the paper clay to be quite thin (1/8 to 1/4 inch in thickness) and make it larger then the area I was covering. Make sure to not have the paper clay to thick. Your walls can warp if the clay is too thick because it does contain moisture and you are only applying to one side of the wall. The first wall that I covered on my house was a bit thick and the top portion of the wall bowed slightly. Using an X-Acto knife I would carefully cut off the excess clay and cut out the windows and doors. I repeated the same for all the walls. I used a needle tool to make lines for the bricks in the chimneys and to create the effect of small cracks in the walls. I rolled out a thin piece and cut out bricks to go around the door. I glued them onto the exterior using Aleen's Tacky glue. I now have to wait till the exterior is dry before I paint (dry brush) the exterior.

My Mom gave me a 1/4 inch scale fireplace kit the she designed. (She's so creative!) I figured why not make it, my miniature making was going pretty good that day. I turned out quite cute. I even used a twig from the cedar tree outside my house to make mini logs!

1/4 scale miniature cottage

I am working on a 1/4 scale cottage kit that was designed by my Mom. The above picture is of my Mom's completed project. So far I got quite a bit done on mine.


I started by assembling the outer shell.The outer shell is comprised of thin wood walls. The walls are held together using tacky glue and paper seems.






These were placed on a foam core base. The base has a printable "hardwood" pattern.

To create the interior walls, I glued the wallpaper/wall treatments to a cardboard that I fitted to the interior.  Using YES! glue I afixed the paper to the cardboard. YES glue is highly recomended for this as it does not curl or warp paper like other types of glue. I also find that it dries flat.


 

 
I using a dry brush method, I applied paint to the bottoms of the walls and corners to add a bit more dimension. Note the cardboard/wall paper is not yest gluesd to wood walls. 

 

 
I used a similar method for my ceilings. I fitted a piece of carboard. Then I painted the ceilings. Once the paint had dried I then glued the ceilings in place. Once again I used YES glue.

 

 The finished walls and ceilings in place.








This is where I got up to. I hope to start working on the exterior tomorrow. I will be creating a plaster exterior wall and brickwork around the chimney, doors and window frames.  This will be done using paper clay. I have never used paper clay before. Hopefully I won't be too messy!