What I Would Have Done Differently

Today was a gloomy-skied Saturday, so I decided to spend it painting the egg-carton-stone fireplace.
Immediately I realized that a sunny day would have been better, as it was difficult to really see my colours as they would appear in regular daylight.  So next time:  wait for a sunny day.

A good reading light would probably be just as good, but my eco-friendly husband does not believe in those.  :-(  Like someone a century ago, I do most of my reading with the natural light from the window.

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by how the fireplace turned out, though I definitely did make a few mistakes.  The next one will be better.  (You knew there would be a next one, didn't you?)

This one was probably obvious to everyone else a long time ago, but using a green egg-carton was really making things a lot harder than they needed to be.  Covering up the green without saturating the stones (and losing their " stony" contours in the process) was probably the most fiddly part of the whole operation.  So next time -- a more neutral tone of egg carton, please!

Secondly, I think I should have first given the styrofoam backing a coat of some masonry-coloured paint.  Grey or even ivory would have looked better than the stark white I had.  (And which again presented me with challenges in coverage.)

But you know, painting the fireplace was a lot of fun!  I approached it as a learning experience and hence felt free to just play.  I experimented with painting technique, starting first on the side of the fireplace that would not really be "seen" once it was installed.  What I finally decided worked best was to begin with a mid-tone and middle consistency to lightly cover up the egg-carton.  Then, when the paint was no longer wet, I dry-brushed a darker colour (in my case, a dark grey) on the contours of the stones, to bring them out visually.  I finished by adding accents in lighter, brighter colours (in my case a kind of pale sandstone and a medium umber).  And yes, there were still some greenish tinges, which will just have to represent a dusting of moss, I guess.  I wanted to hate it, but somehow I couldn't.  It is probably more suitable to a family of mice than a family of Tudors, but it's rather sweet, and I like it.

Next time I think I may try using artist's pastel crayons instead of paint, to eliminate some of the "muddiness" of the colours.  This time out I used only colours of acrylic paint that I had on hand.  They were:  Soft Sand, Burnt Umber and True Grey by Aleene's and Rain Grey by Delta Ceramcoat (imported for me from Canada by Jeff!)

Note  the Don Enrico Jalapeno Chiles bottle which I used to hold the water to dip my brush into.  :-)  Don Enrico is the first brand I have bought here in Germany that actually tastes like Mexican food back home in California.  We actually had excellent tacos for lunch today!

Egg Carton Stone Fireplace

After a couple of days without the stamina to work on the dollshouse at all, I am shooting for two projects at once today.

The upstairs floor needs to dry after being gently sanded and ModPodged...so I am trying to make a fieldstone fireplace out of egg carton stones.  My parents have such a (real stone, not egg carton!!)  fireplace in their real house, and I have always loved it.  Egg carton, odd though it sounds, does have the potential to create the most realistic results for miniature stonework.  (I guess using real stones could be as good, but I wanted to try something new.)

I say "has the potential" because, let's face it, I am going to have to paint those egg carton rocks once they are in place.  Can I paint anything remotely resembling fieldstone?  Ahh, there's the rub.  Let's see how it goes.  On the plus side, this method is spectacularly cheap.  All you have to do is save up an egg carton -- I used almost one whole one -- and find something to cut the actual fireplace shape from.  I used a scrap of styrofoam packing material.

The cut-out for the fire (for which I traced around half a soup can to make the arch) was a little bit shaggy, so I neatened it up with a thin coating of plaster:  that is to say, Polyfilla (or Spackle) thinned with water.

I am very much indebted to Casey's Minis for the advice I followed on the method itself, and you could not do better than to visit her magnificent blog for the details.  I both cut and tore the stones to shape, and went so far as to use a green egg carton (since that was what I had on hand and I did not want to wait to eat another ten eggs.  Yes, you read that right.  Here in Germany you do not get a dozen; you get ten.  They also do not refrigerate them in the store.  I still expect to get food poisoning, but never have.)  I don't think the green  colour will show through the paint.  (If it does, we are almost through another carton of eggs.  A brown one this time.)

Here is a picture of what I have so far.  No paint yet.  This is a first for me, showing a work in progress.  If I ruin it in the painting stage, I will try to feel liberated.

The bare white strip is the place where the rough-hewn balsawood mantelshelf will be glued.