Making a 1:12 scale stone wall using builders foam

Start with a sheet of rigid insulating builders foam and cut to size. I cut mine with a band saw or a scroll saw, which left a nice smooth edge.

When drawing on your stones, it’s best to get started by looking at some pictures of stone walls. It’s all too easy to make your stones get too big or too small. 

I found it easiest to start by drawing them with a pencil, applying enough pressure to indent my lines. 

Next I filled a medium sized ziploc bag with pebbles of assorted shapes and sizes. I think mine were originally purchased for an aquarium or something. I placed my bag on a section of incised wall, then I used a wooden dowel as a rolling pin to press the stones into the foam board. Sometimes I used the side of a hammer when I got tired of rolling, whacking without too much force, otherwise I’d have torn the surface of the foam. The pebbles do tend to wear through the bag, needing to be rebagged now and then. I tried pressing them into the foam board without the use of a bag, but it got pretty messy. The smaller stones tend to break down and you wind up with lots of stone dust.

The next step was to go back over my lines to define the shapes of the stones. Sometimes I used a metal skewer, holding it like a pencil, tracing my initial lines to deepen and define them. Sometimes I found a small screwdriver gave me a look I wanted, other times I used a small wedged tool. It gave some of the stones a slightly different edge. I think it was part of some arts and crafts kit we bought for one of the kids. 

I knew I needed more texture, so I got out 3 different sized chains. I’d drop a piece of chain down in a sort of clump, then roll over it with my dowel. You don’t want to press too hard or you’ll break through the foam surface and you’ll wind up with a messy area. I did this with each size of chain. I probably didn’t need to use the finer sized golden one, but what the heck, why not?

The final textures were applied to stones individually. For some I applied a little joint compound, using the tip of a palette knife, then patted gently with the tip of my finger. For others I dabbed a little glue on the stone then used the palette knife to apply a little artists’ texture paste. I found the texture paste easier to use than the joint compound. It’s “fluffier” than the wetter joint compound, but they gave me slightly different results.

On other stones I applied a little paperclay, first applying a little glue to the stone. I’d take a small ball of paperclay, press it out between my fingers and press it onto the stone, smoothing down the edges with the tip of my palette knife or the tip of the eraser on my pencil.

By the way, on the paperclay, joint compound, and texture pasted stones, once dry, I sanded their surfaces gently with an emery board.

On still other stones I used the rough paper of an egg carton. I’d cut off a small piece, then gently pry the section apart and peel off a piece, applying it with a bit of glue.

After I’d finished applying texture I’d go back and deepen or define the edges of the stones wherever I felt they needed it.

The stone wall is then ready to be painted.

Colonial Kitchen Room Box

The colonial kitchen started with this:

The colonial fireplace by Aztec Imports. It's a nice piece, but the bricks were just too brown, so I decided to be brave and change the color. I dabbed on some raw sienna and another brown shade with a stipple brush. I forget what the other color was, I think it may have been iron oxide. Then I used a blend of off white and a creamy light brown color and applied that lightly with a smaller stipple brush, rubbing it in with my finger till I got the look I wanted.

Here's the room. The setting is North America around the time of the Revolution.

The walls are sheathed in wooden panels and whitewashed, as is the ceiling. Wooden paneling helped block out the drafts, and whitewashing made the room much brighter. Candlelight was pretty dim, and the housewife needed all the light she could get. By the way, oil lamps were often more commonly used than candles, but generally that meant a cup of oil with a wick in it, which doesn't show up all that well in a miniature setting, so I chose to use candles.

The black baseboards are another authentic touch.

The floor in front of the fireplace is brick. The bricks were made of stripwood, with beveled edges. 

There are piles of ashes in the fireplace. They look better in real life than they do in the picture. I really struggled with those ashes, too. I wound up making the piles out of Paperclay. 

Of the 2 openings on the right, the upper one is the oven. Oven doors were originally made of wood, later they were replaced by removable metal doors or by hinged metal doors.

The lower opening was used as a warming oven.

A blue bucket bench is in the foreground. People were forever dragging about buckets of water. Every time you needed water for cooking or washing you had to go out to a spring, well, creek or river to get some.

After making this bench I was chagrined to find I had 2 more that I made a couple of years ago sitting in boxes on a shelf behind some other items. Oh well.... it's ok. I wanted the furniture in this room to look fairly new, and  I'd aged the other benches. 

I spray painted the cupboard hutch green. The original finish was oak or pine.

I took apart an unpainted table that was a bit too long, cut it back and glued it together to make one just the right size. The towel rack is one I made. 

The slat back chairs were originally white. They used to make them in dark walnut, but now they don't, so I had to apply many layers of paint to get them the shade of brown I wanted.

I have one more picture of the fireplace that shows the basket of firewood.

Inglenook Room Box

An old painting was my inspiration for this room box. I always found those big old fireplaces with windows within utterly fascinating.

The fireplace walls, hearthstone and ceiling timbers are styrofoam. 

The bricks that cover the floor were cut from bass stripwood.

While under construction, the floor was painted brick red in preparation for the laying of the wooden bricks. I used bass stripwood for the bricks. First I painted then sanded each strip smooth, then sanded the long edges a bit so blunt them. This will give the brick floor a more realistic textured look.

Next I cut the strips into brick lengths. The cut edges of the bricks were then sanded smooth and painted, then smoothed a bit more. I use emery boards for this. I always mean to buy sanding sticks, but still haven't done so.

Half Inch Scale Timbered Cottage

Deep within the forest lies a little cottage. An elderly woman dwells within. Some think she's a witch, some a healer. Some think she's just a pleasant old woman who likes the peace and beauty of the forest.

Maybe she does have magical powers? Where did the forest go?

Here's a better look at her porch.

The living room and a work room in the cellar.

I had cut up pieces of laser cut filagree medallions I found at Michael's to add carved elements to the furniture, but couldn't find a piece that had bits to adapt as carvings for the easy chair. I tried to cut some, but they'd keep splintering and breaking about halfway through. They were just too tiny and I found it so frustrating. I thought about the chair's decoration a lot and finally decided to try some leaves from an artificial plant. Yay! Once I added a few painted leaves it began to look much better. The seat cushion is made of Paperclay.

The bedding is big and bulky, just like in the olden days. They're plumped up with dryer lint.

You can't see it well in this picture, but the old lady's cloak is hanging by the door.

In this picture the items on the shelves attached to the bed can be seen.
I needed 1/2" scale candles and candleholders. I had a couple of silver Clare Bell candlesticks, so I painted one black, because I felt 2 silver candlesticks or even 2 polished pewter candlesticks wouldn't be quite correct for this house. I managed to get a little wooden sliver into one candlestick to be a candle, but the second time I tried, I couldn't get it the right size to stay in place. I decided to try a piece of stiff string for the black candle. I added some glue to the snippet of string to firm it up, then added a few more layers of glue to thicken it. Then I got the idea to make wax drips. I used Aleene's Tacky Glue, it's stiff enough to form drips that will stay. I applied each drip with the tip of a darning needle, adding bits of glue as I needed them to get the look I wanted. I'll have to try it in 1" scale and see how it works out. The glue dried white, but the 2nd day I found out that when it's completely dry it turns clear, so I had to paint over the added "wax" layers and the drips.

Here's a peek down the cellar stairs. There's a barrel of potatoes, a hank of rope, I don't know what's in the bag in the crate. Onions maybe?

We've reached the cellar workroom. This is where the old woman does things that are no one else's business, just her own. There's a good sized cauldron in the fireplace. Maybe she makes soup for gnomes and elves? Or maybe not.

Accessories for 1:24 scale can be difficult. In the hutch on the right you can see a jar full of some golden liquid. That's actually a 1" scale jam jar with the label removed. In 1:24 it looks huge. Other items on the shelves are assorted beads,  1" scale sugars and creamers, the tiniest 1" scale bowls I could find, and bits of wood and dowels I turned into boxes and big pottery jars. The trunk in the left foreground is made from a little block of wood and a piece of molding I found years ago.

This view shows the things tucked into the area by the bottom of the stairs better. I filled the wooden basket with bead "apples". I wanted a tall candleholder, but couldn't get my ideas to work out quite right. They kept turning out funky looking, so I decided to paint a funky looking candlestick black and added one of my drippy candles.

Finally here's the work table. The potion book turned out to be easier to make than I thought it would be. I painted a flat piece of cardboard with a splotchy layer of Payne's Grey acrylic paint. The pages are made of facial tissue. I cut some pieces to size, stitched them together down the center and snipped off the edges of the sheets to size. Next I gave the pages a light spray of Krylon Matte Finish. It stiffened the pages a little and puckered them slightly giving them that old parchment look. next I just glued the pages to the backing, glued the book to the table, and dabbed on some writing using Payne's Grey paint with a very fine brush. I decided to add a couple of rolled parchments. To make them I just wound the tissue paper around a thin dowel before spraying with the matte finish. I used red thread to tie them closed. The other parchment is tucked into the hutch by the fireplace.
The little red box is one of several I made from a piece of wooden molding I found at Michael's.

Here's a picture showing the molding and how I cut part of it off to form an interesting box shape.

I thought the tarnished brass "jar" was an interesting looking finial that had been laying in a box in my basement for years, so I used it.  The large gold candleholder with the drippy stump of wax in the corner of the table was the bottom of a 1" scale candle I had been experimenting on. I told myself I had wasted a perfectly good candlestick and then got an idea of how to use it.

The Construction Phase

I've been working on my first half inch scale dollhouse. It's a small cottage, with a cellar. I imagine a witch living there, preparing her potions in her cellar.
The 3 walls haven't been glued together yet. They're set up in a jig with magnets holding them in place. I've been working on each wall in turn.

I placed a wooden panel into place where part of the floor goes, just to make the cellar portion a bit more "cellary" looking for the photo.
The front door does not open. After drilling two tiny pinholes in not quite the correct spots, I decided that since nobody was going to need to walk through the door, who cares if the door is glued shut? It was better than starting a whole new door. Obviously I still have to timber the other walls.

The little block of white painted wood on the right is going to become the European style hearth that the little old lady cooks her meals on. I decided to make a fireplace in the cellar, in case she needed to brew a big pot of potion, and I thought it made the space more interesting looking.

Here's a picture showing the wall with the fireplace. I painted the walls gray to get an idea of what the place would look like with stone walls. As you can see, I opted for the egg carton stones. When I'm all finished making the stonework I'll be painting them.

Here's a view of the side with the cellar steps - and below are the steps. I wanted the steps to take up as little room as possible, and miscalculated with my first set, They looked nice, but wrong, if you know what I mean. When I measured the treads I realized I had made them too small, so I made a whole new staircase.

Oh yeah, the floor between the cellar and room above hasn't been installed yet.
Here's a view of the kitchen stove.

I chose to do the cellar wall stonework in egg carton, then stained the stones in various shades of gray.

The next thing I have to do is cut some posts that will go along the steps in the cellar. They'll help support the low wall that will go around the staircase. Once I'm sure I've got everything figured out correctly I'll glue the final wall to the other 2 and then glue the walls to the cellar floor. I'm leaning towards a dirt floor. Originally I planned on stones, but then I thought a dirt floor would be more correct. I still might change my mind, though. I saw a great beat up old stone floor in an old painting and wanted to try it, but I can always save it for another project.

I've been trying to get the furniture finished so I could clear away all the little bits and pieces of wood and accompanying woodworking tools and stains, etc.

The chair in front of the bed isn't finished, it needs embellishment, which I'll be getting to as I work on accessories.
I'll still need to make a stool for the cellar, and might want to make another little table, shelf or cabinet, but they can wait till I get an idea of the future full effect later on.

Here are 2 views of the living room as it looks so far..

Here's the cellar.

I had almost finished gluing the work table together, needed to attach the last piece, when I noticed that end was a little crooked. I sat there for a moment, ready to attach the last tiny piece of wood to the glued areas on the legs and supports, and said to myself, the heck with it, and glued it on. I've seen several 18th and 19th cottage paintings that included a slightly off kilter kitchen work table, so I decided to feel ok about the flaw.

I think the table came out nicely. No, I didn't do the carving. I found some laser cut wooden medallions in a craft store and stocked up on them, figuring I would find great uses for them. The carving on the table and the bed and shelf are all trimmed with medallion cuttings.

Have you seen those TV ads for Lazer Bond, the resin glue that hardens with UV light? I've discovered a handy use for it in miniatures. When I glued the little table together, there just wasn't enough area for a strong glue contact, and although the tabletop was glued to the carved supports, it tended to wobble a little. I dropped a tiny, tiny drop of the glue in the 4 spots where the curved top of the support met the tabletop, then cured the glue with the UV light. It worked like a charm. The tiny table is now securely put together, no wobble, and the tiny bit of clear glue is almost invisible.

I ran into a wobble problem with one of my little shelves and dabbed a tiny bit of glue there too. Remember, if you use the Lazer Bond glue on a miniature, you need to use the tiniest drop you can or it'll show up like any other glue. And don't forget, you need to be able to shine the light on it to harden it. 

In case you're not used to half inch scale miniatures, the table is 1 & 3/8" high.

I wanted a box bed with shelves on one end. It took me forever to come up with a bed design that I thought would work satisfactorily in half inch scale. I'd get an idea and would have to discard it because I couldn't find the right sized bit of embellishment I needed. I've found working in 1" scale so much easier than 1/2" scale. All too often I'd fiddle with this and that and wind up saying, "Nah, that's no good, try something else."

I did come up with some good ideas for a 1" scale box bed if I ever decide to make a room that needs one.

Well, that's it for now. I've got the idea for a simple little work table that'll go under the window by the door. I think I can make that next without too much fuss. I also want to make the old lady a chair to relax in after a long day where she can do some sewing or tatting or whatever. That will require quite a bit of fuss, I'm sure.

A few days ago I made a little work table to go under the window, and today I finally finished making the little hutch.

Working on 1:24 furniture drives me kind of crazy. I'll cut the pieces of wood, sure they're the same size, then I find that one's a hair longer or wider than its mate and I have to sand away  and watch that I don't sand the piece that was too big into a piece that's now too small.
 I did that, so I started over cutting a new piece. Fortunately, I only had to cut out a new piece once.
The back of the work table under the window went cattywumpus (off kilter - crooked - etc.) at the final gluing, but I decided it didn't matter as it was going to sit against a wall anyway, and it wasn't worth starting over with a new one.

Inside the base of the hutch is a small wooden block on which I've glued the various wood parts. I don't make drawers and cabinet doors that open, not even in my 1" scale pieces. I don't care if drawers and doors open, I'm after a look. Another reason is that I feel the doors and drawers on dollhouse furniture are just too chunky, even in Bespaq.

Here's a better view of the hutch and work table. The hutch is 2 & 7/8" high, the table is 1 & 1/4" high.

On to accessories!
Cottagers need baskets, bug baskets, small baskets, medium sized baskets.
I've got the big basket problem solved.

Yes, the gigantic yellow basket won't do, but the little baskets next to it make fine, big, laundry basket sized ones. I cut the upper parts of the big ones down to size, plus, I found I was able to squeeze the oval ones into round ones if I wanted to. Stain or paint was used to change the color.

Accessory-wise, I found a packet of jewelry bezel blanks that I thought would make an appropriate plate. I just snipped the little eyelet piece off.  A 1" scale bun makes a dandy loaf of round country bread.

The pavers are all formed from Paperclay. I used an assortment of moss sheets, reindeer moss, painted sponges, and bits of dried or plastic plants for the landscaping. I had a little 1" scale daffodil style potted clay plant that I placed next to the porch, just removed the pot and "planted" it.