Woodland Cottage

 Hello, my dears! This year I have decided to prepare for the Christmas season early. That includes getting some new decorations as well as most of the presents for my friends and loved ones well in advance. Despite my forever passion for Christmas preparations, each year I end up with some stressful last-minute tasks to be finished before the holidays knock on the door. Hopefully, not this time :) 

Today I'd like to show you a cute woodlands cottage made with a sturdy MDF base. The base is very easy to assemble and decorate using all the mediums one can think of. I really enjoyed playing with gesso, acrylic paints, texture paste and even a snow paste made by myself. 

Cozy Winter Stars

 Hello, dears!

It might be the most beautiful time of the year, but no doubt one of the coldest ones too! Just right to snuggle up with a cup of hot beverage, light up the candles, put on your woolen socks, and breath in the invigorating smell of fresh fir branches. Sounds good! And looks good too :) Moreover, it's very inspiring! Have a look, what I've come up with, inspired by cozy December evenings:

A Christmas Diorama

There is nothing better as we prepare for the festive season than to create some of our own decorations - to gift to a loved one or to keep and treasure for yourself. For this make I have created a little scene that lights up and it is really not as complicated as you may think. 

The two houses on my piece are made from an 18cm Tenement Building and 13.5cm Tenement Building coloured with blue and grey shades of distress oxides and adhered using Magic Glue. Before constructing the houses as the houses are quite large I attatched Lace behind the windows . I also punched a tiny hole at the bottom of the back of each house to feed the rice lights into the houses. Next I added Garlands of Mini Lights to the roofs before dabbing clear drying glue over the whole of the pieces and sprinkling with Glamour Sparkles. 

My houses are actually sitting on a mdf plinth however I think it is easier to disguise the light mechanism by covering a small deep canvas with pieces from the Snowy Winterland collection as this way you can decide were you want your houses to be and the poke a hole through which to feed your rice lights up in to the houses and then underneath and up through the second on so that the on off switch canbe secured underneath and out of site. Before adhering the houses into place I added faux Christmas trees inside the houses so that the houses appear to be decorated.

For the garden landscape I constructed the Cypress Trees, painted them green and then dry brushed the edges with white gesso before filling small terracotta pots with Air Dry Clay. The clay was then covered with Moss and the pot and moss dry brushed with white gesso to tone them into the colour scheme I had chosen.

Whilst I had my air dry clay out I made snow balls by rolling small balls of clay and then coating them in gue and more glamour sparkles. (The above photo shows why I think it is better to use a deep canvas for the base as I could not hide my switch as my base was solid). I then added some mini reindeer. The flowers and birds are all taken from Winter Wonderland Extras. The poinsetta were decorated with Yellow Microbeads and shaped with a ball tool.

The base of the diorama was then decorated with more moss, my hand made snow balls and the embellished flowers. Finally I tied co-ordinating Green and White shabby ribbons around the base.