Farmer's Market Honey Display

Happy Saturday, everyone! This is a project that takes me down memory lane. My husband and I have kept bees off and on over the years and I spent many seasons at our local farmer's market selling our honey (and lamb, eggs, produce, beeswax candles, soap & pottery). The GSL Mini House Room Box 4 Cubbies gave me the idea to make a miniature farm stand display that would make a beekeeper proud. Let me take you through how it came together.

Here are the chipboard pieces laid out. The interior of the house has interlocking pieces that make up the cubby sections. 

After assembling the interior, side walls and bottom of the piece using tacky glue, I painted the cubby walls and front edges with off white acrylic paint. I also painted the interior surface of the roof pieces the same color.

The attic section of the house was papered in Graphic 45's Olde Curiosity Shop Parlor Wall, which has a lovely bee pattern. The cubby walls were papered in one of Authentique's Latest and Greatest papers. The floors got a woodgrain paper from Honey Bee Stamps Home Essentials.

The roof got a shingles paper also from the Home Essentials collection. I used a black and gray check paper from Kaisercraft's Looking Glass Collection for the house's exterior walls. 

I made some fun things to go inside the display, starting with miniature candles made by dipping white florist wire in melted beeswax from our hives. Once cooled, they went on a small brass hook. I added a few descriptive signs.

I got some UV resin supplies for my birthday and these little yellow bears were my first resin project. I turned them into honey bears by adding lids made from small beads and painted toothpicks.

We never had an observation hive to take to the farmer's market but a lot of honey vendors do. I started with a printed image and cut craft sticks to size. They were glued together and painted brown.

For a hive cover I glued on a small piece of transparency on top.

Once the glue was dried I simply cut away the excess.

Finishing touches include a spray of embellishment flowers in the attic space, along with a bee I made from pom poms and transparency wings.

The honey bears look so cute together! Any self respecting honey vendor has entered a jar or two in the county fair and come home with a ribbon or two (we have!). I felt this display deserved a few ribbons made from brads and blue (or course) ribbon. When I was making the dipped candles I poured the leftover melted wax in a rosebud mold and added a piece of florist wire for a candle wick. The honeycomb candles are made with small strips of hive foundation wax sheets wrapped around florist wire.

These floral candles on the left are simply molded polymer clay fitted with a florist wick. The observation hive cubby also contains resin honey jars.

I wish we had a real life size one of these! Thanks for stopping by!

GSL Products Used

GSL Mini House Room Box 4 Cubbies

Other Supplies Used

Tacky glue

Acrylic paint

Graphic 45 Olde Curiosity Shop Parlor Wall

Authenitque Latest & Greatest

Honey Bee Stamps Home Essentials

Kaisercraft Looking Glass Collection

Printed images

Polymer clay

White florist wire

Beeswax

Resin bears & jars

Metal beads

Toothpicks

Embellishment flowers

 

 

 

 

 

Vampire Mini House

Happy Saturday, everyone. Halloween is fast approaching and I am in full spooky crafting mode. Today I am sharing a vampire-themed project I made using the GSL Mini House Room Box with 4 Cubbies.

Here are the bits all laid out.  If you take the time to do this with 3D structures, assembly goes very quickly.  The adhesive I used is tacky glue.

I painted the walls and ceiling of the cubby rooms with black acrylic paint. The attic space was covered with Paper Studio wood grain paper for the ceiling and Paper Studio brick paper for the back wall. The bats in the attic are puffy stickers from Paper House (love them!).

I chose four different papers for the back walls of each cubby from my stash of scraps. The floors were covered with a black and white dot paper from Echo Park's Chillingsworth Manor. I chose a Vlad Dracula image for one cubby, backed with a bit of foam tape to bring the image a bit forward. 

 

With Vlad already in place, I added a Bela Lugosi Count Dracula image adhered to an oval glass cabochon with Diamond Glaze, a cross charm set off with a small brad, and a small framed mirror.

 

The other elements I used for this vampire-related piece include a vampire skull (skull bead embellished with polymer clay fangs on top a spool of silver chain), wooden stakes (toothpicks painted brown), a small bottle of holy water (resin) embellished with a scrapbook paper cross, a dollhouse brick decorated as a box of wooden bullets and a rope of polymer clay garlic. 

 

For the roof, I painted GSL Chipboard Shingles - Pointed – Painted in the same black paint and cut them to size. They were then glued to the roof in a staggered pattern. 

 Thanks for stopping by!

GSL Products Used

Mini House Room Box 4 Cubbies

Chipboard Shingles – Pointed

Other Supplies Used

Tacky glue

Black acrylic paint

Printed vampire images

Diamond Glaze

Paper House puffy bat stickers

Paper Studio wood grain and brick wall scrapbook papers

Echo Park Chillingsworth Manor paper

Cross charm 

Mirror

Various vampire-related doo dads

A Sugar Skull House for Halloween

I know it's only July, but I am all about Halloween lately, and most everybody knows how much I love doing houses, so here is a Sugar Skull in a house.
With bats.
And some scary tree bits.
Here it is lit up with glowing eyes.

 And unlit, but still looks pretty cool in the daylight.

  I started out with the Mini House Room Box 4x4 Open. I took away the attic floor to make room for the Sugar Skull 1.

I laid the skull on top of the large center piece and marked where I wanted to drill holes for my glowing eyes.

I drilled the holes to the size of the tea light flames, NOT the whole tea light. I'm going to glue the body of the tea light in place on the back of the house, but we'll do that in a later step. For now, I dry fit the tea light to make sure the flame fits through the holes I drilled.

I cut papers for the main body of the house, back, front and sides (outside only). I glued the sides and the roof on, painted the inside of the house walls, ceiling and floor and then glued all the papers on.

 Next, I painted almost everything else black. Sugar Skull, Creepy Tree (I used bits and  pieces of the 8-inch Creepy Tree and the 5-inch Creepy Tree) Chipboard Bats Set (you can get them HERE) and the ridge ornament, which is the Chipboard Fleur Border. (Get it HERE)

I shingled the roof and painted most of it brown, adding a few rows of black to accent the pattern. I glued the ridge ornament on as well. You can see some of the roof and ridge in the picture below. I apologize for not getting a WIP shot. I was all into the groove and forgot.

when all the glue and paint dried, I added the trees and the bats on the back. I used black double stick foam tape to stick the trees on and mounted the bats on wires and then glued them on to the tree and added some black roses to pretty up the joined bits. I got the roses from Alpha Stamps, the same place I got the bats and the ridge ornament and the Dresden trim, which I glued on to the base of the ridge ornament and the gable edge of the house front.

Last but not least, I added some corks to the sugar skull and glued into place and turned on the lights!

That's a good start on Halloween!

SUPPLIES:
Mini House Room Box 4x4 Open
Sugar Skull 1
Creepy Tree (8inch)
Creepy Tree 5inch
Chipboard Shingles-Pointed

From Alpha Stamps:
Chipboard Bat Set
Black Zig Zag Dresden Borders
Chipboard Fleur Border

Additional:
BoBunny Double Dot Vintage Chiffon
Graphic 45 Olde Curiosity Shoppe Genuine Article
Two tea lights
Black Paint
Thank you for stopping by!

Walking the Winter Woods at Night

A lifetime ago I was and English Major. Truth be told, I was not a particularly great at it. My true academic love at the time was journalism, and I did not have the temperament to analyze and discuss poems and fiction hour after hour after hour. 

Still, I always loved the written word--before, during and after my time in college. Something about Robert Frosts's "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening," has always appealed to me. It's tone is what inspired my piece "Winter Woods at Night." 

Tutorial How to make the Winter Woods at Night

Begin by adhering old dictionary pages to a piece of white cardstock with Mod Podge.  If you look close, you can see I chose pages that included words with "winter" and "woods". Use a dry brush to apply dark and light blue acrylic paint in criss-cross strokes. 

Trace the outline of the Mini House Room 4 x 4 Box onto the pack of your dictionary/cardstock paper and cut out.

The Mini House Room Box is designed to have a piece cross the house at the base of the roofline. Because this project eliminates the top piece, you need to cut off some of the notches of the side panels so the roof lies evenly on top.

Use Mod Podge to adhere your blue painted dictionary pages to the interior of the house.

Use a dry brush to paint yellow and white acrylic paint over another dictionary page. When dry, cut a circle from it and adhere to the interior of your box.

 Mix gesso with water and use brush bristles to flick this mixture onto your box in order to create snow.

Add a rectangle of pine green cardsdtock to the interior floor. 

Cut the frame away from the Framed Trees. 

Cover the Framed Trees and the Pine Tree Shape Set with a glue stick and then apply pine green embossing powder. Activate with heat. 

Add Snow-Tex and Diamond Dust to the top of the tree boughs. Brush trees with gold pigment to accentuate the moon shining down. 

To create dimension, use adhesive foam pads when adding the trees. 

Cut out snow mounds from white cardstock and add Snow-Tex to the top edge. When dry, adhere into your winter scene. 

Print out our title. Cover it with a glue stick and add Vintage Beeswax Baked Texture. Repeat several times until you are happy with the results. Add a silver cardstock mat.

Cut out child from Paper Calliope Vintage Children #2 and add a small strip of clear packaging behind it to make a stand. Adhere the stand in place.

Finish the interior by adding in some bleached cheesecloth and large pearl beads.

Add decorative cardstock to the exterior of the house. Glue icicle swag to the edges and your art is complete.

Happy Crafting, Betsy

Great Stuff

Pine Tree Shape Set
Framed Trees

Mini House Room 4 x 4 box
Paper Calliope Vintage Children #2
Seth Apter Baked Texture Vintage Beeswax
Green Embossing powder
Glue stick
Embossing ink
Mod Podge
Faux snow
Gesso
Acrylic paint
Gold ColourArte Pigment
Acrylic medium
Pink and blue Gelattos
White cardstock
Silver cardstock
Pine green cardstock
Decorative cardstock
Old dictionary pages
Cheese cloth
Pearl beads
Icicle swag