Hogsmeade Inspired Book Nook

Happy Saturday, everyone! Connie here with my interpretation of a beloved spot from the Harry Potter universe in the form of a book nook. Lots of Gypsy Soul Laser Cut pieces were used in this project, including the new GSL Book Nook Box Extra Large. Let me take you through how it was made.

Let's start with the left side wall, which houses the Three Broomsticks Tavern and Inn as well as a cute little shop of my own invention called The Owlery. All of the interior walls are papered with Recollections Brick Wall scrapbook paper. The door to the tavern is made from a GSL Rustic Door 1 to 24 which was painted with acrylic paint and given a thumbtack door knob. The vine of GSL Laser Cut Miniature Ivy next to the door is available over at Alpha Stamps.

The Owlery door is made from one of the GSL Ornamental Birdcages Shape Set with a few of the bits trimmed off before painting in order to make it more door-shaped. I found an owl image that fit perfectly in the center opening.

The door was backed with a wood grained paper and I added a little sign.

The inn sign was made from a GSL Mini Crest Sign. It comes with a key to hang it from that I set aside to use in another project. The broomsticks were made from burlap strings wrapped around a painted skewer.

Each window was made from a GSL Mini House Shadowbox 2, GSL Window Four Panel Square and GSL Square Shingles Half Scale. The window pane is a bit of parchment glued behind the the painted window frame. I painted the shingles dark blue, cut them into sections, glued them to the roof of the shadowbox then trimmed them to fit once the glue was dry.

The floral accent bit is molded paper clay.

The back wall houses my favorite Hogsmeade shop – Honeydukes! The shop display is made from GSL Rectangular Bay Window Half Scale, available over at Alpha Stamps. What I love about the Extra Large Book Nook is this bay window fits just perfectly inside.

The bay window assembles easily with a bit of tacky glue.

I had fun filling the window with giant polymer clay lollipops, jarred candy made from layering microbeads, poly clay molded owls and my favorite, a display box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans made from polymer clay.

Here's a closeup of the right side wall, which houses Madame Puddifoot's tea shop. The window above the shop's pink door houses a tiny bird's nest. 

The door is made from a GSL 4 Panel Door 1 to 24. Here are all of the sections laid out prior to assembly. The door casing was painted white, the door itself a pale pink. I used an upholstery nail head for the doorknob. 

Here's the beautiful tea shop window made from a GSL Ornate Double Window and painted in the same white/pale pink combo as the door. I glued the window on popsicle sticks to give it a three dimensional element. 

I also wanted the upper window to have a three dimensional element so built it from a GSL Simple House Ornament and tongue depressors cut to fit it's circumference and glued in place.

Once the glue dried, I used a GSL Small Cobblestone stencil and texture paste to give a stone facade to the window. I used this same technique on the tavern's windows. Once the paste was dried, the stones were painted and the roof was shingled. I used a GSL Gothic Window Overlay over parchment for the actual window.

A bird's nest was made by gluing spiraled burlap threads. I added a few tiny feathers and some poly clay eggs to finish the look. 

The street was made from a full size GSL Cobblestone stencil and more texture paste. It was important to figure out the entire layout of this project before starting it. I knew where to mask off spots for the Honeydukes window and Madame Puddifoot's wooden steps before texturing the street. 

In this photo you can see I added windows above Honeydukes. I used GSL Windows with Shutters 1 to 24. I set the shutters aside for a future project.

Something pretty exciting for me was the addition of LED lights. I used a chip light kit that was extremely easy to assemble and I love the outcome!

An action shot.

 Thanks for stopping by!

GSL Products Used

Book Nook Box Extra Large

Rustic Door 1 to 24

Laser Cut Miniature Ivy

Ornamental Birdcages Shape Set

Mini Crest Signs

Mini House Shadowbox 2

Windows Four Panel Square

Standard Shingles Half Scale

Rectangular Bay Window Half Scale

4 Panel Door 1 to 24

Double Window Ornate

Simple House Ornament

Cobblestone Small

Gothic Window Overlays

Cobblestone

Windows with Shutters 1 to 24

Other Supplies Used

Tacky glue

Acrylic paint

LED chip light kit

Recollections Brick Wall paper

Wood grain paper

Parchment

Burlap

Printed images

Polymer clay

Microbeads

Miniature glass bottles

Upholstery nail

Thumbtack

Popsicle sticks and tongue depressors

Skewer

Texture paste

Witty & Sarcastic Fun!

Hello fellow gypsy souls!  It's Susan on the blog today sharing a few giggles, guffaws, and chuckles.

Generally, I'm the person who comes up with a snappy retort about 20 minutes after it was needed.  *sigh*  I admire people fortunate enough to have a quick wit.  For the rest of us, there are Susan's Wit & Sarcasm Flash Cards!  Ha ha.  I just made that up.  See? I *am* funny (or so I keep telling my husband...).

The base materials are Simple House Ornaments, Artist Trading Coins, and the 2.5 Inch Trading Coasters.  The construction process is pretty simple but I admit to agonizing over caption and image pairing.  I spent hours scouring the internet for free high resolution 50s housewife images and also bought a few pre-made downloads (those are much, much easier...).

I fussy-cut as many shapes as I could handle at one time.  This is really just carefully cutting with sharp scissors, good lighting, and reading glasses/magnifiers.  Seriously!  I perch drugstore 1.75 reading glasses on the end of my nose while I'm cutting and it is most helpful!

From a long list of collected sarcastic and witty comments, I choose according to the figure's "personality", printed on card stock and cut into strips.

Next, I coordinated the figure with the background papers and used Mod Podge/adhesive medium to adhere to the first side of the chipboard.  I gave that a few minutes to set up, then flush cut around the edges.  You can use another coordinating paper for the reverse/magnet side, and adhere the same way or paint the reverse side a fun color.

Next, adhere the figure and trim off the edges as needed. Don't worry about the rough edges at this point -- sanding is one of the last steps.  The coins can be cut with scissors.

Add the captions --tweezers and Zig glue pen are great for this-- and sand all the edges once that glue is dry.  Ink the edges and add magnet squares as needed.  Fun!

I have a stand at a weekly market and it has been a lot of fun watching people look through them, recognize themselves and friends, and whisper to each other about the captions.

Thanks for your visit today!

Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts Used
Simple House Ornament #C17O Set/2
Artist Trading Coins #D81M Set/3
2.5 Inch Trading Coasters #C23L Set/3

Other Supplies Used
Collage sheets from Alpha Stamps
Mod Podge
Assorted My Mind's Eye 6x6 paper pads
Sand paper
Brown ink for edges
Zig blue glue pen
Magnetic sheets cut to 1 1/2" squares (from Amazon)

a trio of holiday ornaments

Hi everyone, it is hard to believe that the holiday season is in full swing now.
 Tomorrow will be Thanksgiving in the US which will then lead right into Christmas preparations.
Today I am sharing my trio of holiday ornaments.

These are fairly quick to put together, using multiple sets of the GSLC simple house ornament. The ornament bases are sturdy chipboard house shapes and are sold in sets of two. I used two sets of two and created the thankful ornament with the remaining base.

Select a sheet of your favorite holiday paper and adhere it to one side of each of the ornaments.  I like to use collage medium. When the glue is dry, trim around the edges with an exacto knife to achieve a clean edge. Be sure to poke a hole through the paper where the precut hole is located or it will be difficult to find when both sides of the chipboard are covered. Turn the base over and cover the opposite side in the same manner. The paper I chose had sheets of a beautiful pattern in both a black and a white background. I love the way that the pattern is the same but one side of the ornament is white and the opposite side is black. Really, the possibilities for these ornaments are endless, any styles, colors or themes would work. You could even paint the bases and design from there.

Once the papers have been trimmed completely, the next step involves adding your chosen embellishments. I gather some holiday bits and pieces and decide on a scheme for each ornament. I think these would be a great hostess gift if you were invited to a holiday party, or even used for tying on a package then later hung on the tree. The embellishments would depend on how you anticipate them being used and can be simple or complex.

I prefer the look of a finished edge, especially since I have used two different colored papers on the piece. To achieve a unified look, I coat an edge of the covered base in versamark embossing ink then dip in embossing powder. The embossing powder is heat set; and, when cool, the process is repeated for all edges of each ornament. On one of the ornaments I chose to paint the edges with black soot paint instead of the embossing powder. Each method provides a unique look. Depending on the style that you intend to finish your ornaments, you could treat the edges in a manner that would be complementary.

My first ornament contains a gold embossed edge, and an embossed stamped sentiment also in gold. Beneath the sentiment I added a paper bow and some die cut greenery pieces. The reverse side was left unadorned. This ornament is tied with golden string.

The second ornament is embossed around its edge with spiced candy embossing powder. The focal point on this ornament is a glittered, stag die cut which stands in front of a gathering of die cut evergreen pieces. It hangs from a piece of sheer red ribbon.

The third holiday ornament is more whimsical than the others. Reminiscent of the north pole, strips of red and white striped paper are adhered to each side towards the bottom.  The edges of the ornament base are painted with black soot paint and when dry, a red wired tinsel is adhered to angled roof edges with collage medium. Three red jingle bells hang from the bottom by means of alcohol inked jump rings. An ephemera Santa is raised off the paper background by a piece of trimmed fun foam. He stands atop a "snowy" Christmas quote chip and is  ready for his midnight journey round the world.

 I loved being able to create a few holiday gifts with these Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts simple house ornaments. They are really versatile, I already have ideas for a few more designs.

I hope that you are able to set aside some time to create during this busy holiday season, I always feel that when I give handmade I am giving something of myself; a work of heart.


Wishing you and your families a very Happy Thanksgiving.
~Ann


Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts used:
simple house ornament

A Quartet of House Ornaments

As I continue to indulge my obsession for houses, here is a set of four wee houses with lots of personality. Made from the Simple House Ornaments, these sturdy little things are one of my favorite items on the Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts site. They are made from HEAVY chipboard and you can do just about anything with them.
Like this, for example:

They come in sets of two, so you will need two sets for a little street like this one, or make as many as you like and give them as individual gifts.

You can let your imagination go wild and make each one different or stick to a theme or color.
The sky is the limit......

I began here.

I cut my chosen papers, glued them on to the houses, front and back and then inked the edges with Brilliance Rocket Red Gold.

 I shingled the house roof below with Pointed Shingles Half Scale. There is a quick tutorial on how I do shingles HERE.

I painted a few of the windows from the House Ornament Window Trims black.

After playing around with where I wanted windows on a couple of the houses, I decided it would be fun to have some images of the outdoors inside of the house. These tiny images below are from one little scrap of collage sheet I found in my box of scraps I keep all the tiny paper bits I don't discard.
I cut the image in thirds and glued them to the back of each little tiny window. I glued the windows on a piece of black-painted scrap chipboard edged in Rocket Red Gold and attached the whole thing to the house.
After it dried, I trimmed it all around with black zig-zag Dresden trim. (you can get it HERE)

I also found the eye in my scrap box and zipped it up color-wise with a little copic marker and glued it the same way as I did the tiny window images. The Frame around the eye is from the Miniature Bookplates Shape Set.

I worked on the key images for each house and had those all glued on before I added the extras like more Dresden trim, brass findings and little white dots. The brass bee sits on another scrap of chipboard I saved from the Bookplates Set.

For the image below, I used scraps again and literally tore the edges off of them to create the three layers of hills and a tree to give my floating lady a soft place to land. I outlined each of the pieces on their top edges after I glued them on the house.

I used foam tape to attach the tiny, tiny little lady to the house (after careful consideration about her placement.
I wrapped some black thread around a brass hand finding, careful to leave some extra length, glued it in place from the back and attached the hand to the house. after it dried in place, I glued the thread to the my lady's hand and trimmed off the extra with a small sharp pair of scissors.
I added lots of dots to everything as the last detail in every piece.
I like to use either white acrylic paint or a Sharpie white poster paint marker for dots.

I also used the white Sharpie to draw the spokes on the bicycle wheels in the picture below.

A cute way to display the houses if you don't want to hang them is with the ATC Stand.

Thank you for stopping by!


SUPPLIES
Simple House Ornaments
Pointed Shingles Half Scale
House Ornament Window Trims
Miniature Bookplates Shape Set
ATC Stand

Additional Supplies:
Dresden Trim
Sharpie White Poster Paint Marker (don't get the oil paint one....you'll be waiting forever
for it to dry)
Various brass findings
Scrap images saved from collage sheets
Papers used on the houses from: Graphic 45, We R Memory Keepers, Basic Grey and MME.
Silk flower
Dresden Trim, clock and some cool brass findings you can get from Alpha Stamps.