*Photo heavy post

This is part three of our doll’s house renovations. Having not quite finished the floors due to a lack of a piece of stiff cardboard (to put under the carpet like fabric for strength) we have moved on to the walls. K was in the right mood to continue working on the doll’s house today so we set to work. The other day I went to Riot Art and they had all their large scrap-booking papers marked down to 69c each. We selected a few, K particularly liked the butterflies and teapots and took them home.

The first thing to do was to make a template making sure we had the window in place. This was a good opportunity to explain to Miss K what a template was. She understood for the most part but I wouldn’t say completely (she’s only 4 after all). After trimming a piece of computer paper to the right size of the wall I did a rubbing of the window area so we could get an exact fit.

I’m a bit of a short-cutter in some things so I would suggest sticking the template to the wall using blu tak so it doesn’t move.

I then proceeded to cut out the window of the template using a metal ruler and knife and then cut out the scrap-booking paper using the template.

While I was at Riot Art I talked to the sales assistant to see if there was an alternative to Modge Podge. the small bottle was around $13 and the large pot around $20, a bit expensive for me at the moment. She suggested using binder medium for both sticking and sealing the paper to wood, decoupage style. The bottle of binder medium was around $12 and much larger than the modge podge one, so a cheaper option. Atelier is a good brand from memory so I figured it was a good choice.

K then went ahead and painted on the binder medium, she did a pretty good job too. Check out the concentration on her face.

and then, after helping her to stick on the cut out paper sheet she sealed it with the same medium.

At this point I had to stop to make another template for the next wall so after talking her out of putting the very busy butterfly paper next to the fake slate floor (she decided to go with the upstairs which will be carpeted, trying to teach a tiny bit of design here) I got on with it and she got distracted. It was a good distraction though, she went and sat in front of her sister and drew her pictures which was sweet. I proceeded to stick on the butterfly paper.

And then we did the bathroom with the blue striped paper (she came back to help with that one).

After sealing all of our ‘wallpaper’ she decided she’d had enough (and so had Miss L who wanted to join in) so we stopped there for this week. We still have several rooms to wallpaper and I think she’s enjoying watching the house change.

Tags: daughter, dolls house, fun, play
Filed under: All Sorts of Things, Darling Daughters, Family, Tutorials