Walkers Way Weeds
It's all about recycling the WEEDS of our daily life!
Finished Haunted Hill House complete with rusty wrought iron and a tall tale.
It took me a few months to get back around to finishing the orange juice-molded house, but it is now a bonafide haunted dwelling! I’ll walk you through the steps.Continue reading
The OJ House still curing.
At my last selling event, once again, someone asked: “Did you really make that yourself, by hand? Well, how did you do that?” Sometimes folks don’t believe that I DO actually create the papercrete items I sell, from the design, the molds, to the painting and finishing of each piece. This post will be a step-by-step breakdown of a custom miniature house to show the amount of work involved in just creating the molds.Continue reading
The unfinished Mother Tree.
This post will focus on creation the planter and tree using papercrete and cement-soaked cloth. There will be a series of Mother Tree posts for the component parts and the finished tree.Continue reading
The Fairy’s Castle Cottage was one of the first batch of papercrete fairy houses for this season (2014). Creating the molds, forming the papercrete, waiting for the ‘crete to cure, and dry, are only a small part of the fairy house building process. Like building an actual house, the finish work takes the longest.
The Fairy’s Castle mold was formed from disposable plastic containers, foam packing materials, and a shopping bag.
Out of the mold, then back inside the moisture tent to finish curing. Meanwhile, I’m considering the potential finishes for the castle.
After the castle had cured and dried out, rough spots were cleaned up, the balcony floor and railing were mounted, and other accessories were constructed.
Custom-fitting the doors from scrap wood and craft sticks is a long tedious task. They were cut, sanded, carved, painted, stained, and door knobs (seed beads) installed. The drawbridge was a must for a castle, but my hopes of hinging the balcony doors meant quite a bit of filing, sanding, and drilling the hinge holes before it all came together.
NOTE: If you may be interested in making the hardware cloth railings, planter baskets, ladders, and furniture, please see this PDF: Hardware Cloth Wire Forming Tutorial
A couple of coats of paint to get just the right color and mottled look, drawbridge in place, and second balcony railing installed.
The mounts for the drawbridge chains were a real pain. A drill couldn’t reach so a bead reamer was used to make the holes. There was much more glue used than I would have liked!
When a fairy might need to escape the castle, an emergency ladder was installed on one end of the main balcony. And all the balcony doors were mounted.
Hanging planter boxes were made from hardware cloth and an old coconut coir basket liner with a few tiny faux flowers tucked in.
NOTE: The black accents above the doors are painted aluminum can scraps that were created from the gate and fence templates on the cutting/embossing machine.
After the roofing is done, I’ll add the drawbridge door latch and black bands from aluminum can cutouts. There is a possibility that I may add a hardware cloth flower trellis with potting bench to the left side (too much action on the right side) . . . still pondering.
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Baby Box became “Dew Drop”. After painting, she was embellished with aluminum soda can cutouts for window frames and round leaves for the potted tree. A pull-tab, screen, and wires form the front door. A plastic end cap was cut down to create a pot for the twisted scrap wire tree, and crushed lava rock dust was added for the pot mulch.
I’ve had the flu and been out of commission the last few weeks, so I’m taking a day to catch up the Blog with the papercrete fairy house projects. Some of the fairy houses were pretty cut-n-dry to develop. They were hand formed over disposable food containers, un-molded after set, dried, painted, and embellished.Continue reading
Hobbit Haven is ready for any wee folk that may be in need of a home.
Sorry to leave you folks hanging. I was sick, busy, and . . . never mind. Here are a couple of photos of the finished hobbit house, a.k.a., one of the flopped hobbits.Continue reading
Cured hedge growth/roof waiting for paint. A little thinner than I would have liked, but sturdy enough!
For those of you awaiting the results of the experimental Hobbit Haven Hedge growth results, here ya go!Continue reading
The front of Hobbit Haven (protected by a plastic bag) after the cement-soaked dish towel was formed into place.
I already have a few hours invested in Hobbit Haven and wasn’t happy with any painted options that I imagined for the top of the house. I wanted dimensional “hedge growth”, so I’m trying a technique of soaking fabric in cement slurry (watery cement). The idea is that the cemented fabric can be draped over an object, formed as needed, and then left to cure and dry.Continue reading
“Hobbit Haven” features carved stones on the chimney and around the doorway and windows. It will have a fitted wooden door and a moss roof.
The hobbit houses LIVE . . . the flopped hobbits didn’t flop!!Continue reading
As I suspected, the Hobbit houses didn’t do very well. It took two days before I could remove them from the molds, and they might collapse anyway. They’re still wet, fragile, and spongy. I’m afraid this batch failed! I’m letting them set out to see if they will harden up any, or just flop. Either way, I can’t use them. I learned a lesson (or two), so it wasn’t a complete waste of time and materials . . . disappointing though!Continue reading