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Sunday, April 7, 2013

Dollhouse Miniature Stepping Stones



Before we talk about today's project I wanted to let everyone know that I will be getting back to the building project soon. I ran out of the Basswood strips and haven't been able to get enough to move forward. As soon as I can get some I will continue with the project.

This week I decided to make some mini stepping stones for the dollhouse yards. I do need to get the landscaping board started for my Harrison one of these days. I know I have been saying that for at least 2 years but I really do want to get started. I think the fact that it is going to be a huge project is what holds me back from beginning it. Also that I have way more ideas that I will be able to use so I have to decide what I am going to include and what will need to be left off.

I got the inspiration for this project because my daughter and one of her friends spent a day making real stepping stones awhile back. They made some really pretty ones and I know her friend is going to enjoy them for many years. I had used this technique for making mosaic many times for different projects and decided it would work really well for mini size stepping stones.

I used the little 1” round wood shapes for this, they are really inexpensive and fairly easy to come by. In real life most of the stepping stones I've come across seem to be about 12” so the size is perfect too.

I gave the wooden circles a base coat of craft paint that matched my embossing powder, in my case white. I found if I skipped this step I could easily see the wood through the embossing powder after I used the heat gun to melt the embossing powder.

To adhere everything together I used a product that I got in the card making section of a local craft store. It is called Terrifically Tacky Tape and you can find out more about it here. I have the 1” wide version and I find it works for all the applications I use it for. If you do have to lay down more than one strip be sure to overlap where it meets. I find that it tends to pull away a tiny bit if I don't, I think it may be shrinking a tiny bit when it gets heated but I am not sure.

After covering the surface you are going to put your mosiac on you need to decide what you are going to use to replicate the tiles used in real life. I like to use the paint sample strips from the hardware store. They come in an entire rainbow of colors, they have a nice satin finish surface and they are free.

I used some hole punches this time to cut up the little pieces but you could do this project entirely by just cutting tiny bits with your scissors. If you need inspiration just take a look online at real mosaic work, some of it is pretty incredible.

After I applied the tiny bits to my design I coated the exposed tape with the embossing powder and then used my heat gun to melt the embossing powder. This is a fun process but do be careful. I overheated one of my stepping stones and it was ruined. I'll post a picture of the over heated one at the end of this blog post so you can see what you don't want to do.

I was thinking these stepping stones would be really cute on a seasonal landscape since there are so many cute little hole punches that are holiday themed. I can just picture a yard all decorated for Halloween or Christmas with stepping stones to match the holiday theme.




this is what happens when you use too much heat on your stepping stone




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