Fireplace

Here's a little fireplace I made.  The grate and the firebox are made of black card and toothpicks.  The surround and mantel are foam board.  As it's quite thick, you can cut it on an angle with your craft knife and end up with a sort of bevelled edge.  It also files down nice and smoothly. I have a small set of metal files that I'm using to make most of my bits at the moment.  I am having lustful thoughts about a Dremel tool, or a lathe... but until we decide to settle down, it's not very practical. Anyway, it's a nice problem-solving exercise to think of alternative ways of making things than the obvious.

The decorations below the mantel are three little metal charms from a haberdashery.  I stuck them on with hot glue and then painted the whole lot with gesso, then white acrylic, then dry-brushed on a little brown grubbiness.

You can see how I made it from the back here.  The backplate is part of an egg box.

The toothpicks have a nice little decorative carving at the top. I glued four sticks along a strip of black card and then glued a narrower strip of card above. The bottom of the grate is thin strips of card, woven together and glued. I gave the whole thing a spray with some blackboard paint and then brushed on some pearlescent eyeshadow for patina.

I made the grate a little too big and it sticks out of the front.  It's also missing a hearth but I'll get around to that when I build the ground floor of the cottage.