A couple weeks ago I came across an adorable mini fireplace.
Stacy from Not JUST A Housewife explains her childhood Christmas tradition involving a mini fireplace. A clue would be found inside the mini stockings on Christmas morning sending the kids on a treasure hunt to find their gift.
What a great idea. Stacy's fireplace was made of clay.
Although I don't have much experience with clay, I have done a few salt dough projects which you can view here and here. I instantly thought
"It would be easy to make a fireplace out of salt dough!!"
Umm... yea... not so much!!
It took a lot of time and patience. The thicker pieces puffed up when I baked them making them uneven and hard to glue together. The end results were a very crooked, imperfect fireplace.
BUT I LOVE IT!!!
I made two mini stockings with some fabric scrapes and used fabric paint to write the girls' initial on each one.
For the fireplace I started out by making one large rectangle and two squares for the body.
Then I made a thinner piece for the back.
Using a small spatula I made indents across the entire thing to form the bricks. Then I cut out a piece for the mantel.
I then added a couple brackets to hold the mantel up.
For the base I made a piece slightly thicker and a little larger than the mantel
The fire is made up of a bunch of little cone shapes that I attached to a small ball.
Then I made some little rolls for the logs, cones and smaller rolls for the trees, and a couple square photo frames.
(The buttons are for a future post. I'll give you a hint, they are going to be used with the crib pieces I showed you in THIS post.)
I placed everything on a cookie sheet lined with foil
(I added the dollar to show you the size of the fireplace)
and placed it in the oven on lowest setting.
The smaller pieces only took about 30 minutes but the large ones took a couple hours.
I then set all the pieces on a drying rack overnight just to make sure they were completely dry.
After everything was dry and painted I started gluing it all together.
I printed out a couple mini photos of the girls. I set them inside the frames and glued some cardboard to the back to hold them in place. I then cut a small strip and cardboard, formed it into a triangle and glued it to the back of the largest frame to help support it.
(the smaller frames lean against the larger frame for support.)
Then I painted the cardboard.
To hang up the stockings I used two pins.
I cut off the end leaving about 1/4 inch.
Painted them to match the mantel and glued them in place.
I ended up gluing a small wad of paper under the fire so that you could see it behind the logs.
On the back of each photo I wrote the girls name and date of the photos and also wrote "Made with love by Mom" on the back of the base.
This thing is definitely no were near perfect but I look forward to all of the memories we will creating with it.
Thank you Stacy for such a wonderful idea!!!
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BUT I LOVE IT!!!
I made two mini stockings with some fabric scrapes and used fabric paint to write the girls' initial on each one.
For the fireplace I started out by making one large rectangle and two squares for the body.
Then I made a thinner piece for the back.
Using a small spatula I made indents across the entire thing to form the bricks. Then I cut out a piece for the mantel.
I then added a couple brackets to hold the mantel up.
For the base I made a piece slightly thicker and a little larger than the mantel
The fire is made up of a bunch of little cone shapes that I attached to a small ball.
Then I made some little rolls for the logs, cones and smaller rolls for the trees, and a couple square photo frames.
(The buttons are for a future post. I'll give you a hint, they are going to be used with the crib pieces I showed you in THIS post.)
I placed everything on a cookie sheet lined with foil
(I added the dollar to show you the size of the fireplace)
and placed it in the oven on lowest setting.
The smaller pieces only took about 30 minutes but the large ones took a couple hours.
I then set all the pieces on a drying rack overnight just to make sure they were completely dry.
After everything was dry and painted I started gluing it all together.
I printed out a couple mini photos of the girls. I set them inside the frames and glued some cardboard to the back to hold them in place. I then cut a small strip and cardboard, formed it into a triangle and glued it to the back of the largest frame to help support it.
(the smaller frames lean against the larger frame for support.)
Then I painted the cardboard.
To hang up the stockings I used two pins.
I cut off the end leaving about 1/4 inch.
Painted them to match the mantel and glued them in place.
I ended up gluing a small wad of paper under the fire so that you could see it behind the logs.
On the back of each photo I wrote the girls name and date of the photos and also wrote "Made with love by Mom" on the back of the base.
This thing is definitely no were near perfect but I look forward to all of the memories we will creating with it.
Thank you Stacy for such a wonderful idea!!!
Did you enjoy this post?
Vote for me!
Need some last minute holiday shopping ideas?
Check out these amazing products!
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