This week being the last week to work on this project, I had to push to finish up all the remaining details. The list of things I needed to finish was long: roof framing, attaching moss to the roof, building and sealing the fireplace, laying and sealing the floors, and adding lighting. I was able to accomplish everything except for the lighting, but I plan to add that later on as a personal project.
The first thing I started working on was the fireplace. I took all of the smaller, flatter stone that I had left and constructed a 2”x 2” oval with a small opening and a copper pipe coming out the top. I also secured the copper pipe to the existing wall with clay, but since that fell off when it dried I had to tie a string around the pipe and secure it outside the wall. I covered the outside fireplace in mod podge once the clay in the fireplace dried to seal it.
Once the fireplace was finished I began working on the floors. I spread a layer of clay on the floor, placed the glass bed bowl in its place, and pressed all remaining flat stones into it. I filled in the bare areas with small stone fragments, then poured clear Elmer's glue over the whole floor. I sprinkled some sparkles into the glue to give it a bit of a shine, and let that dry. When the glue dried the floor still wasn’t quite flat so I poured another layer of glue and let that dry. In the end, the floor still wasn’t perfectly flat but I feel that a faerie would be safe from stubbing their toes or tripping over the floor stones.
Once the floors had been laid and dried I began to work on the roof. To frame the roof, I collected four sticks that all had limbs protruding from them. I cut the sticks down so that there was a v-shape at the end that could sit on the top of the stone wall. I temporarily held the sticks together at the top with a rubber band while I took chopsticks and tied each stick to the ones next to it for extra support. I also tied the remaining stained glass window that I had made the first week to two pieces of chopstick that I then tied to the roof frame to make a skylight.
Unfortunately, since I did not have time to make a planter roof, I had to use a sheet of fake moss for my roof :( I plan on taking time to make a planter roof with real moss as a personal project. Since the moss I was attaching was on sheets of wax paper, I was able to secure triangle panels of the moss to the roof framing by sewing it around each stick with embroidery thread. I had to cut a hole in the panel around the skylight, and I sewed the edged of the hole to the sticks around the skylight. Once I had finished attaching the moss panels to the roof, I tied a string from each of the roof framing sticks and secured them to tacks that I stuck into the base of the house. I did this so that I did not have to secure the roof to the house itself and would be able to take it off and make a new roof in the future, and also so that I can get better access to the inside of the home.
To make the faerie home complete, I added a few finishing details: I had a small round mirror that I had broken and was saving for a craft, so I glued it back together (adding a bit of glitter of course) and hung it up on the wall. I also set a small metal doorknob that I got at Goodwill next to the bed to be used as a stool. I had built my faerie house on a small piece of corrugated board, and while I had planned on covering this in moss, I decided to leave it bare so that I have the option of “planting” it in my garden at home. I plan to create some sort of wood rack and matchbox so that any faeries who visit can make themselves a fire, if they so please.