Well, things have been crazy busy for quite some time, but I'm finally back in the swing of things... just in time for the upcoming show!
This year, I've got something a little different: a vignette. This is a very simple structure consisting of a pair of foam core (aka paper-backed foam board) walls and a round, "flagstone" floor cast from, of all things, spackle. Sounds like fun, yes?
Let's start with the floor. I would love to tell you how to cast one but, unfortunately, I'm not the one who did it. I can tell you that spackle-cast pieces are flat and flexible; mine came glued to a circle of foil-faced insulation. Obviously, the pallid color of the spackle wasn't going to cut it, so I painted it a nice, flat slate gray.
Nice enough, but not very interesting.
There are ways that you can spice it up, though. The instructions say to use acrylic paint to dry-brush some other colors onto it. I, however, am a cheapskate so I just used some pastel chalk that I already had lying around. I rubbed the chalk over the surface of the stones and then used a stencil brush (though any stiff-bristled brush will do) to blend the color in. I then gave the whole thing a good coat of varnish and let it sit for a few hours.
After it was nice and dry, I added some plain old sand-based mosaic grout, waited 15 minutes and wiped off the excess with a damp paper towel. Then I let it cure overnight before giving it a more thorough wiping with another damp paper towel. I want this vignette to look a little dilapidated and the pristine look of the dove-gray grout didn't really work, so I made a 1:1 mix of black acrylic paint and water to serve as a wet wash. It dirtied the grout up nicely.
So here's the finished floor. The colors are actually more subtle than the photo depicts:
Next up: the walls.
