Dollhouse Miniature Round Cactus Sign

 

Watch the video here.

This week I have decorative round sign for your dollhouse. This one adds to our set of cactus themed items we made last year. To make the sign you will need to download the free pattern I created for you to use. You can find the download here. This one is really simple, just two shapes and a total of 6 pieces to cut out. In the download you will find both a PDF to use if you are hand cutting the pattern and a PNG if you want to use your electronic cutting machine. You will also find a text file that gives you the size you need to set the PNG in your machine and a few hints I have figured out over the months I have been making these patterns. As always you are welcome to sell items made from the pattern just please don’t share the pattern itself. If someone else wants the pattern send them over to this blog post so they can download it themselves.

Like always I am cutting mine from some medium weight white card-stock that I will paint rather than using a colored card-stock. I do this for several reasons, fist the color of the paint tends to normally be more stable than that of the colored paper and doesn’t fade as quickly. Secondly I only have to have one color of paper on hand to make the project instead of having a rainbow of paper which gets very expensive and takes up a lot of room.

 

 

Like always we start by gluing the groups of pieces together and like I said this is a really simple one. Only 2 sets the background and the landscape. Here is what you should have once the sets are glued.

 

 

 

I find it is best to place the pieces under something flat and a little heavy while the glue dries, this helps to cut down on the warping.

Once dry we can paint the pieces. For the background piece I am using 4 colors- a yellow, orange, magenta, and a blue. I painted about the bottom half of the round piece with the yellow then added bands of the other 3 colors slightly blending them where they meet. This makes for a nice sunrise/sunset look to the background. Don’t worry about the edges of the background piece we will be painting that black once the sign is glued together

Now we just need to paint the landscape part with some black paint. Be sure to paint the edges of the shaped top part (the land and the cactus shapes) and the front area but don’t worry about the round edge. We will be painting the outside edge later. Allow the paint to dry.

 

 

 

Once the paints are dry glue the pieces together doing your best to have the bands of color running horizontally in the background and the cactus standing up straight. Allow to dry.

 

 

 

 

Now for a bit of insurance since I am a messy painter I added a coat of Mat Mod Podge to the front of the sign around the edge. This way when I get black paint where I don’t want it in the next step it will be easier to clean off. Allow to dry completely.

 

 

 

 

Once completely dry use a brush to paint just the edge of your sign with some of the black paint. Clean up any mistakes as soon as possible. Since we sealed the surface it will be a little bit easier to clean up.

Allow the paint to dry completely.

 

 

 

 

Now all we need to do is add a coat of Satin Mod Podge to out sign and once dry it will be ready to hang in the dollhouse.

 

 

 

Now I promised to talk a bit about the inspiration for this sign. I knew wanted to make a round sign for our cactus grouping. I loved the cactus silhouette that I used on the garden flag last year so I knew I wanted to do something similar. It just happened that a friend sent me a picture of a large real life painting he had just finished for his living room that had a large cactus and other desert items silhouetted on beautiful sunset/sunrise background. This sign is a very simplified piece inspired by his painting. He painted his large canvas because he and his partner have set a goal of being able to move the desert in the future and his painting is a way to keep that dream/goal in front of them all the time. My round sign is my way of giving them a bit more support to fulfill their dream.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.