Fairy House Lamp Using Plastic Bottles

Creative Mom
by Creative Mom
5 Materials
$30
2 Days
Medium
Hello, in this tutorial I show you how I made a fairy house lamp using nothing but coke plastic bottles, tin foil, watercolors, hot glue and paper clay.
I made a video with the whole process so you can see in detail how I cut, glue, make textures, paint etc. I also added photos for each step below.
I first glued the bottles together in the position I wanted. I twisted them a little bit so my house will have a dynamic look.
Then I cut the bottoms of the bottles. I tried to make a horizontal base for the house. Is not really a problem if you don't get a horizontal base. We can fix that in the next step.
Now we build the shape of the house using tin foil and hot glue. This is a fast way to achieve a basic volume that will be the base for our paper clay. We are also using tin foil for marking the places where the windows will be. Considering it will be a lamp you should draw as many windows as you can so the light will come out nicely. I made some mushrooms under some of my windows. I used some metal wire from a hanger for the curly roofs and for the leaf above the door.
You should now have the general shape of your fairy house. Cover everything with paper clay. You can work in one layer or, if you are a beginner you should work in two layers, one for covering the surface and the second one for the details like windows, door, wood texture, bark, mushrooms, door steps, curly roofs. After the paper clay is dry you can easily add more details using tin foil and hot glue, like I did for some of the windows. 
I made some fine details using a knife. Here you can see me adding some mushroom lamellas.
Wood texture can also be made using a knife :)
After the paper clay is dry you ca paint your masterpiece. I used watercolors and acrylic paint. I first applied the basic colors using watercolors and water.
I used acrylic paint for shadows and lights and diffused them in the color of the surface. This will give nice contours for the windows, and different volumes and details you have on your house
Here you can see me painting some white dots on the mushroom caps. You can also see the white around the windows made with acrylic paint diffused in the green wall icon
And here's the result! Let me know what you think!
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Frequently asked questions
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3 of 28 questions
  • Dana Dana on Feb 21, 2019

    How do you make the paper clay?

  • Robin Richardson Robin Richardson on Apr 02, 2019

    How long did it take to make this... You did an Awesome job! Its BEAUTIFUL!!!

  • Irene Irene on Jun 23, 2019

    One day after applying the clay it cracked and fell off. Is this because the clay was applied too thinly? How thick should it be?

Comments
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2 of 208 comments
  • I'm so impressive! You are an artist! Great job and fun to do!

  • Artie Johnson Artie Johnson on Apr 23, 2019

    I started following you on YouTube. I said I can do this. So I started making a fairy house. I finished the bottom half, let it dry over night. The next day I checked on it. It had cracked at all 4 corners. I was sick, I spent a lot of time on it. So I wrapped it in wet paper towels & a wet hand towel. Is there anything else I can do to repair my fairy house? You do beautiful work.

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