French Quarter Custom Dollhouse

My recent visit to New Orleans inspired this French Quarter dollhouse.

I took most of my inspiration for the exterior from Lafitte's blacksmith shop. 

I did the exterior with concrete(premixed stuff that comes in a plastic tub at the home improvement store).  Some I smoothed out like plaster and some I carved into old handmade bricks.

 This side is a whole wall of old bricks, some crooked.

This is an old advertisement for a Bourbon Street dry goods store.  While the glue was wet I manipulated the paper so it would be torn and rippled. I then aged it with a thin(watered down) mixture of black and brown paint.

The old shutters are slightly open.

 This side, I carved large stones.

 I used real twigs to have an old dead vine.

The interior is very aged. I used the same mixture of black/brown paint to get this old look.

The brick wall is concrete carved.  The wallpaper is from the scrapbook department.  The chandelier is battery operated. I made it with wire and crystal seed beads.

I got the columns for the chimney from a scrapbook supplier. 

This mirror is a frame that's a Christmas ornament(photo frame) from Hobby Lobby.  I used a piece of silver cardboard paper(scrapbook) for the mirror. I wasn't sure it would work. But I used a golden brown, black and green. I dabbed it on with a brush. Then I cleaned my brush and took off some of the paint. It worked! It really looks like an antique mirror.  I'll have to do a tutorial about this one.

The curtains are taffeta. They are so stiff naturally that I didn't have to do anything to them. I glued the roman shade in place fold by fold.

This crackled paper and wainscoting is also in the scrapbook isle. 

If you want to purchase this house it's available at CinderellaMoments.

Thanks for the visit!