Scottish tower houses are really little castles. There are quite a few of them around East Lothian (where I live) and many of them were until recently just ruins, four walls, no roof or floors. But over the last 20 years or so some lovely people have come along and rescued them. I think it must be magical to live in one of these homes. Not too big and not too small, usually locatedk in an elevated position with a lovely view. I can dream.
Anyway, my house is based on Tim Holtz Village Dwelling die, but I've made this into a 3 storey building using an extra layer of card at the base and building up 2 layers of houses, and added a circular stair tower with a turret. I also decided to make an enclosed courtyard at the back.
I went over the walls with a very thin layer of DecoArts texture paste to look like the harling you find on these buildings, and then painted with American craft paints.
The stonework, including the stairs and coping stones on the wall around the courtyard is all mmade from grunge board, I've used various colours of distress inks and pens to add colours on walls, roofs and in the courtyard.
I wanted to put some kind of decoration on the front of the building. This is actually a plastic button that has been covered in gesso, painted to match the wall and embellished with a very tiny black and white coat of arms.
I'm glad I did another of these, I'm pretty pleased with this one.
Sara,
ReplyDeleteThat is a great tower house. I love all the details - the texture paste, the grungeboard stairs, the stonework and the coat of arms. My sister recently showed me some episodes of Outlander. You live in an exceptionally beautiful country.
Outlander, my favourite books, and the TV series was almost as good! Recommend the series of books if you like a good read.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lucy for the comment, I enjoyed making this little castle and your lovely little gardens inspired me to make the wall and courtyard. Still haven't worked out how to do the crowstep gables yet, but I think I might try a pantiled cottage next. There's a village in Outlander TV programme called Cranesmuir and they filmed the scenes from that in a village not far from me called Culross. It has some fabulous old houses. And yes, Scotland is beautiful, but tends to be a bit on the cold side for most of the time. We get four seasons in one day and if you blink and you miss Summer!