The Grand Tour of Stump Cottage

THE BACK of the stump

THE MUSHROOM GARDEN

THE FAIRY GARDEN

THE FRONT

THE NEST

THE MICE

Someone asked me what the mouse's names were so I came up with Daisy and Rupert off the top of my head. So Daisy and Rupert are the little mice that live in Stump Cottage. They are needle felted over wire armatures and I knitted their sweaters out of 1 ply yarn with tiny needles the size of toothpicks.

And that's the finished Stump Cottage. Finally, right? Started in 2006, put aside for a few years, worked on for a few months in 2018 and put aside again, finally to be brought back out and finished in 2019!

And everyone at Stump Cottage lived happily ever after.

THE END

Mouse House Furniture

I actually got to the end of this thing and thought my mice might be too big for the furniture. But as it turned out, my furniture was just right at half size. My mice won't bend to sit in any chairs no matter what size it is though. They are wired to stand.

When I bought this furniture from a put together kit, I didn't know what I was buying it for so I never used any of it until now. A lot of my finished pieces come together like that. I don't know why I want to make some things but eventually, they all find the right home. Just like this time.

I painted a few family portraits for the pictures of distant relatives and popped them into little frames. Then I hot glued them onto the walls.

I don't remember where I got the little hutch from. I've had it in my stash for a while and it fit perfectly. I painted all the furniture with white chalk paint and dry brushed a light tan color over it to age it.

The set had four chairs so I put one of them upstairs.

Adding More Moss and Plants

My favorite part of making a doll house is adding the finishing touches. That's where I usually get the most and best ideas for pulling it all together the way I imagined it to be.

I love adding moss plants to this stump. I dragged out my mini box of goodies and pulled out everything I thought I could use on this. The little glass stones were in there like they were waiting for just the right project. So I ended up gluing little pieces of moss in between them.

Love these little weeds. I had them on the old stump and I liked them so much that I decided to keep them on the re-do.


THE BIRD's NEST

I have loved this bird's nest so much I decided to put it back on the re-do. I got the nest at a craft store years ago (I don't even remember where) and I made some new little eggs out of paper clay but they're not dry yet. The twisted stick is from my yard.

I've got moss, lichen and other little goodies from nature and some that were mixed together in a bag of potpourri. I got the moss and lichen from a craft store.


OTHER VEGETATION

Mushrooms are fun to make out of paper clay. I made these mushrooms a while back for another project and they were leftovers. I got my little gnome from the Dollar Tree.

I thought a little garden area and window boxes would add so much to this little stump. After all, if mice can wear knitted sweaters, then you know they can garden too. So I added a fairy garden on one end.

I'll keep adding bits and pieces until I call it done. I'm loving this so much that I'm thinking of making more woodsy cottages... only on a smaller and quicker to get done scale.