Quick & Easy Faux Fireplace

I finally finished the faux fireplace for the Bible Study Bunkhouse! It seemed whenever I was about to finish it up, I would run out of hot gluesticks or I would burn myself. Hot glue and I have never really gotten along well. Hot glue problems aside, this is a quick and easy fireplace to make.

How-To

• First, I took a large cardboard moving box, and cut it down to the size I wanted (I split my box in half). If your box is already the size you want, then just tape it together. After that was completed, I cut the smaller square opening for the front of my fireplace.

• Next, I cut out a piece of the leftover cardboard to cover the back of my fireplace. I held off on attaching it because I wanted to paint it first. If you left your box intact and did not cut it to make it smaller, this step isn't necessary.

• I wanted a stone fireplace, so I painted my box various shades of grey. Once that was dry, I painted lines to look like grout between the stones and added some darker shading to the stones. After finishing the front of the fireplace, I painted the piece of cardboard I cut out for the back of the fireplace.

• After everything was dry, I hot glued the cardboard piece on the back of my fireplace.

• I cut out another piece of cardboard, so I could make a mantle for the fireplace. I cut it wide enough to cover the top and long enough to have about two and half inches leftover on each side.

• Then I dry-brushed the cardboard to give it a woodgrain appearance. Once it was dry. I hot glued it onto the top of the fireplace.

• To make a fire for the fireplace. I took a round piece of cardboard and glued it in the center of a sheet of tissue paper. Then, I just continued to glue layers of red, orange, and yellow sheets of tissue paper on top of each other. Once it was dry, I flipped it over (cardboard side facing up) and scrunched the tissue paper up around the cardboard until I got it the way I wanted it. When it is set up in the classroom, I am going to place several electric tea lights inside, on top of cardboard, to make the fire light up and flicker.

• I then took some brown paper bags and twisted them into a log shape and took a brown paint pen (or marker) to draw lines to make them appear like logs. I placed these around the fire.

• Once everything was placed inside, I added the fireplace gate.

• When I set it up in the classroom, I will take grey paper and tape it to the wall behind the fireplace to make a chimney.

• If you want to make the appearance of having soot inside your fireplace, you can take black spray paint a lightly spray it inside your fireplace.

Enjoy your new fireplace for your Bunkhouse!

Faux Window Fun!

So, after a very disappointing 7th game, ending the Penguins post-season, I woke up this morning not in the best of moods. This motivated me to get working on more VBS decorations (that I had been procrastinating a bit on), including the Faux Window for the Bible Study Bunkhouse. What better way to get over Stanley Cup Playoff blues than decorating and show tunes! ;) So let's begin!

How-To

• To begin, I spray-painted two sheets of thick drawing paper a light brown. I used thick paper, because I have to attach it to concrete walls that things do not like to stick to, so the lighter the better. Cardboard and posterboard would also work great!
• While that was drying, I used the free Open Office Publisher knockoff (I'm a poor college student; I use what I can get) to print out a poster of an image from a horse ranch and assembled it (mine was about 3x2 pages).

• I then took clear saran wrap and covered the poster to make it look like glass.

• Once the the spray-painted paper was dry, I cut it into 6 strips (long enough to match the length and width of the poster)
• I split the other sheet of spray-painted paper in half to make shutters for the window. You can also use fabric and put curtains around the window.
• Next, I dry brushed the strips of paper for the window frame and the window shutters with a darker brown to get a woodgrain effect. I used a brown paint pen to draw the lines on the shutters.

Dry Brushing

1. Take a stiff paintbrush (natural hair or one that paint has stiffened due to dry paint).
2. Dip the brush into your paint. Only cover the bottom 1/3 of the brush.
3. Dab your brush in a paper towel or a piece of paper to knock off excess paint.
4. Take a few practice strokes on a scrap piece of paper, before you paint on your window.
5. Take long strokes across your paper until you get the effect that you want.

• Once everything is dry, glue your strips of paper together in a pattern of a window.

• Finally, I attached the window frame to the poster covered in saran wrap, and then attached the shutters to the sides of the window. I used masking tape (mainly because I was out of hot glue).

Now you have a faux window!