I made a little paper theatre a while back for
Alpha Stamps and have been asked to do a little walk through of the project. It may not be little (sometimes I get carried away), but you might find one or two interesting tidbits if you follow along :)
To create the Sea Adventure theatre I used the
Punch & Judy Paper Theatre Kit. The kit comes with a black cardstock and old paper pieces. I stuck the two together which gives the piece a little more heft and stability.
When working with paper I prefer to use rubber cement. It sticks really well AND it doesn't wrinkle. The important thing to remember with rubber cement is that it sticks to itself. Coat both pieces of paper with a thin, even layer (remember to go all the way to the edge!) and then press together.
No wrinkles and very little mess!
The next thing I did was to gently score the back side of my pieces. I scored every edge that needed to be folded. This will help to keep your edges even and give you a crisp edge.
Scoring the back of the piece keeps the old paper front intact and you won't see the black card poking though any scores that were made too deeply.
Next I start slowly adding edging and details. Here I've used
Black Zig Zag Dresden Borders and some seashells from the
Travel Adhesive Borders.
I attach the roof using white glue and hold all the bits in place with clothespegs while it sets. Clothes pegs are so handy to keep around and hold things in place... I've got dozens of them in the studio.
Now I move on to creating the side pieces. I like to edge all of my cut out work with black or brown. I simply run a loaded paintbrush over the edges so that they don't stand out. You can see on the dodo below where I've painted the edge.
Something else I often do is sand my edges. Here is the cut edge of an arch for the sides. Pretty darned bumpity eh?
I just use a bit of regular old sandpaper to smooth those jaggedy bits right down. Much better!
Here's one of the completed arches for the side of the theatre.
To help with the addition of the decorative trim to the roof of this project I used a strip of wood that was about 1/8th" square. I painted it black to help conceal it.
This is glued to the overhang of the roof...
... and makes keeping the trim in place much easier, adding another layer of stability.
The base of my theatre is complete. At this point I'll begin adding more decorative bits.
Here I've added corners to the trim using snippets from
Baroque Dresden Borders and the heads from
Metallic Mini Brads. I've also added a
Metal Hand and placed a faux pearl in it's palm.
The sides get mounted into place and I've added some sea shell charms too.
Next to make is the paper bunting that swags across the top and sides of the theatre. I cut out little triangles of paper, using double sided scrapbook paper. I dab the edges across an inkpad to finish the edges.
With a small dollop of glue on my work surface, I wipe a small amount of glue on the top back edge of the triangle.
On a taut piece of string I place the triangles evenly, leaving a little space between each one to keep it flexible when it dried. When this is dried I can cut the pieces to fit the necessary length I need for my project.
For the little floating ship inside I take a piece of the black wood I painted earlier and glue it to the back.
I used this
wave collage sheet and, with rubber cement, attach the images to scraps of the black card from the theatre kit. (Psst... If waves aren't your thing Alpha Stamps has a selection of
collage sheets featuring different backdrops to fit this theatre.)
Bending the edges I'll be able to attach them to the interior of the
theatre. I placed them at about 1/2 inch intervals, giving a 3d effect.
Here are all the wavy bits installed. The ship and the light house are from the
Travel Stamps Varnished Paper.
A few more additional touches to the exterior including a
Compass Button and the bunting we made earlier and it's complete!
Ta Da! Here's the whole thing totally fancy and gussied to the gills :)
***ETA: Alpha Stamps has all of the materials to create this theatre
on sale until June 2nd! Hop over to the blog for details :)
