Pixie's Powertex Palace

Pixie's Powertex Palace by Abigail Lagden

I absolutely love all things magical, so I was ridiculously excited when my fairy house project pack arrived and couldn't wait to get started. Here's what's included:

First, I laid out a rough design so see where all the bits looked best whilst I had a little think about texture. I like my pieces to have loads of texture and depth and I don't like to leave any flat surfaces plain if I can help it.

I wanted to give my little house a natural feel, like it had grown from a woodland. So for the texture for the roof and toadstools I went for a rummage through my pieces of embossed wallpaper. I drew around the MDF pieces on the wallpaper to cut out the perfect size and shape.

The paper decoration included in the kit gives a lovely natural stringy texture, so a piece of this was perfect to cover the base of the house.

Once I had all my bits prepared, it was time to get house building...

I painted the top surface of the house base with black Powertex and the bottom part of the back of the roof, and attached the two pieces together (Powertex is one of the best glues I have come across!!). I wanted my fairies to have a shorter, more squat house so I attached the roof quite low down leaving a bit of the base part poking up out of the edge of the roof - not a problem as I had an idea to disguise it.

I then painted the front of the roof with black Powertex and whilst wet, placed the pre-cut piece of wallpaper onto it and painted it over with the Powertex. I did the same with the toadstools using some different wallpapers.

To cover the base of the house I worked black Powertex into a piece of natural paper decoration and gently stretched it out to produce a stringy sheet which would give texture across the wall.

On the MDF door, I used the stencil from the kit and Powertex Easy Structure to add the word 'dream'. (This is after all going to be the dream house.) 

Once dry this was painted over and attached to the house using Powertex along with the toadstools.

Now it was time to add all the windows, lace and embellishments. As well as the embellishments included in the kit I also added a moulded fairy door and a few buttons and hessian covered hearts from my hoards. To cover up the sticking up corner of the base, I added a hessian chimney - fairies love an open fire you know.

Whilst I wanted my house to have a natural feel, I couldn't resist a magical rainbow roof using a mixture of powercolor pigments and varnish. Once coloured, I felt it needed a little bit more magic so I used the interference powders in the kit to give it some iridescent highlights. 

These powders are truly magical and can appear quite different depending on the base colour - so have fun experimenting.

Can you spot which extra embellishments I snuck on before adding colour?

It's always tricky to know when to stop!!

If you like this project, you can have a look at what else I've been up to on my Facebook page and my website.

Until next time, Abs x