Treetop Fairy Village & Mini Album

Hello everyone!
Here I am back with another new design- the Treetop Fairy Village.

The project features Graphic 45's Nature Sketchbook paper collection, and is about 17" tall on a 14" x 14" base.  Hidden inside the landscape is a mini album.

The trees have a PVC pipe structure, but otherwise the entire project is constructed from chipboard and paper.

There are three little houses in the village, and lots of flowers, Ladders provide access to all the levels and there is a bucket hoisting rig for bringing supplies up top. On the highest platform, there are lounge chairs for the fairies to relax and enjoy the view.

Let's take a look at the project...

To enter the village there are two flights of steps. The first flight goes up a little over an inch to the second level in the landscape, and the second flight completes the climb to the courtyard in the village, going up an additional 1 1/2".

Miniature flower pots with lots of flowers flank the steps.  The flowers are cut from Tim Holtz new Tattered Florals Thinlets die.

As we come up to the courtyard level, we can see some little mushrooms growing at the base of a tree.

Each tree has an interior PVC pipe structure which is inserted deep in the base to give it good stability. The "bark" is torn paper strips, inked and applied in layers.

Here you can also see the courtyard has some additional layering made of black foam core.

Now let's wander into the courtyard and find the ladder leading up to the little house on the lowest tree.

Our view here is from the back looking towards the front of the village.  The big tree with its bucket hoist is in the right foreground,

The ladders have chipboard side rails and 1/8" wood dowels for the rungs.

This little house sits on one of four round platforms.  All the platforms have fences cut from lightweight chipboard with Tim Holtz "On the Fence" steel rule die.

Now we've strolled around the platform to view the front of the house. Each house is octagon shaped with slanted walls - this house is smaller on the top.

The houses have little doors and windows with chipboard frames. I designed the window panes using MS Word.

The roofs have an underlying structure of lightweight chipboard forming a cone with the top leveled off (a "frustum").  I cut a hole and inserted a little chimney.  The shingles are dozens of little punched circles layered on top of each other.

On the left you can see the blue side rails of the ladder that leads up to the next house... let's go there next.

This little house is the biggest of the three houses and sits on the largest platform (6" in diameter).

It follows the same octagon shape as the first house, just bigger and with the walls slanted out at the top.

From this view you cannot see the chimney, but there is one on the other side.

Two more miniature flower pots grace the front door of this little house.

Now we can take the red ladder on the right up to the terrace.

The terrace rests in a crook of the big tree, between a smaller and larger branch.  You can see the big branch curving upwards on the right.

There are a few more flower pots in the back corner of the triangular shaped terrace.

You may notice some rope hanging down in the back - that's the hoisting system for the bucket system.

Now up the little yellow ladder to the last house in the village.

The platform that this house sits on is on the top of the smaller branch of the big tree.

This house is actually the same size as the first house we visited, it's just flipped upside down so the top is slanted outwards.

This view also shows off one of the little chimneys at its best.

Next to where the ladder ends on the left you may be able to make out the slatted bridge that takes us up to the topmost platform.

Up here the little fairies can lounge and take in the view over their village.  There's even a little umbrella, should the sunlight be too strong..

Both the chairs and the umbrella are entirely made from chipboard, dowels and paper.

The chairs are about 1" wide and 2" long.

The umbrella canopy is a 3" diameter circle, and it stands on a pole about 3 1/2" tall.

Let's come back down to the ground and look around a little more.

First let's look at the village from the back side.

Here you can see the three trees pretty well.  The two small trees have no branches and just have a 1" PVC pipe structure.

The large tree has a trunk made from 1" PVC that was enlarged with lightweight chipboard to make it look more substantial.  The larger branch (on the left from this vantage point) consists of several 45 degree elbows, all 1" pipe.  The smaller branch (here on the right) is similarly made from 45 degree elbows, but this time from smaller 1/2" pipe.

Now let's look at the bucket hoisting system.

The bucket is attached to a long piece of jute, which passes through a screw eye on the edge of the  topmost platform.  There is a tie-off point on the edge of the terrace (the black brad).

The pull end is weighted with a stone pony bead.

Inside the bucket I used a glass disc and Glossy Accents to make it look like water.

On the other side of the tree there is a little birdhouse hanging from the branch.

The birdhouse is just a little chipboard creation I added because this side looked a little empty to me.

This view also shows how the branches of the big tree come together under the terrace,

And one last thing in the village - there is a hidden compartment.

Since the chipboard structure supporting the tree bases was so deep, I decided there was space to add this compartment.  The section of the wall you can see off to the right is held in place with some small magnets.

Inside there is a mini album that is 5 1/2" x 7 3/4" x 2".

The mini is bound with two binder rings.

I suspended a selection of decorative chipboard elements from the paper collection from the top ring.

The front cover has another of the chipboard elements, as well as some cutouts from the paper.

The mini album is simple - four black cardstock pocket pages with lots of tags and insets.

I added watercolor paper to the back of the tags.

In between the four cardstock pages I added folded watercolor paper for larger paintings.

The pocket pages also have room for large tags that can pull out.



I hope you've enjoyed the Treetop Fairy Village.  It was a lot of fun to design and construct.  In a few days I will post links to the construction guides and templates, as well as a video series of the construction process.  You can build your own village, or just see how the project came together.

I've also made a video tour of the completed project and it's posted on YouTube.

Happy Crafting!
April