Cottage Patio Tutorial

Hi there, how has your weekend been? Good I hope. I spent quite a bit of time outside planting cucumbers from seed and putting up trellises for them. It will be lovely to eat them fresh in salads, and I plan to make lots of them into dill pickles this summer.

I also finished up my tutorial for you, as I thought it might be fun for you to have a pretty Spring and Summer patio setup for your dollhouses or miniature shops.

It’s so fun to display mini potted plants, wheelbarrows, a little garden bed and potting bench or even a little greenhouse. And now you can garden in style with a pretty stone patio!

Note: I chose to make my patio removable so that it could be easily stored away in a drawer between uses. I will most likely be gluing it down onto some foam core to keep it nice and flat but still lightweight and easy to keep tucked away neatly. I made my patio the same size as one of my turntables, for a cute and easily accessible display for my dollhouses photo-taking.

You may want to glue your patio down permanently onto a board, as a permanent base for your dollhouses, after it is complete.

Your patio can easily be modified to suit your needs, or seasonal decor. Add a picket fence, flower beds, grass, or a little path running through it. Your options are endless really! Have fun and make it yours!

The following tutorial is for a basic stone patio, like the one that I made.

Let’s get started!

Materials:

• Egg carton

• Aleen’s Tacky Glue

• Grey acrylic paint or chalk paint (I ended up using Folk Art chalk paint in “French Linen”, not Parisian Grey.

• White acrylic paint or chalk paint (I use Folk Art chalk paint in “Cottage White”)

• Craft brushes

• Chip board (found at Hobby Lobby near poster boards)

• Mod Podge (any finish) or acrylic sealant

• Dapp Ready To Use Floor Patch And Leveler (flexible formula) found At Lowe’s or Ace Hardware

• White pencil crayon or regular pencil (for tracing your shape)

• Masking tape

Step 1. Gather your supplies! I used two chipboard pieces for my patio. You may need more if you have a larger house or want a larger patio. Also not shown in photos is the concrete patch I used for grouting my faux stones, please refer to the supply list.

Step 2. Tear your egg carton into stones. I varied my sizes and did half large and half small. Your stones can be whatever sizes you’d like. Look at some pictures of cobblestone pathways for inspiration, or copy mine. See photos for an idea of sizing. Most of my large stones are approximately 2 inches across, for reference.

Step 3: Tape your chipboard pieces together (tape will be on the back side of your chipboard) Flip your chipboard over. Place your dollhouse on chipboard where desired. Trace around outside shape of dollhouse onto chipboard. Now you have your outline! Remove dollhouse. If you need to make your chipboard smaller, do it now. I made mine the size of my turn table. To do this I simply flipped my turn table over so that it was face down, and traced the outline onto the chipboard.

Step 4: Arrange your egg carton “stones” onto your chipboard. Make sure you can clearly see your traced outline and place stones accordingly. You should be able to set your dollhouse inside of the lines and your stones should go right up to the lines that you drew, but not past it.

Step 4: Glue your stones down, coating the underside of each stone well with glue. Press the stone edges down into the glue especially well as they tend to pop up as they dry. Just keep smoothing them back down until the glue gets tacky enough for them to stay put. Too much glue will cause this process to take longer.

Step 5: Let glue dry thoroughly.

Step 6: Seal stones and chipboard with modpodge. One layer should suffice. Let dry.

Step 7. Apply a quarter sized dollop of concrete patch to your chipboard. With your fingers smoosh it in around and over your stones, leaving a light skim coat covering your stones and grout lines. This should be a thin layer, not a thick one. Your stone shapes should be easy to see with defined edges. Work in small sections as you go, smoothing it over over your stones and into grout lines. I had to wash my hands many times as I worked each section as the concrete patch dries quickly. It washes off easily with soap and water. Have fun getting a little messy and don’t stress over perfection. You don’t have to hurry this step.

As soon as your concrete patch is dry enough to the touch to not come off on your finger I would recommend weighting your patio down, as shown, until it is fully dry. This prevents the chip board from warping for the most part. Do not proceed to step 8 until this is fully dry. I dried it overnight.

Step 8: Paint stones grey or desired color. Let dry completely.

Step 9: Paint grout white. Let dry completely.

Age with brown muddy wash (thinned brown paint with water) if desired, or leave as is. I did a very light muddy wash over mine but it ended up barely showing.

After your white paint is fully dry you may choose to mount/glue your entire patio piece onto a heavier board, turntable, or poster board. I decided to mount mine onto foam board for a lightweight and easily storable option. If your piece has any warping gluing it onto or thin ply or fiber board would be a good way to really anchor it down nicely. This step is totally up to you.

And there you go! You’re finished! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

Place your house onto its little patio and have fun decorating!

I’ll see you next week!

~ Jenna