Make Your Own Dept 56® Accessories Stone Walls and Bridges

Make Your Own Dept 56® Accessories Stone Walls and Bridges This is one of the many Make Your Own Dept 56 Accessories reports that describe, in detail, the necessary steps to make you own D56 accessories. All accessories are made with fairly common things which, if you don't have them already, can be purchased form your local arts and crafts store. These walls, bridges and what-not, are made from small stones. I used these green, flat, stones (pictured to the right) and the standard old river stones (see below). Both are used similarly and you can use the same instructions for either type of stone. I found that the best glue is E6000.

Hot glue has its advantages but it really doesn't stick too well to the rocks. The E6000 is pretty tacking and thick. It therefore doesn't run very easily. It also sets up in a few minutes, which is very nice. I use felt for the bottom of the stone accessories. To begin, you don't have to cut the exact shape of felt for the bottom of the structure. It is better that you leave it oversize or use a scrap piece and then trim it up when you are all done. By using an oversized piece of felt you can let your creativity go where ever it may when you are building the structure. Thus you may intend to make a straight wall, but find that after laying a few stones, you want a curved wall. By not cutting a precise shape of felt at the start, you have this freedom. The felt bottom serves two purposes. It keeps your stones from sliding all around when you are building and it will protect any fine piece of furniture from scratches from your stone structure.

http://www.dept56tips.com/ LoMist Publishing Copyright 2005

®

page

1

Make Your Own Dept 56® Accessories Stone Walls and Bridges

To begin, gather all your supplies, which are simply stones, felt and glue. (The following pictures will show the 2 types of stones I used. The D-sized battery is used as a reference to show dimensions.) Follow these guidelinesMake a mental picture of what you want to build. Lay down the felt. You will begin by laying the first layer of stones. You will be building the walls in layers (or rows). After each layer is laid, you add another layer. Lay the 'outside' stones on the felt to form the wall perimeter. Add just a small drop of glue to the underside of the stone so it sticks to the felt. (Later on we will explain why you should only use a drop) Place the stones as close as possible. When laying your stones you might want to use larger, 'flatter' stones for the outside and then use the 'non-flat' stones in the middle. The flatter stones give a good foundation for the succeeding layers. Fill in the inside of the wall with other stones. Always remember when placing stones -- to vary the small and the large stones and mix up the placement of the colored stones. Both of these will add to the beauty of your structure.

http://www.dept56tips.com/ LoMist Publishing Copyright 2005

®

page

2

Make Your Own Dept 56® Accessories Stone Walls and Bridges

As you start building the wall, you will eventually be able to judge the size of stones that you will need for a particular spot. Look for those stones and then glue them in place. The denser you can build the wall, the better it will look and the stronger it will be. When gluing, you don't need a lot of this glue. Just a dab and you should be fine. The glue sets up in maybe 5 minutes. This means it should be hard enough so that the stones do not easily fall, or move, from the spot you originally placed them. Even though the glue starts to harden, you can still move the stones around a little. This is very helpful when you are trying to maintain a certain shape. With the glue being semi hard, you can squeeze any stones that might have moved, back into place. If the wall is starting to get a slant, just wait to the glue hardens a little and then straighten the wall out. It probably won't get crooked again. After the first layer of stones is laid, you begin the second layer, remembering and repeating the steps from above, especially the overlapping of the stones from layer to layer. You can build the wall as high as you would like. You can build it as long as you would like it to be. You just need to remember that as the wall gets longer, it is harder to handle and it may start to bend or sag when you pick it up. For short walls, the strength of the walls is quite good.

http://www.dept56tips.com/ LoMist Publishing Copyright 2005

®

page

3

Make Your Own Dept 56® Accessories Stone Walls and Bridges

Depending upon what type of stone you have will determine what kind of structure you can build. Some stones are more conducive to certain types of structures. For example, the smooth rounded river rocks are good for normal walls. These greenish stones are flatter and make nice walls but could also be made into bridges. When you are finished with your wall, let the glue dry over night. Then clean up any strands of glue that may be sticking to it. Trim the felt as close to the wall as possible. If you leave a lot of felt visible, it may show when you put it in your display. If you can’t possibly cut it any closer, then after placing your wall in your display, simply add a bunch of snow around your wall to cover the felt. Better yet, use white felt and you won’t have this problem.

http://www.dept56tips.com/ LoMist Publishing Copyright 2005

®

page

4

Make Your Own Dept 56® Accessories Stone Walls and Bridges

I mentioned above that you should only use a small dab of glue to glue that first row of stones to the felt. My reason for this is that if the felt isn’t bonded too tightly to the stones, you can rip it off and then you don’t have to worry about the felt showing. Just be careful so you don’t scratch your furniture.

Making a Bridge I found the easiest way to make an arched bridge was to first cut a wooden block to the shape of the arch I wanted. I used 2 x 4 wood for these arches. I cut one arch by tracing a portion of the bottom of a paint can and the other arch was taken by tracing a portion of a 5 gal pail. I then placed a piece of wax paper on the wood arch, (not seen in this picture) and then laid down a piece of felt and started gluing the stones together - just like was mentioned above. Start gluing the stones from the top and work your way down the sides. As you can see from these pictures, depending upon the type of stones used, you can get a pretty good arch. One thing to remember with your felt and the bottom of the bridge – if you are building a big arch, the felt will be seen when the bridge is in your display. Because of this you may not want to glue that first row of stones too tightly so you can rip the felt off when it is finished.

http://www.dept56tips.com/ LoMist Publishing Copyright 2005

®

page

5

Make Your Own Dept 56® Accessories Stone Walls and Bridges

Finishing arched bridge

Finished arched bridge.

Comparison of arched bridges. http://www.dept56tips.com/ LoMist Publishing Copyright 2005

®

page

6

Make Your Own Dept 56® Accessories Stone Walls and Bridges

Other Structures Given these basic instructions, you can build anything you can imagine which would be made out of stones. Here is a small foundation used to hold a sign. To build this, simply glue together a small ‘pile’ of stones leaving a small hole in the middle to accept a wooden dowel or what-ever for your sign. (The colors are not accurate in this photo. The sign is actually brown and the pole was painted gray.)

http://www.dept56tips.com/ LoMist Publishing Copyright 2005

®

page

7