I made these a while ago, but they are so easy and turned out so great, that they are worth sharing. As I've mentioned before, my son likes to play with very specific things. He has a bin full of "bad guys", which are actually little models used for those nerdy table top games that I found at a super cheap online store. Well, with all those bad guys and monsters, he "needed" dungeon like rooms and areas. So I learned a bit about how the people who played such games, made their "scenery". Turns out it was pretty easy and it cost me less than $15 :) He's played with them for almost 2 years now (and still is), and it's a unique and cool toy, made especially for him.
Although the things I made are very fantasy/dungeon looking, I can imagine you'd easily be able to adjust the colors/style to fit whatever structures or scenery you want to make. I am thinking a mansion for Barbie would be fun!
All you need:
Foam insulation board pink or blue kind (cost me $7 for a giant one)
Craft paint
1 or 2 random rocks
Something kind of pointy (I ended up using a black ball point pen, but keep in mind, that leaves black marks)
Dollar store craft paint brushes
Sand paper
Craft knife (the sharp kind - you'll have to cut a lot of small pieces).
Glue (I used hot glue)
First, cut a manageable piece off your insulation board. For example, if you're making a brick wall, you need to cut your bricks out of the isolation board. Once you have the desired amount or rocks or bricks for one wall, then start gluing them together. I glued them all on a popsicle stick to make it sturdier.
Let the glue dry. Now you are ready for the fun part! The decorating! This is where the rock comes in. You can take your rock, and push it into your wall, while making sure it doesn't come apart (or you could do this to individual bricks before gluing). This will make some indents and textures - making the bricks look less perfect and more realistic. I also used a steak-knife to cut some of the bricks, so they'd have a rougher texture. Play around and try different things - I promise it will turn out great!
Now, the painting is my favorite part, and if you use my "tricks", it will turn out amazingly realistic looking. First paint the rocks the base color. For me, that was dark grey. I basically just used the cheap craft paint from the dollar store. I got a large white, black and brown, then mixed whatever color I wanted on a paper plate.
After the base coat is all painted and dried, you take a lighter color (light grey or white), and get it on a cheap kid style paint brush. Then paint a paper towel or something you don't care about, to dry the paintbrush, so only a little paint remains. Then "dry brush", the rocks, especially on edges and indents. It will give a nice rustic, 3 dimensional look. If you are like me, then you mix another (lighter or darker, or maybe a bit of an earth tone - play around a bit to see) color, and dry brush again, adding another layer of oomph.
I went through the extra trouble, and got "grass powder" from the craft store, and I put some glue on some of the rocks, and drizzled the grass powder on it, to make it look like moss.
Voila - you now have a tiny, old looking, fabulous stone fence!
I also discovered an easy way to make great looking floors, for small castle-rooms.
Cut a piece of your insulation board, as big as you want the room to be. Then use a ruler, or something straight, and your "something pointy" (I used a ball point pen), and draw your tiles into the board. This will create indents, giving your tiles a 3 dimensional look. Also feel free to use this time to draw in some cracks in the tiles if you want. Now you can either do the base coat, then dry brush, OR you can add the accents and walls to your room, and paint it all in the end.. The method for painting the tiles is exactly the same as on the stone fence, and it's fun to play around with the colors a bit.
As you can see, I added half walls, some openings into and out of the room, and a little terrace, stairs and a fountain. I used blue craft glue to make water, with a swirl of silver paint in it (WARNING: it takes forever to dry).
Here are some more rooms that I made:
As a final addition to Alexander's play set, I got a white poster-board at the dollar store (the kind that is 1/4 thick) to make a molten lava area, and a bigger open, broken castle room. I made one on each side of the poster board, so he can flip it, depending on what he wants to play with at the time.
First I painted the base color of the castle room, which was black. While it was drying, I made 3 platforms for the room out of the insulation foam, then base coated and dry brushed as explained above. Once everything was dry, I glued them to the black side of the board. I think this board is 2 by 3 feet.
Then I covered the other side of the board with insulation board. After the glue was set, I started digging out rivers/channels with my knife, to create lava rivers and islands. I also used my trusty rock from outside to push against the edge of the rivers to make it more ominous looking. Feel free to also add cracks in the rock-sides of the rivers. I then painted the whole board black, before dry brushing the edges with white and grey. You can also use a sponge with charcoal grey paint and dab it all over, to make it look more like basalt rock. After this was all dry, I used red and yellow craft paint to make rivers of lava. Start with yellow, then put red on the edges. Since you're using a thick layer of paint to make the river, it will take overnight to dry properly.
Voila! Lava board! A perfect place for fighting dragons and bad guys made out of fire!
