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Thursday, January 1, 2009

Rachel's Aged Dollhouse Shingle Staining Technique

My Daughter Rachel decided she wanted to do a tutorial on her favorite way to stain the shingles on her dollhouses and her first tutorial appeared in the December 2008 Greenleaf Gazette. She was so excited to see herself published online :)

Rachel's Shingle Paint Stain technique

Do you want to add a different aged look to your dollhouse shingles? Follow along as my daughter Rachel shows you how she did it to one of her houses.  Many times, you may find that the different shades of browns for your roof may leave your houses looking like every other dollhouse you've seen. You can change that simply by staining your roof using paint & water.

You can do this by first painting your entire roof black. This will help because when you use this technique, your shingles may curl and warp in some areas. It will show black underneath and NOT the bare wood underneath the shingles. You WANT the shingles to do this because that is what gives the aged looked.



Start shingling the roof just the way you always do.



 Once the entire roof is shingled, you can take a 4 ounce paper cup and fill it halfway with water.  Then you'll add 1 teaspoon of the paint color you wish have for your roof color. Remember, this color will not be as dark as the paint shows because it will be watered down. Stir that paint around in the cup. Get your paint brush and start painting!


Paint each row one at a time being sure to cover all of your shingles.  Your brush needs to be very wet!  Paint from side to side but let your final strokes go down from the top of the shingles to the bottom. The picture below shows Rachel going side to side with her shingles.
 This is what it looked like when Rachel finished.  After it dried, she decided she wanted hers to be a darker color. So she went over it again with the water wash.



Once that dried, Rachel wanted to add more details in select shingles so she took a dry brush and added black paint to it. You do this step by adding a couple of drops of black paint on a plate (we used a piece of card board). Add paint to the front and back of your dry brush and then wipe off the excess paint.


start painting around the edges of your shingles and the bottom ends of your shingles.

Her house is not totally complete but we will continue to add the shots as she finishes it. 

Here are a few houses I used this technique on.
I used gray paint and used no highlights on this one.

 I used to shades of purple on this one. A darker purple and a lighter purple
 I used two shades of green on this roof


If you use this technique on your houses, Rachel would love for you to post links so we can see your pictures!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear Rachel
For some reason I can't leave a photo, but I just stained the shingles no my first dollhouse like the instructions. And it worked great. I was a bit worried about the whole roof construction and painting. But it worked wonderful. Thank you.