Stage 5 - Shadow House - Wiring

I like to make vines to hold my wiring. One it enables me to fix any of the lights without having to tear the whole house apart if something goes wrong and second, for this type of house, it works in well and gives me the vines I would have placed around it anyway.

Another thing, bye the bye, is that I sometimes make fake vines (in that they have no wiring in them) just to fill up spaces were I think a vine needs to be but the wiring doesn't quite work.

The wiring does two things:- one it put light into rooms and I do not always light up every room. Second it allows me to have some sort of lit flowers or seed pods or ? on the outside. There are a huge range of things that can be added to the end of a vine to represent a flower, seed pods, creatures, all sorts of things.

For this house I am only doing lights inside and lit berries.

This image shows two things. First I have used a selection of different size clear plastic tubes to inset the electrical wiring through. Second it shows that I have numbered, top and bottom, each pair of wires. This will make it MUCH easier when it come to wiring them all up to batteries later.

This is the completed clear plastic tubing for the wiring of the Shadow House. I have used one large plastic tube for the main stem of my vine and from there I have added a variety of sizes as the plastic tubing has to have less and less wires go through it. I have taped the connections together with masking tape.

I have now wrapped the entire plastic tubing with fabric (make sure it is a fabric than can be painted - mine is calico) and then wrapped it with garden twine.

This is the finished vine. It has been painted dark brown with smudges of black over it.

Just a note:- If you where to have flashing lights in your model. They NEED to be on their own wiring system or else all lights will flash. 

So you know which of your lights are flashing I would suggest that you use a different colour code of wiring to the non-flashing lights. I have used black for negative and white for positive. If I had flashing lights I could change those wires to say, blue for negative and red for positive or any combination you like as long as when you get to the bundle of wires at the end (and I have 21pairs of wire) you need to know which wires belong to flashing LED's and which ones don't.

Another thing (and I shall be doing this) the lights to go inside the rooms will be white and the lights to go on the outside of the house will be blue. I NEED to know which wires are the white ones. I shall be colouring the tags at the bundle at the end (see right hand side of image above which shows you what a muddle the wires are).

Stage 4 - Shadow House - Window Coverings

This is stage 4 of the Shadow House. I am covering the windows. When I started (see stage 1,2,3) there was just cardboard over the windows.

1. Then I glued the wooden tubes over the cardboard.
2. Now I have covered them in air drying clay.
3. Covered them in some faux moss.
4. poked or drilled holes into the gourd so I can poke the electrical wire through them later. See where the white tubes are sticking out. These indicate the holes. I have deliberately left one room with no lights.
5. I have recovered, with 'wool moss' the edging of the windows. I am very pleased with the look.

The wooded tubes have been covered with air drying clay.

This is the finished look of the window covering. Painted and covered in faux moss.

I'm very pleased with the look. The white straws indicate where I will thread electrical wires later.

I have removed a window covering and shall fill this hole in. I needed somewhere to put the water tank and so this is it.

Stage 1, 2 & 3 - Shadow House

 I have started a new house. I know, I know I haven't even finished the last one but you have to understand when the erg hits you you have to go with it. Soo here I am building a house I have titled The Shadow House.

Now the idea is to have a house that is creepy BUT I don't really think I'm going to be able to pull it off as I'm not a creepy sort of person. It isn't in me to bring out or rather I should say yes it is in me (in everyone) somewhere in the corridors of my mind but I have the door to its chamber barred. locked, barricaded so it can never see the light of day. Soo as I say I'm not a creepy person but I will do my best. I think really it will turn out to be dark but beautiful, in my eyes anyway, soo I thought you might like to come on the journey.

All my hanging houses start out the same.

 I use three large gourds as a base. These are glued together and I place a solid plastic pipe up the middle. Around this pipe and on top of the three gourds I fill the gaps with smaller gourds. This house is much small than the last two I have made and that does all depend on the size of the three base gourds. I then cover them with cardboard. Why cardboard? Because I need to watch the weight. It is amazing how heavy these houses become. Even a ton of feathers still weighs a ton.

I then add the widow coverings

These photos show how I have used small pieces of wood tubing to cover the cardboard window arches.

I then cover the window covering in air drying clay

I have now covered the cardboard with a 'moss' made from two different wools and I have placed air drying clay over the window arches.

I Need Moss

I am looking for MOSS but not just any moss. I don't want natural stuff I want fake.

As I have almost finished my story my mind is now turning to my models again. In particular my hanging houses.

In the past, as you can see above, I have used knitting wool. My problem is, of course, is that I can not find that wool anymore. With the amazing use of the Internet I was able to find three different wools/yarn that I thought would do the job but I couldn't buy them in Australia. I didn't want to buy stacks of the stuff from another country just in case it didn't work so I went looking for an alternative.
Hence I have found these:- (I apologise for the poor quality of the photos.)

      The first one is called Forest Moss from Commercial Silk a New Zealand firm. The problem I have is I only want one roll to see how it goes and I might have to buy bulk. I've decided against this as I have to buy $250.00 worth at a time and I've refused as I don't even know if it will do the job. I've asked if they could tell me where I could buy one roll but got no answer.
      The second roll comes from Life Like Plants Australia a company in Victoria. I will definitely be buying a roll of this as I 'can' buy just one roll to try it out. I've decided against this as (from other photos) it looks to wiry for me, not natural enough. I'm back to square one.

Blushing Bride Protea

I thought I would just add this link to Jinai.com.au even though it has nothing to do with moss. I just LOVE the plants and when I can afford it I shall be buying some.