Miniatures

Make A Light-Up Fireplace Miniature

If you enjoy crafting miniatures, a fireplace is a fun thing to make and relatively easy to do using a few simple pieces of wood from a dollar store and cardboard.

Here’s how to make a light-up fireplace miniature using mostly items from the dollar store.

 

 

I’m repurposing a 9 x 4-1/2 inch sectioned tray, that previously held other craft pieces, as the base for my fireplace. The 5 1/2-inch square box will be the actual fireplace. In the beginning, I thought I’d be using the cut branch pieces in the fireplace but have since decided to use smaller pieces.

 

 

This is how I’ll be gluing these two pieces together.

 

 

I used black acrylic paint to cover the bottom and top inside the fireplace, as well as the outside edges.I wasn’t concerned with being neat because the back and sides of my fireplace will be covered with brick wallpaper.

 

 

I gave the outside of my fireplace a couple of coats of white acrylic paint.

 

 

You can print this brick wallpaper for free from Jennifer’s Free Dollhouse Wallpaper.

Cut three sections to fit inside the fireplace on the back and sides using a glue stick. Make sure all of the edges are glued down. The side pieces aren’t strictly necessary, as they won’t be visible once the surround is attached anyway.

 

 

For the mantle, I used a piece of wood from my stash 8 x 3-3/4-inches and gave it, as well as the base, a couple of coats of white acrylic paint before gluing all the pieces together. I liked this wood piece for the top, because of the rounded corners. I think I got it at Dollarama.

 

 

To make the surround for the fireplace, I cut three pieces of cardboard – 2 pieces 5″ long x 1″ wide for the sides and 1 piece 5-1/2″ long x 2″ wide for the top piece.

 

 

I again used a glue stick to attach the brick wallpaper to the cardboard pieces, making sure that the bricks were going horizontal to match the ones inside the fireplace.

 

 

Attach both side pieces to the edges of the fireplace box on either side using hot glue. Then glue the top piece of the surround over top of them and directly under the mantle.

 

 

It will look like this when the surround is finished. (picture from a different fireplace project)

 

Build a Fire

 

 

To build a working fire for the fireplace, I used a battery-operated tea light with a flickering flame and some small twigs cut into approximately 1-1/2 inch pieces.

 

 

On the top of the tea light, I glued down a grid of four twigs.

 

 

I then glued three twig pieces into a stack…

 

 

…and glued them to one side of the tea light. Repeat this step twice more, leaving the back open so the “fire” will fit against the back wall of the fireplace box.

 

 

 

I finished by adding twigs in a criss-cross manner around the top until I was satisfied with the finished look.

 

 

I’m not gluing the tea light down, so I can change the battery in the tea light when needed.

 

 

I really like the way my little fireplace turned out. Next, I’ll outfit it with some decor and make some mini fireplace tools. 

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