The Castle Project Chapter 9: Jasmine's Room

I had such fun searching for images for this room.  To be true to the source of the story, it had to be so totally different than the styles of any of the other rooms. Rich jewel tones were were a must for color.  The entire room was designed around the inspiration image of the domed ceiling area.  All the color choices stemmed from that image.  The red paper I used for the walls and floor and ceiling has subtle texture to it.  I found Persian carpets, Moroccan lamps, a Moroccan table serving table and a Turkish tea set.

The bed would need a special touch, too.  So, the first sewing project of this endeavor took place.  I had a stash of felt from another project and I had gold thread and beads from yet other projects.  A big ol' fat cushion of a bed was made.

It needed a little something else so I made tables from beads saved from a broken purse, some Chinese coins and E6000.

 I realize that culturally, paintings of people are not really appropriate, but I wanted one anyway.  One day we'll get an Aladdin doll, but until, then, her beloved will be with her, in a little way.
My daughter had a dress up skirt that was falling apart.  I'd saved it but had no idea how to repair it.  The outer skirt was sheer with a golden swirling pattern.  It just screamed to be part of the room.  I sealed the edges with gold hot glue and used the same hot glue to fashion the curtain to the ceiling,  I decided on a rounded attachment to lend depth to the ceiling.

 For a while my girls just pushed the sides back to get the curtains out of the way.  But recently, I managed add ribbons to side for a more formal tie back.  Serendipitously, the girls had been to a party from which the favors were little animals, one of the ones they brought home was tiger--a perfect little Rajah for Jasmine.

The Castle Project Chapter 8: Elinor's, Merida's and the Lads' Rooms

Brave is my very favorite Disney movie.  I LOVE it.  I cry every single time I watch it and I love it more with every viewing.  The redhaired heroine and the wonderful Scottish scenery certainly has something to do with my affection, but the story is really at the heart of it.  That said, it was the ancient Scottish and Celtic aspects of the film that were the inspiration for the furnishings in the rooms I made for Merida, her mother, Elinor, and her brothers, Harris, Hubert and Hamish.  I found lots of great images from Disney and fan sites.  And a fun search in Google images, using various combinations of words and "Celtic" yielded a bounty of good things for the rooms.

For Elinor's room, The trappings of a queen were necessary.  So was the tapestry that played such a key part in the wonderful story, as well as the tapestry she and Merida began after their adventure was over.  And the love shared by Elinor and Fergus is also part of what made the movie so appealing, so I had to have a "portrait" of them.  I wish we had a King Fergus doll, but he hasn't been in any of the sets we've seen.

 Elinor's room is on the bottom floor of this wing of the castle, and a lot of weight is on it.  The ceiling was starting to sag. so a "carved" support column was added.

Elinor is extra tall so her bed is extra long.  

Even though their story takes place in the middle ages, Elinor was elegant, so a rich ceiling and beautiful things, like a harp, seemed very appropriate for her.   Her bed's headboard and footboard were taken from images of a medieval
bed.







Merida has the room next door to Elinor.  It's much larger.  I'm sure I had a good reason for that, but I don't know what it was.  It's less richly appointed than Elinor's room but only slightly so.  The tapestry came from a fan site, I believe, but it tells the story beautifully.  Merida's bed and chest came from a play set that actually had a tiny two room tower--hardly a proper castle. The "carved" beams are actually Chinese animal stamps so don't examine them too closely.

When I put all the boxes for this wing together, I really didn't think about how they might be used, as much as I should have.  As a result, I had a tall narrow room that wasn't going to make a lot of sense for anyone.  Also, my original plan of using Boston Baked Beans candy boxes for everyone's beds was thwarted by so many of the dolls being taller than my original model.  I was getting a bit frustrated with myself.  Then it struck me--the wee lads, Merida's three brothers, would be perfect for the awkward room.  I added some painted wooden skewers and triple-decker bunk beds were born!
The lads didn't really need much in the way of finery--in the end, all the castle would be be their playground.  They would just need a place lay their flaming noggins to rest.  Still, I had to give a nod to the story from whence they came.  So I searched for Celtic and Scottish bear art.  The piece at the top only had two bears originally, so I used SnagIt to alter the image to my liking.  I don't think the bears in that piece are really Celtic in style, they look more Grateful Dead in nature, but the rest fits, especially once the third bear was added, so I went with it.  The lads' room was complete.

The Castle Project Chapter 7: Belle's and Beast's rooms

For Belle's and Beast's rooms, I was able to find a lot of images from the film.  Both fire places, the portrait of the prince and the wardrobe came from Disney blogs.  I had the Lumiere and Cogwells stickers.  Again, my stash of scrapbook paper and stickers provided nice back drops.  Obviously, Belle's room had to have some books, so I used leftover shelves from the library project.  My search for headboards and footboards yielded one with a rose design.  It seemed pretty perfect for Belle.  I struggled with Beast's bed, especially since I gave him a small room.  So for a while, he got nothing but a toasty warm room.

Eventually I found a good image of a bed for the beast, one with the right perspective to make the room look bigger,  It is a magical castle, not subject to normal spacial dimensions. 

 The stained glass windows in each of the rooms can also be seen, as all windows should be, from the outside of the castle.

The Castle Project Chapter 6: Rapunzel's room

For Rapunzel's room, I didn't have enough of any one purple paper to do all three wall, so I decided to make the different patterns part of my design.  I used dark strips of purple to emulate exposed beams.  The floor was a labor of love, with dark purple paper going down first and "tiles" cut out of  origami paper my sister gave me.  As usual, the images from the film came from Disney and fan sites.  The furnishings and stained glass were all just found after mildly obsessively browsing through Google images.  The "gems" used for the frames were in the clearance bin at staples.  I just knew I'd have a use for them.  

After getting to the point in the pictures shown above, I thought I was done, but I found some family and wedding pictures on a fan site, and since Rapunzel reuniting with her family was a big part of the happy ending, I had to add them.  I might have gotten carried away, but this is a room for a girl who painted every inch of her room in the tower so it seemed apropos.  

 As with the other rooms with stained glass windows, I put a reverse image of the glass on the outside of the castle and framed it.

The Castle Project Chapter 5: Cinderella's room

I actually started work on the bedrooms with Cinderella, getting the walls, floor, ceiling and fireplace put in right away.  But finished her room a little later.  

I used Cinderella as the measuring doll for most of the beds, I'd started work on, but later learned, not all the dolls were the same size, an annoying discovery to say the least.  For some beds, the Boston Baked Beans boxes still worked fine, but for others, I cut down larger boxes.  I have a mild addiction to Good & Plenty, so the supply of these boxes is pretty much unending.  I simply cut the box to size.  In some of the later made beds, I put packing peanuts in the boxes to provide more strength to structure.  I've heard that princesses like to jump on beds.  

 
  After getting the box to the size desired, I covered the boxes with scrapbook paper and glued the headboard and footboards I'd printed on photo paper.  For the footboards, I printed a reverse image to glue on the back so the footboard would have two sides.  To get the images exactly the size I wanted, I used Word, because I could insert the images and size them exactly how I wanted them.  The photo programs I have all want to change the image to fit into a standard photo size.
The stained glass window over the bed is not as centered as I would like so I might, eventually add a light or another picture to distract.  The image of the fireplace came from the Cinderella room in the Disney castle.  I added the urns and the bed and settee just had the right feel.  I had the stickers used for the bed skirt and the picture frames in my scrapbook paraphernalia. The "art" and stained glass images came from Disney and fan sites.




 I placed a reverse image of the stained glass that hangs over the bed, onto the outside of the castle and framed it with painted craft wood, cut to size.

Chapter 4: Tiana's room

 The era of Tiana's story gave me an excuse to find decor from the Art Nouveau style.  The stained glass windows include a frog and a firefly to tie in the fun parts of the story.  All of the paper was from my existing stash.  The bed is made from a candy box, a boston baked beans box, to be exact..
I found a picture of the this amazing headboard and had to make a bed out of it.  The candy box was the base.  I printed images of the bed, including a reverse image of the footboard, so that the footboard could be two sided.  I very carefully cut the images out and pasted the reverse image on the back of the footboard, then pasted the headboard and footboard on the candy box.

Much to my annoyance, I discovered the doll I'd used to determine if the candybox mattress would be long enough, did not have a hairstyle as high as Tiana's  I had to use a different candy box.  I started with a much longer one and cut it down to size.  Lesson learned, use the doll you for whom you are building to measure appropriate bed sizes.  I have pictures of cutting a larger box down to size with the explanation of Cinderella's room.  When I remade, Tiana' s bed, I added feet, to raise the bed off the floor.  I also glues the bed to the floor.
Sadly, the beautiful swan neck details, that I had worked to obsessively to cut for the footboard, could not withstand the vigorous use of two little girls and their friends, so I cut off the ones that hadn't been torn off, to protect the footboard from being totally destroyed.  It has avoided further damage.  
 
 I printed reverse images of each of the stained glass windows and then placed them on the outside of the castle walls at the same positions.  The firefly window was framed out with painted crafts sticks.  The round windows posed a challenge.  I decided to use hot glue to frame them and then painted the glue.  It's "rustic" looking but no more so than the wooden window frames, so I'm calling it good.