Thread: Need Help with storybook entrance

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I want to do a haunted forest with the twisted fairy tales theme. I have a small opening to a patch of woods beside my house that we lined with a few bales of hay, but what I'm envisioning is this: I would like to have a large story book to walk through to enter the woods. How would I do this? Could I use cardboard and piece it together without it looking like an arbor? I'm looking at it being about 5 ft tall so you have to duck to walk in. Thanks!

Hmm....maybe make it out of insulation foam. Same stuff a lot of people use to make tombstones. It's fairly cheap, lightweight, comes in different sizes & thickness and can be carved & spray painted. The spray paint eats away at the foam slightly and will give it an old book look to it

I'd do it out of wood as the frame and either paper maché or do the foam core, but I'd want to make the "walk through part on the right hand "page" and have the left hand page an actual page with text on it... if you don't have the pages represented at least a little bit, then it won't read (ha) as a book - just a big frame.



I made a quicky image showing what I'm talking about. I think with a combo of wood supports, foamcore and papermaché, you could replicate this general idea. The only big thing I'd suggest is that the picture frame hole needs to be reinforced at the bottom since folks will have to step over a small lip - and if they do that, they may grab at the sides as well to balance, so that needs extra attention too. Frame it out solid, whatever surface finish you use, make it well-sealed and able to withstand some handling/scuffing and the whole thing needs to be well anchored in case anyone stumbles or pushes on it.

^^^ Great Idea Frankies Girl.

How about butting like a 1/2" sheet of Foam with a slit down the center. Paint over top & you don't see it till your on top of it. When someone walks in it would look like their getting enveloped.

Great ideas! BooBoo, I like this, but I think maybe substitute the foam with drop cloth like painters use? Would acrylic paint stick to that stuff ok? Maybe I could paint a picture like Frankie's Girl posted and cut a slit in it.

I would paint on bed sheets with acrylic paint & spraypaint & it would come out great. I would water down the paint & use it like water colors & build up layers, getting great detail.
Good Luck!!!

Originally Posted by punkinhead74

Great ideas! BooBoo, I like this, but I think maybe substitute the foam with drop cloth like painters use? Would acrylic paint stick to that stuff ok? Maybe I could paint a picture like Frankie's Girl posted and cut a slit in it.

As long as it's not plastic, they acrylic paints will work fine. I think painter's tarps that are truly cloth would just be raw fabric like canvas, but I usually use plastic drop cloths so I'm not sure. I like the idea of using cloth! Fine art canvas is actually stretched fabric with a layer of gesso (paint for prepping the surface) so the actual artsy painting doesn't soak in and spread all over the place when an artist paints their pretty pictures. So the idea is the same. You'd want to stretch the fabric really tight and watch the wrinkles, use a builder's stapler to secure to the frame, then paint it with some cheap white/light latex house paint as the base/gesso (latex paint is basically the same composition as acrylic paints. I'd actually see if you could find some oops paint to do the details too because otherwise buying small bottles of artist's acrylic could get expensive!

I gotta say tho that using foamcore might be easier and won't ripple in the breeze... just my opinion.