A Castle In The Sky For A Little Girl

Our daughter Eden's birth inspired me to make her future crèche something special.

At this time we were living and working in the grounds of a monastery as artist bookbinders, we had a large building, part of which housed our paper marbling studio, we decided to use part of the studio as her crèche.

For the first few months the baby rocked in her cradle on our workbench, gurgling contentedly with Margaret working as normal.

I devoted several hours a week carving smiling fish into the rough plaster walls, painting and gilded them. I carved a large tree of life and many other fanciful symbols all around the room.

When Eden was about 4 months old, on impulse really, I started making a "castle in the air", our marbling studio was after all on the second floor, so could be described as being a castle in the air.

A small part of the castle was about finished when Eden was 15 months old

The castle had pathways which led from top to bottom and a large ball bearing ran down the pathways in and out of the castle.

I used imitation gold leaf and copper leaf together with bronze powder in shellac for the gilded turrets.

This is the castle approaching completion, it now takes up 5 sq yards of floor space and is 11 feet high. This castle in the sky has electricity for lighting and also to power electric motors that bring movement. All in all it took about 8 years to finish.

If you decide you would like to get involved in gilding using the methods shown here, there are three gilding kits that you can choose from.

Or you may decide to purchase particular supplies  for your own project.

Either way if you need direct help at any time you can always mail me, see "contact us" page.