Marker in hand, I took it to the fireplace to lay out where the stones should be before the carving starts with the rotary tool.

The square opening of the fireplace just wasn't feeling right so I grabbed my jigsaw to give it a nice little arch, much better! 👍

The main window is shaping up nicely! I was pizzled for a bit about what material to use for the curves. I ended up using some hardboard and consecutively scoring along one side carefully which allowed me to gentle bend them and screw into place. There is foam inside to support the structure and with a little Gorilla glue any gaps should fill right in.

I have the back of the fireplace opened up some, I wanted to make sure the fireplace went deeper into the wall to give it the appearance of a flue. While running low on foam I have been making great use of my scraps on this one, once it's puttied and shaped the seams shouldn't be visible.

A few more bones are in place, and I’ve started adding a foam shell to the wood frame. This foam will be shaped into stones and textured for a realistic look. I've attached the foam using screws, and after removing them, I filled the holes with foam putty, which is sandable.

I'm absolutely thrilled about this fireplace! With this, Ambrosius can start hosting some magical cooking lessons as a defacto oven! Cookies, cakes... you name it. The possibilities are endless!

Things are really starting to take shape! I've got a few window cutouts done, some more insulation foam in place, and I'm super excited to start carving the stonework.

Toiling away with some jolly Christmas tunes! 🎄

A backdrop for just outside the front door, there are times when Ambrosius enters or leaves and I want to make sure there is nice view instead of some basement wall! 😆

First time trying to make something like this, a foam puppet for Luminous Lessons. Once I nail down all the shapes I’m going to apply a few coats of silicone, add hair and give him some color.

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New Luminous Lessons upload coming soon, Learn how to make borax crystals with old Ambrosius!

Look at all that bunsen burner action.. that’s nice. 🔥

Second spell page finished! Ignore the text it’s almost gibberish, but it won’t be legible on video anyway

Mandrake spell page before I take the eraser to it, and give it the good old coffee wash, just hope the ink or paint doesn’t bleed on me, we’ll see

Doing calligraphy for the first time on some spell book pages, I was originally searching for a brown pen ink and only found gold, but I’m so happy with how it’s turning out!

A glimpse at Ambrosius’ spell book, this thing is huge!

Painting these bolt heads (model magic) for use on the set castle door, making it look all medieval-like.

Finished a second bottle, this one is some kind of liquid potion. What does it do? I’m not quite sure, why don’t you try some.

I have found that using watercolors instead of acrylics is way smoother, less clumpy and even dries faster when painting my props, then again I use cheap arylics 🤷🏼‍, here are a few fake book props I make with cardboard (skull isn’t made by me)

Making some glassware look really old, a prop for a YouTube project of mine... (so mysterious, even I’m not sure what this is all about). I’ve been doing a lot of work on this set over the past year, so I will have to make an effort to share more of it!

Bought this 10$ chirping bird, mouth and tail moves. Let’s see if I can learn all its secrets, and build a bigger bird, for my set

A chicken leg prop I made using Crayola Model Magic and some acrylic paint.