Starting the porch

I am beginning work on the brick porch as well as some accent stonework around the door and windows. For the porch floor, I am going to use egg carton to cut my bricks from and the "frames" around the windows will be a combo of clay and egg carton.

Here is an example of the bricks for the porch. The don't look like much now but you will see what can be done with them in the near future. There are some really great tutorials out there that will show you better than I how they use egg carton to achieve a level of realism that can't be believed until seen. While you will often see them cut with an exacto knife, I always use scissors. This is because it "pinches" the sides down when you cut and gives them a bit more depth. An exacto knife, especially with a fresh blade, makes too "clean" a cut and allows them to stay "flatter surfaced" which I feel isn't as authentic. You decide!

A great tutorial for creating egg carton bricks is here.
http://www.otterine.com/blog/blog1.php/cutting-egg-carton-bricks-plus

No detail is left uncovered. And seriously, spend some time around her blog. Her attention to detail puts the rest of us to shame. Seriously. To shame!