The Game Den AKA Front Room

My next project took a long time to decide what I wanted to do. I honestly had it stuck in my head that I had to have this normal front for the world to see, that my interests and things that bring me joy had to be hidden, to be ashamed of. I have been shedding that idea over the last several years, and this, I feel, was the hardest one to open up. But I am so glad that I did. It's still a work in progress, but little by little, it's becoming the amazing vision I had in my head.

We love playing D&D and all kinds of games, so what about a medieval style room? That had me go looking for what kinds of things would be in such a room...

The first thing I started with, was furniture. The couch is the one we've had for years, we couldn't afford to replace it and it was a really comfortable couch so that stayed. My first quest was for some side tables. My old side tables had been well loved for many years, but they didn't fit with my plan, so I found some different ones. They need some TLC, but I can't do any of that until it gets warmer, so until then, they're partially stripped and painted.

The next step was a cheaper craft while i hunted for side tables and other furniture- what would a D&D room be without some awesome potions! I found a really cool tutorial from a halloween page to make some neat self swirling potions, so of course I thought magic potions would be amazing. For anyone curious on how:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyTLKxeMPEM

Potion bottles I got from Michael's mostly, a few were from Hobby Lobby and Amazon.

These potions need a book to hide the motor in, so I went to the thrift store and found some to make into my own geeky version.

Of course these weren't enough... I needed more potions... I realized my custom zipper pulls I had would be perfect little potion tags. (fun discovery I made, aloe vera looks sweet as an oozy potion)

Around this time, the next piece of furniture i started to look for was a TV stand... This one was difficult because I wasn't sure what I wanted, and with a very limited budget, I had to be patient. But finally the perfect one came....

This rolls nicely into my dragon lamps. Several years ago, I made a dragon lamp for my daughter for Christmas. She didn't want it anymore, so I made a matching one and hung them both up. The 3D printed lanturn broke, so I replaced it with some inexpensive ones from Amazon. And, thanks to Alexa voice command and some sweet flickering flame lightbulbs, they now look like cool torches. So cozy!

The lightbulbs can be found here https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PXM7K2D/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

cording materials for the light fixture itself

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DNFNTP3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089ZQ99ZM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And the lanterns

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KCXVQ7V/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Adding more misc trinkets and shelves... FB marketplace sells some fun items that can be used as medieval decor. I found these silver goblets when someone was selling a bunch of her old vintage collection. The scrolls I made by dying some paper with black tea, then burned the edges with a candle. then rolled them up. Their storage stand is a small wine bottle holder off Amazon. I think I'll be staining it darker once spring comes.

I found a super cool hourglass on ebay, but it was super expensive. So i bought a cheap one on amazon and designed and printed my own version.

Found some nice frames at the thrift store to put some fun designed pictures in. I just ordered a poster printing online.

I wanted a way to make the couch more geeky, so I decided to make some fun pillows... The squares are older throw pillows that were gifted to me by my kids but I made the covers and added the geek flare. The fabrics were old sheets- yay repurposing!

What's a geeky room without some giant stuffed dice throw pillows? I used leftover minky fabrics to make these. I embroidered the numbers on then sewed the sides together and stuffed them with polyfil

Any good geeky study would have more books, but they would also be held up with bookends. Buying some were $$ so I took a cool dragon design and turned it into my own bookends! 3D printed in marble PLA, they turned out amazing. (and also my first successful marble project!)

My next project was working on some lighting... I found these lights at my local ReStore (they have all sorts of cool stuff)

I wanted some table lamps, but I wanted them to fit into the geeky theme. But then I had the idea to make a giant d20 dice lamp. This was quite the project, I had a lot of issues since I designed it from scratch, but I really like how it turned out. Each side is 3 parts- a frame, a transparent layer, then the number to hold the whole thing together. They took a lot of time to print, but surpisingly not very much filament. The transparent pieces are vellum paper to soften the harsh bulb light and even it out more. I like it. But a word of caution for any 3d printed lighting! Always use LED bulbs or you'll melt your fixture and possibly start a fire! safety first.

Of course, having used scraps, I wanted to spray paint the dice with a cool color changing color i got from Walmart.

Of course my windows needed some treatment. What better way to frame in the window than with some Family banners? I took some solid colored fabric and some metallic binding for the edges. The design on the banner I used Heat Transfer vinyl i cut out with my silhouette cameo. Perfect. I started with the green since I had all the materials already, but I didn't love them so I got the purple fabric. I thinkg together they work very well!