Fishing Pond Box

I really enjoyed making this box. My husband is very supportive of my 'hobby' and is always encouraging me. (I love him so much.) So I decided to make a box with him in mind. If there is any place he'd rather be it's off fishing. He doesn't get much time to fish anymore but he still loves it, so this box was for him. I wanted to keep it simple as well cause he's a simple kind of guy, so I decided to go with a cane pole and a bucket of worms. And David (my hubby) always take a styrofoam cooler with him.

Ok so let's go through the elements in this box. First the box itself is made from mat board. It measures about 4x4x6 inches. I say 'about' because I had to make it a 16th of an inch smaller than that so it would fit in the display box. The outside (which you can't really see) is painted with the same green as the 'grass'. The background is an image I found online then edited, printed and glued in place. For the base I used a piece of foam board with the paper removed from both sides to give the grassy area a bit of a lift. Over the foam I glued a piece of a tan terry clothe towel that I bought at the dollar store. (I learned how to do this grass from this lady.) I then painted it with Lush Foliage a Craft smart paint from Michael's. The water I painted dark gray (again from craft smart) and dry brushed with Baby Blue an Americana paint from Hobby Lobby. I then added 3 heavy layers of Triple Thick glaze.

I made the flowers several months ago (I made a lot of flowers, lol) and the lily pads I printed and cut out from standard printer paper. I used a matching marker around the edges of the lily pads. (This is to get rid of the white you see after cutting things out of paper. Always marker your edges. It makes your finished projects look so much better.)

The worm bucket is made from a strip of card stock rolled and glued into a tube. (I didn't put a bottom on this bucket because I knew it would be glued down and no one would see it.) I then filled it with hot pink polymer clay and added the little worm coming out over the side. I baked according to package directions. After the clay was cool I washed the clay and worm with Mississippi Mud an Americana paint mixed with a little water. Then I glazed the worm with Gallery Glass Crystal Clear to make him shiny. For the 'dirt' I glued on some dry tea leaves. (Used dried tea leaves or coffee grounds make the best soil or dark dirt for minis. Also learned this from the same lady as above.) I added a little 'dirt' to the worm as well so it looked like he'd been wiggling around in the the bucket.

The syrofoam cooler I made from foam board with the paper removed from both sides. I cut out the pieces, glued them and sanded the edges round. Really easy.

The camping chair...well lets just say it took a few attempts before I got it right, lol. It's made from popsicle sticks, round toothpicks, orange construction paper and straight pins. It would take way to long to give all the steps to making it, so I may make a separate post about it later.

And finally the cane pole is made from a bamboo stick that I whittled down until it was the right thickness. Then I wet it to give it a natural looking curve. I used sewing thread and glue to make the knots. I happened to have a crayola marker that was the prefect color. It was one of their stubby markers called copper penny. I used it to stain the pole and then covered that with 3 coats of Gallery Glass Chrystal Clear. Then I just added the 'fishing line' with some white sewing thread and ran it through a hole I made in the 'water' with a micro dill bit. I used a small label to tape down the thread on the bottom of the box. (I didn't have any tape, lol.)  

Here is a view from the top.

And a close up of the worm bucket.

The box has been encased in a 4x4x6 inch plastic box to protect and display it. Thank you all for looking and reading. Hope you enjoyed this blog post. 

Have a great day. 
Alicia

Oh and a quick update on my dollhouse project. I'm sorry to say that the dollhouse remodel is not going to be finished. The houses have different ceiling heights and no matter what I do and can't work it out so it looks right. So instead I will be building a dollhouse from scratch soon. I'll keep you updated on that project.

Lisa's Beach Box

Ok I'm going to start by saying I got the idea to use picture frames for the box from this awesome blog that I read, but didn't bookmark it. So now I can't find it. I would like to add a link but I can't, sorry.

This is Lisa's Beach Box and it turned out really well. She picked it up Saturday and loved it.

I had so much fun making all the little things for this box. I'm not a beach person and would not have made this box if not requested. I'm so glad she did though.

The box itself is made from mat board with a picture frame on top and front. The one on top lets light come in so you can see the box better.

The back and sides are covered in scrapbook paper.

The floor is styrofoam covered with Mod Podge and craft sand. 

And now about the elements of this box. 

The beach towels are made from baby wash cloths I bought at the Dollar Tree. I cut them down to size. 

The flip flops are made from craft foam. 

The water bottles are made with beads and the lids with quilling paper.

The shovel and pals are paper.

The fence is made with skinny sticks (they are like pop sickle sticks, but longer and skinnier) and the wire from the inside of twist ties.

The shells are real shells just really tiny. 

There are 4 pair of flip flops to represent Lisa's family. Lisa, her husband, Mitch and their 2 kids.

I made the chair from mat board. I will probably do a tutorial on the chair in the future. Not sure when though.

The hat I bought at Hobby Lobby and just added the string.

School Desk Box

So I have this shelf. I'm not sure were I got it, but I've had it awhile. I always wanted to do something with my miniature with it. I didn't want to just sit them on the shelves and making a glass door for the whole thing would have been too expensive. Then the other day when I was making Angela's Birthday Box I got the idea to make boxes for each of the cubbies.

The first thing I thought of was the school desk and the box I wanted to make for it. So here is the School Desk Box.

Sorry about the glare, you know cameras, flashes, shiny stuff they just don't mix.

Here are some different angles of the box.

Just a few details about the box. I made the chalk board with mat board, black construction paper and flat tooth picks. I used a gel pin to write on the board and sanded down a round tooth pick and painted it white for the chalk. 

The bulletin board is made from mat board, dollhouse wood trim, construction paper, and small foam letters. 

On the other wall I printed out a multiplications table chart as a poster. 

On top of the desk is a pencil (I used the leftover bit from the straight pins and painted it orange except for the tips), notebook paper and a spelling book. Inside the desk are 3 folders and a math book. The books I made over a year ago and I just picked out 3 different ones and covered them. I covered the books with brown paper from a lunch bag. This is a lighter paper than from a grocery bag and works better for this scale. I also made a lunch bag from the same paper.

I carved David (my husband) and my initials in the desk top.

And here is the box in my shelf.

Thank you,

Alicia

Miniature School Desk Tutorial 1/12 scale

Why this style school desk? Well this is the style desk I remember sitting in through most of my school days. I wanted this desk for a project I was planning, but I could not find one online or even a tutorial for one. So I decided to make my own and while in the process make a tutorial for others to follow. After all I can't be the only miniaturist that remembers sitting in this desk at school.

Here is a list of tools I recommend for this project: x-acto or other sharp craft knife, scissors, ,ruler, standard hole punch, paint brushes, cheap make-up sponges (I get mine from the Dollar Store), pencil, sandpaper 220 grit, wire cutters, and rubber bands

Here is the list of things you will need for this project: card stock, mat board, 3/16 dowel, quilling paper, wood glue, tacky glue, super glue, 6 straight pins, craft paint (Burnt Umber, Khaki Tan, and Bleached Sand), and glaze (Gallery Glass Chrystal Clear and Triple Thick Glaze).

The first step is to print out the template on card stock. Click on the image and then save to your computer. You may have to use an editing software to re-size it. That's what the 1 inch square is for.

Now cut out the pieces. With the ones that say "Cut from mat board",- I like to leave the card stock intact to use as a template for tracing onto the mat board.

I just use a little glue stick in the corners to hold the template in place while I trace it. Then using an x-acto knife I cut out the pieces. I use a standard hole punch for the center of the circle bracket.

All pieces cut from mat board.

Now fold Dowel wrap, front leg wrap and back supports on the dotted lines. I use my ruler and the back of  my x-acto blade to score on the dotted line then fold.

Then take some extra pieces of card stock and glue to the wide part of the back supports. This is to strengthen them.

Next you will need to sand edges of mat board pieces smooth and round over the edges of the desk top, back slats and front of seat. 

Then carefully put a slight bend in the back slats. I found that my wood glue bottle was the prefect shape so I used rubber bands to hold the pieces in shape. (I placed the slats back under the rubber bands after painting as well.) Also at this time carefully shape the seat. It needs to match the curve of sides A and B. I did this by gently pressing over the handle of my x-acto knife until the seat fit into the curves. If the mat board starts coming apart don't worry just use a bit of wood glue to glue it back together. Set pieces aside for later.

Make a "pencil" slot in the desk top about 1 inch long. There are 2 ways to do this. Either use a ball stylus and press the slot in or cut with your x-acto knife at a slight angle from both sides. Sand to smooth edges.

Take a piece of quilling paper 4 1/2 inches long and wrap it around the inside of side B. It should like the picture above. Note: if you don't have quilling paper you can cut a strip of paper 1/8 inch wide and use that instead.

Now wrap your dowel with the Dowel wrap using wood glue. Make sure the bottom of the dowel is lined up with the bottom of the wide part of the dowel wrap. Then simply glue it around the dowel and hold in place until the glue sets. Once glue is dry cut dowel even with wrap at the top. 

Ok now let's assemble the bottom of the desk. First glue the shelf to side B and the quilling paper. Then glue on the Front and Back pieces. Finally glue on side A and make sure every thing is lined up and square. (The shelf may not touch all sides but don't worry the paint will fill any gaps.) 

Glue front leg wrap on the corner of Side B and Front of desk. Then glue dowel wrap to Side A and front corner. 

Take the Back Support pieces and trim off the extra card stock. Then glue both Back Supports to back corners. Make sure the wide parts are on the back. Try the seat to make sure it fits. If not trim and/or reshape now.

Now trim the legs to make them even and level.

Pieces painted and Glazed ready for final assembly.  

Painting time. I used craft paint from Hobby Lobby. It's the cheapest brand they have and it works fine. 

Burnt Umber for the seat, back slats and the bottom of the desk top. I just used my finger to rub on then whipped off with a paper towel to get the 'wood' look. Don't forget to paint the pencil slot on the desk top.

Khaki Tan for the main body of the desk. I used a brush for the inside and bottom because brush marks don't matter there. I use cheap make-up sponges for the outside. The sponges don't leave brush mark which means less sanding later. I apply 4 to 5 thin coats waiting about 2 minutes between coats. If they are thin they will be dry enough to touch by then. Then I let dry for at least 1 hour. Now sand, sand, sand. You want to get it as smooth as possible. Then apply another 2 thin coats of paint and let dry at least 1 hour before glazing.

Bleached Sand for the top of the desk top. Make sure not to paint the pencil slot. I applied 2 thick coats with a brush then let dry for 1 hour. (I use a brush because I have to paint around the pencil slot.) Then more sanding. If you go through the paint to the mat board just repaint and sand again once dry.

After all pieces are painted, sanded and dry we glaze.  I like the Gallery Glass Chrystal Clear glaze for 'wood' pieces because its thinner and not quite as shiny as Triple Thick. So cover all the 'wood' pieces with Gallery Glass Chrystal Clear. That would be the seat, bottom of the desk top and both back slats.

Cover the the main part of the desk and the top of the desk top with Triple Thick Glaze. This glaze goes on very heavy, but does thin out some once dry. Don't worry if it looks gloppy and messy to start with. I use a brush because the glaze will smooth out as it dries. This glaze is amazing for making paper look like metal.

You can clean up all the paints and glazes I used with water.

This next step is optional, but adds to the detail and overall look.

With some kind of pointy tool make 2 holes in each end of Slat 1 and 1 hole in each end of Slat 2. I used a dental tool but anything pointy would work.

Now take your 6 straight pins and your wire cutters and cut the heads off the pins leaving just enough of the pin to go through the slats but not come out of the back.

Glue the tiny pin heads into the hole you made in the slats. I just tacky glue because we are glue metal to paper and this will give the best hold. 

Now glue on both back slats. Line slat A up with the top of the back supports and then glue slat B about 1/4 of an inch down from slat A. Then glue on seat. Because of the glaze you will have to use supper glue for this. I like to use both tacky glue and supper glue together.

Glue the small circle bracket to the bottom of the desk top. 

Finally glue desk top to dowel at a slight angle and your school desk is complete. Desk measures 3 5/8 h x 2 1/2 w.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that it was clear. This is my first one. If there are any questions I'll be happy to answer them. 

Thank you, Alicia.

Angela's Birthday Box

This is the miniature box I made for my sister Angela's Birthday. She loves gardening and has a beautiful yard. I wanted to make her something special because she is always thinking of and doing for others. I love you Angela.

I made everything including the box. I found the tutorial for the wheel barrow at this blog and the blue pieces at this blog (watering can, wash tubs and pitcher.) I really had fun making this box and I think it turned out well. 

The wheel barrow is made from mat board (yes the stuff you use in frames). It was a simple build following the tutorial listed above. I painted mine to look like old wood, but you could do almost any finish on it you wanted.

  

The gardening tools I made from scratch. They are made from paper, wooden dowels and toothpicks (the rake is from toothpicks). 

The blue pieces are made from the blogs listed above. They are made of paper then sanded, painted and glazed to make them look like metal. It is a lot easier than it looks, lol. 

The flowers and plants are paper. They take a little patients and time but worth it in the end. 

The 'clay' pots are actually wood. I just painted them with terracotta paint and filled them with dirt. For the 'clay' pots I used actual dirt from my front yard mixed with glue. I made these before I learned about faux dirt (used coffee and tea grounds dried in the oven).

The background is grass scrapbook paper. It is out of scale on purpose. I wanted the garden scene to look like a little fairy garden hidden in the tall grass. The ground is faux dirt. (Yes is smells like coffee which is a bonus, lol.)  

I made the bags of 'Potting Mix' on my computer and printed them out. I glued and filled them with cotton. Then I hand stitched the bottoms and tops, leaving one partly open with soil coming out.

The box itself is made from mat board with a plastic cover over the top and front. Then I used dollhouse wood trim around the edges to finish it off. The trim and the outside of the box is painted tan. I also added felt dots to the bottom to protect whatever surface Angela places it on.

Hope you enjoy this blog post. If you have any questions please let me know.

Dollhouse Remodel Day 1 and 2

My blog right now is mostly going to be about remodeling my dollhouse, but there will also be other things added here and there. I do a lot of different crafts, but mainly I make dollhouse miniatures.

I have wanted a dollhouse since I was a teenager, but never had the money to get one of those kits. A few years ago this really awesome person (Sissy) gave me two old dollhouses that her daughter no longer wanted. They are smallish and need some work but I had my dollhouse finally. Now here it is May 27, 2012 and I am finally going to get to remodel those houses. (Please ignore date on pictures. I have to reset it every time I change batteries and I’m lazy, so the date is not correct.)

   

(My amazing husband David cleared out a space in his man cave/garage for me to work and made me a work table.)

Day 1: I spent the first day (05/27/12) taking pictures, measuring and drawing plans. That took some time but it will be worth it when I start the actual work.

The Plan:   My plan is to put the two houses together to make on nice big dollhouse. I also want to reshingle, replace the ginger bread details and the porch railings and totally redecorate the inside. Plus a lot more.

1. The houses have thinner walls than most of the new dollhouses. They are about 1/8 inch and the newer ones have ¼ inch walls, so I’m going to reinforce them with some thin ply board my husband has lying around the garage.
2. I am moving some of the windows and doors so I will have to cover the outside walls as well.
3. Also to make the windows more uniform I am going to square up the round top windows.
4. The stairs will be moved so that I will only need one staircase. 
5. I want to put lighting in and that has to be done before flooring and wall paper go in.

This is just a quick list. There are a lot more things that are going to have to be done before I can start the decorating part.

Here is a picture of the 2 houses side by side so you can get an idea of how they will be put together. 

The remodel:  Of course the biggest part is actually putting the two houses together to make one big dollhouse, (from here on the biggest house will be referred to as house A and the smaller one as house B) but that is just the beginning.

One of the biggest challenges was figuring out the stairs. I need to have access to both second floors from one staircase (I’m going to use a ladder for the 3^rd floor attic). It took some thinking but I finally got it worked out. The next thing was deciding which front door to keep, but I worked that out in my head last night while I was trying to go to sleep. Then there are things like building up the foundation on house B so it’s the same as house A, making the front porch bigger so I can put some rocking chairs and such on it and matching the houses up so they look like one house and not two glued together.

Here are some more before pictures:

House A

House B

As you can see the houses need some work. There are also some weird angles in the second floor rooms of house A that I'm trying to decide what to do with. I could build 'boxes' around them or just work with them like they are.

Day 2: 05/28/12

Demolition:  I started the demolition today. It went a lot faster than expected. I was originally going to remove the old shingles and replace them but they were really hard to get off and left a mess.

I decided it would be easier to remove the roof sections and then cut new ones and replace them completely. This will also make working in the attic easier.

Here are the pictures of what I’ve gotten done so far.

As you can see I have all the roof pieces off of both houses. (In the last picture you can see on that white piece that I labeled them so I would know which goes where later.) I also removed the porch from house B and the porch railings from house A. I took off both of the bay windows. I didn’t like the one on house A so it had to go. I liked the one on house B better but decide to put French doors in there since I didn’t have a ‘back’ door. That room is going to be the Dining rooms so French doors will be nice in there. I also rough cut the round top windows to square. They aren’t straight but since I’m covering the walls anyway it won’t matter (I have to re-cut them anyway.) I removed most of the ginger bread details and saved them. I may reuse some of it, not sure right now. 

Well that's it for now. More to come soon. Thanks for reading.