Miniature Gift Bag Room Box

Gift Bag Room Box

 I made this gift bag room box for my Uncle Buck's 85th birthday, yesterday.  It took me over 7 hours of non stop work but I had a blast making it and only wish I would have thought of making it earlier so I would have had more time to work on it.

Room box in a gift bag

 I cut a window out of the gift bag and added some bias tape around the edges.  I wanted to use ribbon but my Mom put my box of ribbons somewhere and I can't find them.

 I made the interior walls, roof, and floor out of foam core, left over from my bake shop.  The wall paper and flooring is contact paper, from the dollar store. 

 I resized a photo of my uncle Buck and his late wife, Cobie, for the wall, and used scotch tape to attach it to a piece of wood.  The tape kind of looks like glass in real life.

Buck wanted cake, pizza, and KFC, so I recreated that in mini, using polymer clay.  I made the cake big because the real cake was huge, big enough to serve 20 people with lots of left overs.  I also put in a cheese and cracker tray with a bowl of olives, and some bead vases.  The pizza box and chicken bucket are printies.

 My uncle loves Frank Sinatra and has all of his albums so I rezised an album cover and printed it out, and glued on a backing so it's like an envelope.  I even cut out a little disc to put inside but didn't have time to paint it black.

 The furniture was from the dollar tree.  I wish I would have had time to paint it.

Uncle Buck really loved his gift, and so did everyone else.
I will definitely make another one one day.

My Bake Shop and Patio are Now Complete; Woohoo!

I can't believe I'm finished.  How exciting, and sad, at the same time, lol.  Here it is!

Bake shop exterior, back

 I am really happy with the way the window box turned out.  The Cupcake Lovers Parking Only Sign looks great, and so does the Coffee sign.  I'm not as pleased with my Store sign; I should have made it with more colors.

 It was dark when I took these photos so I couldn't get a shot of the interior through the window.

Back of mini bake shop

 Sadie, Michelle, and Rufus are very happy with their finished shop.  Rufus is stopping to smell the flowers.

Mini bake shop outdoor patio

 I think the patio section is my favorite part.  I made some cushions for the chairs last night; they were my final minis for this project, and I procrastinated like crazy on the last pillow because I didn't want it to be over, lol.  I also put an extra pillow on the bench, and a folded up newspaper on the pillow.  I added some signs too.  I left room to maybe add a bird feeder or bird house later, lol.

Mini Bake Shop outdoor patio

 The dolls are relaxing on the patio after working hard giving me orders for over a month now, lol.

Mini Bake Shop

 Poor Rufus; I forgot to make his dog dish.  See, maybe I'm not finished after all, lol :-).

Mini Bake Shop Interior

 Michelle is stealing some chocolate chip cookies while her Mum is busy waiting for guests.

Mini bake shop interior

Mini bake shop interior

Thank you for joining me throughout this project.  I know I was kind of obsessed with it, lol, so thanks for putting up with my sometimes 3 posts a day :-).  Take care.

Mini Window Box and Stone Rose Planters

I am finished making mini flowers; woohoo! 

Miniature window box full of flowers

I found the tutorial for the morning glories (blue hanging flowers) at About.com, here.

I made the flowers using my mini circle hole punch, and drew a five armed star shape with a white gel pen. This was similar to the Petunias, except they had 8 lines instead of 5. 

I used the heart shaped punch for the leaves.  Both the flowers and leaves were made from coffee filters that had been painted a few weeks ago, and all were shaped using a ball tipped embossing tool.  The hanging portion of the flowers are glued on to thread.  Yes, I glued flowers on to thread.  It was VERY fiddly and maddening but it was actually easier than gluing the flowers on to the wire.  I did the upright portions on wire, and bent them over. I like Alene's quick dry tacky glue for this.

The other flowers were made using my big border punch that punches out various flower shapes.  I used markers for the centers of some, and for others I painted the end of a wire yellow and pushed it right through the flower.  This worked better than gluing them to the ends of the wire; when I did that, the flowers kept straightening out on me.

Morning glories in progress

I really love the way the morning glories came out.  Blue flowers are my absolute favorite.

Mini long stem roses in stone planters

My rose planters are finished too.  I added some moss for greenery because I felt it needed something.  I love the roses but they'd be better in a vase than in the planters.  The white roses are my favorite; they were all made from coffee filters, but the white were unpainted.  I used acrylics for the red and yellow.  Next time I'm going to try water colors instead.

I enjoyed making the flowers and my Bake Shop Patio is looking so colorful.  I already glued all of these flower boxes into place, and I added some advertising and signage.  I just have to make some chair cushions and I'll be done.  I made one but it looks weird so I have to look at a few tutorials on how to do the corners.  I also suck at wrapping gifts when it comes to corners, lol. 
I added some craft sticks along the patio and roof to give it a more finished look and I'm happy with it.  I think I'm putting off doing the second chair cushion because then I'll be done, and I hate the thought of being done; I had so much fun with this project.

Mini Delphiniums On Trellis

I am loving the way this turned out!

Mini Delphiniums on trellis

I made 9 delphinium plants but only used 5 in the end, 3 blue and 2 yellow.  I used two layers of left over foam core for the "ground", cut into that shape (see above),  and glued together.  Then I glued the trellis onto the foam core shape, and added the flowers. It was difficult because they didn't want to stick into the foam properly.  Once I had them in place, I used my glue gun to glue the in place, and put glue all over. Then I shook some of my dried coffee grounds over the still hot glue and used a toothpick and my finger to pat it into place.  After I was satisfied, I glued the trellis and plants onto the patio.

Mini delphiniums on trellis

 I may still outline the "dirt" with little rocks; I'm not sure yet. 

Foam Core miniature bake shop patio

Foam core mini bake shop patio

 Sadie and Michelle love the flowers.  Rufus would like a tree (or his fire hydrant back) to pee on, lol.

Dolls relaxing on patio

I still have to fill the two big stone planters that I made for the front of the patio, plus the window box.  I made 8 more roses today; 4 golden yellow, and 4 white, to go with the 8 red I made earlier.  I can tell I'm learning as I go as the new roses are nicer.  The leaves are nicer too.  I will take photos later.  I can't wait until my leaf paper punches come in the mail.  I ordered the maple on one Ebay today as it was the only one missing from the set I bought on Etsy.  The set on Etsy STILL hasn't been shipped. 

Simple Mini Trellis and Bench

I wanted a trellis and bench for my outdoor patio and ended up making these.

Mini trellis and bench

 I watched a nice tutorial on Youtube for the bench but I changed it because I didn't have the right materials for the supports for hers.  I just sort of winged it using the stuff I had on hand. 
If you do have the right materials though, I'd say follow Joanne's minis advice here.
It's a great tutorial and Joanne's bench is adorable. I used Jumbo craft sticks for my seat area, some wood from Michael's for the legs, and  thin craft sticks for my supports.

Mini trellis and bench

 For the trellis, I used thin craft sticks and thin dowels.  I made it to look like the trellises I had at my old house...16 of them, lol.  Mine were taller (in scale, these are 4 inches so 4 feet; my real ones were 6 feet at the tallest, but 6 inches didn't look right to me here).

Mini patio in progress

 The bench and trellis aren't glued in.  My new mini friend, Alicia told me to wire the trellis and add the flowers to it first.  Great advice.  I'm so lucky to have someone in town who loves minis and has experience. 

Mini patio in progress

 Sophie, Michelle, and Rufus are enjoying the new patio furniture.  I think Rufus is wondering where his fire hydrant went ;-).

 In the above photo I moved things over to see if there would be room for a hedge  behind the bench.  I may try that, or else make another trellis, like this, below:

Add caption

I think that looks pretty sweet. What do you think?
The hedge may look nice too; I already made it; I'm waiting for the glue to dry. 

Mini bench and trellis

 Here are some photos of the simple bench and trellis.  I purposefully used uneven wood for the bench so it would look more realistic.  In the photo below you can see what I did for leg supports. I glued the legs in place first, then added craft sicks on either side of them. I put a LOT of paint in between the space to add extra strength. Hopefully it will work.

Mini bench and trellis

I'm going to go see if the glue on my hedge has dried so I can see if I like it or not.  Take care.

Mini Plant Pots

Dollhouse miniature plant pots

There plant pots were sooo much fun to make!  I want to make loads more, just because I enjoyed making them so much, lol.  They weren't even on my radar until I started working on some mini flowers yesterday and realized I needed some pots or planters to put them in. 

I searched google and Youtube for instructional videos and found lots, but I had an idea of how I wanted the pots to look and none of them were quite right, until I found the PERFECT tutorial that exactly matched what I had in mind.  It's on the Youtube channel called We Love Miniatures, and you can find it here.

I used this  website to make templates for the pots in various sizes.
Here's a copy of my extra large pot, which I plan to use for topiary trees.

Extra large mini plant pot template

 I also found some templates on a blog called is Amber's House.  I tried to subscribe because it's a great blog but it wouldn't let me subscribe and asked me to try again later.  You can find it here. 

First I printed a bunch of templates on regular computer paper, then I cut them out and rolled them up and glued them to see what the sizes actually looked like next to my doll and shop.  Then I chose my favorite sizes and used them to trace the pattern onto card stock.  I made the pots out of card stock and added the rim and bottoms as per the video.  Then I painted them using brown and gold craft paints side by side, so that I could dip a flat brush in both colors at once, so I could paint a variegated pattern.

I didn't get a great photo of them because the sun was in the back ground, but they did have two tones in the above photo. 

I didn't have the powdered grout that was used in the pot tutorial, and thought I could use baby powder or baking soda instead to make a thickener for the clay layers.  I did equal parts baby powder, white glue, and a bit of paint, enough to give it color but still leave it thick.  I made three of these thicker washes, in white, brown and gold mixed, and green.

I didn't follow the video exactly.  First I gave it a wash with the white texture mix.  In the picture below you can see some have the white wash, and others don't.  I also didn't bother with the drain holes because my pots will be glued to the base and the bottoms won't be seen at all.

After the white texture wash dried, I went over them all again with the brown/gold wash.  Then I added a bit of the green wash, to simulate moss stains.  I used a stiff brush and pounced or dabbed the last three layers over again until I was happy with them.

Miniature "clay" plant pots in various sizes

Mini "clay" plant pots

Sadie is happy with them.  She's excited about getting some flowers and topiary trees for the outdoor patio.  She also wants a bench seat ;-).

Oops, forgot the mini cupcakes!

I finally remembered I made cupcakes, lol.  I iced them this morning and then added "sprinkles", which was a bad idea as they don't look good.

Mini cupcakes

 I used tissue paper to make the cupcake wrappers. They were so cute, but some of them got bent out of shape when I glued the cupcakes onto the trays.

 I used the puff paint as icing and i think I like the liquid sculpey method better.

Mini dollhouse bake shop

Here's the interior of my shop with the cupcakes on the top shelf, one tray on either end.  I didn't glue them in because I'm not happy with them.  They look too plastic-y.

It's weird; my favorite part of this scene is the coffee and tea table.  I even put a little garbage can under the table, and put in some used tea bags and an empty coffee cup.

The other thing that I like, but you can't really see unless you make the photo bigger, is the little coffee cup with the lid on the cash counter.  The lid is super hard dried glue that dried inside of the cap of glue, and it looks just like a plastic coffee lid, lol.

Simple Mini Plants, Trays, Coffee and Hot Water Dispenser.

I'm on a roll with these minis and am seriously addicted.    I made these super simple plants out of a dollar store plant and dollar store beads.  I just pulled off bits of the plant and glued them into the beads. I'm going to have to find some pretty beads, just to use as vases, lol.  These will do for now; they're cute and the colors fit this shop.

Simple mini plants and trays

 I painted the mini plastic trays silver.  They were actually the clear plastic divider that my other beads had, separating the compartments, and I cut them out to look like trays and used a bit of silver nail polish. 

Mini Water and Coffee dispensers

 The green plant in the above photo is just one of the leaves from the dollar store plant.  The vase is a lid from glue or a marker; can't remember.  The water is clear glue.  I wanted it to be like one of those bamboo plants that grows in water.

The red and silver thing is my water dispenser.  I painted a mini chapstick with nail polish and glued on beads and wire.  The big gold and silver thing is my coffee dispenser, lol. Same deal with the beads and wire.  No tutorial; I came up with those on my own.

Mini store counter from dollar tree dresser

My upside down and backward dollar store dresser makes a marvelous sales counter, with room for the cash register, napkins, trays, and paper plates.

I'm having so much fun.  I glued some of the food in the cake display stand and plan on gluing the rest of the stuff onto the bookcase later.  I have to go have supper now.  Pizza; yum!

Hope you are having a nice day.