Completed Miniature Pet Shop Kit in 1:24 scale

I finished my little Pet Shop Kit; woohoo!

Pet World DIY miniature kit in 1:24 scale, completed

 My Dad had to do the wiring for me, and it looks so great all lit up at night!

 I am really pleased with the way it came out,! 

Sadie had to duck down to take a look.  She says she'd like a 1 inch scale pet shop so she can go shopping for Rufus.  I told her I'd think about it ;-).

In the meantime, I ordered another DIY storefront shop kit from China; called Green's Bar.
This is what it will look like:

Sorry for the grainy image, but it's going to be so cute! It has already been shipped but it's coming from China so will probably take a month to get here.

More Mini Cheese Boards, lol

These things are addictive!

Miniature cheese boards in 1:12 scale

  I had to make another cheese board so my smoked Swiss cheese would have somewhere to go. I tried a brown marble this time, and made it curved on one end, with a hole for hanging it up when empty. Considering the cheeses and crackers are stuck on with liquid sculpey, that will never happen.

Miniature cheese board in 1:12 scale

I also made a little bowl of olives, and some olives. I tried black, green, and Kalamata olives.  The bowl was super easy to make; I just rolled a small ball of clay and used a large dotting tool to make the indentation for the inside.

Mini cheese tray with olives

I made some apples...or tried to, lol.  I added them to the big cheese board, along with a slice of smoked Swiss cheese.  Other than that, this board is the same as it was yesterday; I just glued everything in place with liquid Sculpey today.

Mini cheese board

Mini cheese boards with real life hotdog bun

 I misplaced my penny so I put a bun in with the cheeseboards, to show scale. It's quite a small hotdog bun so I took another photo, with my finger, to show scale. 

Mini cheese board with finger to show scale

I had a blast and would love to make even more of these, with some salami next time, lol.
Why are minis soooo very addictive? 

Mini Cheese Board with Crackers and Cheese

I worked hard all weekend and made more crackers and some cheese to go with my cheese boards.

1:12 scale miniature cheese board with crackers and cheese

Doesn't it look yummy?  I had to stop and eat cheese after seeing the photos, lol.  In person, the cheddar just looks like little tiny specs to me, but once the picture is enlarged like this, it looks good enough to eat.  My crackers are a little too thick, but still make me want to eat them, lol.  That's so bad; talk about food obsessed, lol, that polymer clay food makes me hungry.

1:12 scale mini cheese boards with cheese and crackers (polymer clay)

I made 3 trays in total, soda crackers, ritz crackers, and 4 different kinds of cheese.  The swiss cheese was still in the oven when I took these photos.  I mad eso many crackers that I had to find printable cracker boxes online so I could store the extras.  I even made little bags out of waxed paper to fit inside the boxes.

Mini Cheese Boards

Mini Cheese board with cheddar

Mini cheese boards

I had a blast making these. 
Thanks for visiting!

Mini Hassock for Pet Shop DIY kit

I've been going through mini making withdrawal so I decided I'd better continue on with my mini DIY Pet Shop kit from China.  I'm already on Bag number 3; the last bag (see contents below).

Bag 3 of Pet Shop DIY kit

 Here's a close up of the contents:  various bits of fabric, thread, wood pieces, lights, wiring, beads, ribbon, and round metal things (can't think what they're called).  Also cut wood pieces to make a cat scratching post stand, and two round wooden pieces to make what they call a sofa but what we would call a hassock or ottoman.

Bag 3 contents

 The instructions say to start with the "sofa" (aka hassock or foot stool) so that is what I did.  I pulled out the two round wood pieces, some corrugated cardboard from Bag 2, the piece of red felt, and the 3 black beads and put them aside.

Instructions

 Next I measured the corrugated cardboard and cut it according to directions.

 Then I rolled the cardboard around  the edge of one round piece of wood, and glued it in place.  I left some room for the cardboard to overlap a bit, glued it, and put a clip on it until it dried.

 The next step said to glue the second round wood piece on top, so I did that.  It's starting to take shape and looks very cute.

 Then I cut out a paper circle to match the wood circle, traced it onto the red felt, and cut that out.  I also cut a long strip of red felt to glue along the side of the hassock.

 After the felt was glued in place firmly, I tipped the hassock over and added black beads for the feet.

Adding bead feet to the hassock

 And here it is; a simple but cute hassock.

Completed mini hassock

Mini Pet Shop contents: pillows, collars, books, dog bed

I've been busy making these teeny tiny items for my pet shop.

Mini DIY pet shop kit items

The tiny collars are so cute.  They're just strips of felt with little buttons glued on, and the silver part is a silver twist tie (like for tying up garbage bags).  The books have pages, but they're blank, lol. So tiny!  I wanted to get a photo with a coin to show size but the battery on my camera died so it's recharging now.

The white pillow is just three layers of felt, cut in bone shapes and glued together.  The blue pillow is an actual pillow that I sewed and stuffed, with a felt dog paw applique glued on.  The dog bed is ingenious; it's just a printable rectangular box, with strips of rafia paper glued on in the round, so it looks like a basket.  Then a bit of cloth was glued inside.  The dog came with the kit.

DIY mini pet shop kit

So this is what I have done so far.  I have to glue the shelves into the store, and then I can start gluing the items down.  I still have some of bag B to finish, and then I can start on bag C, the final bag.  Then I'll get my Dad to do the wiring for the lighting, lol, and it will be done!  It will still take quite awhile as the tiny items that go inside are very fiddly and time consuming.  I'm enjoying making the items a lot more than I enjoyed making the shop itself.

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.

Delphiniums in Progress

I am almost finished with these Delphiniums; woohoo. They've been taking FOREVER, but I also had to take two days off from minis due to being sick.  I don't know what I have; it started with tummy upset and headache, then yesterday I woke up with laryngitis and a super sore throat and that all over achey-flu feeling.  I still feel awful today but decided to work on my minis in hopes they'd distract me.

The tutorial I used for the mini delphiniums  can be found here.

Mini Delphiniums almost finished

I had the flower parts already done, but was stuck on the leaves.  I ordered some mini leaf paper punches but they haven't been shipped yet so I made these leaves using painting tape and wire.  They came out OK but I didn't like the way the wires all looked wound up together, and the green painting tape was too bright so I painted them with my leaf green craft paint.  I like them a lot better now.  I think another layer or two of paint on the stems will help disguise the twisted wires.  If not, I can always try mixing the paint with some glue to thicken it a bit.

Anyway, a few days ago, I prepared a bunch of stems.  I dipped the tips in yellow for other flowers, and for the delphiniums I added those little tubular beads to the wire to make a thicker part.  I think the tutorial called them bugle beads.   I painted them green to match the stem, and think they'd make great cattails if painted brown instead :-).

 I painted some cone shaped coffee filters last week and used the blue and yellow ones for my delphiniums.  I used my mini circle punch and punched a tiny container full of circles.

I used my ball tool (not sure what it's really called, lol) to indent the circles, using a bit of craft foam underneath to help shape them.


Then I glued them to the bead covered portion of the stem, 3 blossoms at a time.

It was fun building them up; I made some taller than the others.

I found a tutorial online, about how to make ivy, and used it to make these leaves.  You can find the tutorial here.

I used this thin wire, and this wide green painters tape.  I put cut pieces of wire, pushed them down onto the sticky portion of the tape, folded the tape so both sides of the wire were covered in tape (see photo below), and drew leaves, then cut them out.

I did two leaves per flower.

Sadie loves her delphiniums.  I'll like them more after the stems get a few more coats of paint.