Amazing metalwork tutorial

Via the Greenleaf forum (if you haven't been there yet, you should check it out!), I was introduced to this great Japanese blog that shows how to do some very adorable miniature metalwork. I love that they include pictures to show how it was done for those who (like me) cannot read Japanese. It looks like you need a thin sheet of metal, shears, at least two handles for miniature drills for twisting the metal, needlenose pliers, adhesive or solder, and spray paint.

Mention Monday

The winds are picking up here in upstate NY and my work closed early today. We are staying safe inside and thankfully still have power! We have plenty of candles and flashlights should it go out, though!

Anyway, I am debating on what to do with this windfall of extra time and so I am considering some mini projects. I have lots of kits I'd like to make up and maybe even get some new holiday minis started. Who knows?

In the meantime, it is Monday and a long, long time ago, I decided that meant that I would mention some fellow bloggers out there that you might be interested in! Of course, it's been months since I had a Mention Monday post, but here goes...

1) Jazzi Minis is doing her Monday Link Party (as she does every week) over at her blog. You can include a link to your own blog and Etsy shop and check out what others have posted. I have found it's a great way to promote my shop as I have seen several shop views come directly from her Link Party! Thanks, Jazzi!

2) Illyria is having a giveaway of some amazing books she created that are perfect for Halloween or a spooky scene any time of the year!

3) My Miniature Menagerie just finished an amazing dollhouse, 120 Copper Court, with so much realistic detail, you just need to see it for yourself! To celebrate, she is doing a scavenger hunt-style giveaway! I loved the extra challenge in this giveaway since you get to look through her blog posts about building and decorating this beautiful house! So much eye candy! :)

There it is - an edition of Mention Monday. :) I'll challenge myself this week to try to post everyday through Friday. We'll see how it goes. ;) (And if the power holds out!!!)

Tutorial Tuesday: Quick Books!

I think each miniaturist has their own way of making books. Some skillful artisans craft very realistic books with tiny printed pages and beautiful binding that take a lot of time and effort (and look amazing). Others might buy some of the blank books that are out there in many miniature shops. But many of us, with less time, perhaps, need something quick (and cheap!) to fill up a bookshelf.

Today, that was my goal: to make some books that are quick and easy to fill up space in my historical society bookshelf. This is what I did (and I don't take full credit for this idea, as I am sure I've been inspired by others I've seen online - but can't quite remember who at the moment...). Anyway, here's what you need:

- a piece of scrap wood that you can easily cut to the size of books you need. I used the extra pieces of wood you get with art canvases. I never use them for whatever their intended purpose is...
- some white or off-white paint and brush
- brown Kraft paper (used for wrapping parcels)
- covers of the books you'd like to make shrunk down to size on your computer (I use Gimp photo imaging software - it's free and very easy to use, especially if you know how to use Photoshop)

Hint: If you have a color inkjet printer, you will definitely want to seal your book covers after printing - Mod-podge is a quick and easy solution. I have a color laser printer, so it's probably not completely necessary, but I do it anyway, just in case. (And it looks nice!)

Step 1: Measure the size of your book (using a cut out cover as a guide) onto your piece of wood.

Step 2: Cut the wood! Use what you have in your stash - a miter box and saw, an X-acto knife, or an Easy Cutter (my favorite tool!)

Step 3: Paint the edges of your block of wood. You only need to paint one long edge and both short edges. These are your "pages". :)

Step 4: Cover the book (except for the "pages" of course) with the Kraft paper.

Heck, you could leave it like this for school text books!

Step 5: Glue on your cover!

This tutorial is especially good for books that you plan to display as above, with the front covers facing out. I didn't put any printing on the spine of the books, but you could certainly do so. There are some great book printie sites out there where you can find some modern and antique book covers. :)

I hope this was useful! If you have any questions about something I did, I will be happy to add it in to this tutorial.

Cheers,
Linda

Reorganizing and Mention Monday

It's a quiet day here. Slept in, made a delicious dinner (marinated chicken in chilli-mint zulu sauce, fried plaintains, and long grain wild rice), installed the AC (it's very humid), and reorganized the craft area.

This shelf area really needed an overhaul. I am very happy with this clearly labeled boxes; makes it a lot easier to find things.

My new toy. :-D I love the heck out of it.

The whole craft area. It's a corner of my living room (my fiance and I live in a small apartment at the moment), but there is plenty of room to make items. Having a small area also forces me to use what I have rather than hoard a bunch of stuff.

Also today, I added one more item to my etsy shop, this cute wall cupboard for a dollhouse kitchen, bathroom, or bedroom. :) Check it out.

Last, it is Monday, which means it's Mention Monday. Here I feature a blogger/website which I enjoy reading that you may also find interesting. Today, I'd like to point you to Dollarstore Crafts. This site includes LOTS of tutorials and if you feel creative and don't want to spend a lot of money, this is a GREAT (free!) resource. I am also a little biased since she mentions a lot of dollhouse crafts!!! (Examples include: micro planters made from wine corks, a calendar, and more!). I hope you find some projects to make!

Thrifty Thursday 1

Well, here goes my first Thrifty Thursday post! I hope this becomes a fun resource for upcycling ideas, including some fun ideas I’ve figured out, cool things I’ve read, what friends from the blogosphere have done, and inquiries to you about how everyday household objects might be used for minis.

Thrifty on the web: 

So today, I’d like to mention an amazing miniaturist, Tanya, who lives in Georgia. She posts often on the Greenleaf Forum, Small Stuff and the Miniature Collector’s Club Yahoo! Group. The reason she is being mentioned today is that she has a special knack for turning trash to treasure. Her online photo album, chock full of ideas, can be found here: http://www.picturetrail.com/tanyamc123. She finds some great pieces from the Dollar Tree, or around the house, that make great minis, especially those that may be useful in modern scenes! See for yourself!

This week's thrifty idea: 

Do you have a lot of ribbon, still on the cardboard spools? Ever want to know how to easily store them without shelling out money for a ribbon dispenser?  If you have a large wooden disk (or sturdy base larger than the largest hole in your ribbon spools), some glue (Tacky, wood, whatever you have) and an extra dowel lying around (who doesn't?), you can whip together a quick and easy ribbon holder.

This is a super-easy idea for cleaning up your storage space and a lot easier than fishing around in a drawer for just the right ribbon. I think the neatly stacked ribbon is also pleasant to look at as I have it easily accessible in my craft area. :)

What Would You Do With This?

Alright, guys and gals. We've recently cleaned out our pantry and we found that we had a lot of those Crystal Light drinks. I kept the containers because I thought they might work out well in this hobby. Here's what one looks like: 

Now I am too lazy to get up and measure it at the moment, but I think it's about 6.5 inches tall. Can you think of a mini-related use for this? So far, I've thought: storing or packing delicate minis to send in the mail, storing brushes, strip wood, or other tools...what else? Share your ideas in the comments below!

Mini shipping containers for modern houses!

Wow! I saw these mentioned on the Small Stuff mailing list today and I fell in love!

They are 1:12 scale shipping containers you can use to make a modern dollhouse. The company that makes these, PRD Miniatures, has a lot of modern mini furniture! So much eye candy to add to my wish list! :)

Link round-up

I have found some pretty amazing (mini-related) things on the internet lately that I would like to share with you:

1) The Fairy Treehouse by Sunflowerhouse - I definitely don't have $75K to drop on this, but it is unique and you can tell so much work went into it! Great eye candy! There's also smaller pieces of furniture in their shop too.

2) Bonsai Tree Houses by Takanori Aiba - These are just...amazing.

3) Rockland County Miniatures Exhibit - This looks so cool. I live two hours north of it, and who knows, we might drop down there this weekend. I have a chest cold right now, so we'll see how that pans out. If we do visit, I'll take pictures. :)

A crazy coincidence

So, I've been looking for a book that I got out of the library a lot as a kid (about crafting dollhouse furniture out of everyday items). I couldn't remember the name or author of the book,  but I could recognize it on sight if I had seen it. I've searched multiple used bookstores, antique shops, and the Internet to no avail.

Well, I was searching the 'net for local cool places the other day and found out that there was a neat used book store in Schuylerville, NY - about a half hour north of us. So we decided to check it out today. This morning, I woke from a dream where we went to the bookstore and I pulled the aforementioned book off the shelf. 'Awesome,' I thought! Then I woke up. Oh well...my brain likes to play tricks on me.

So, we drove up to Schuylerville, had good conversations and coffee from Dunkin Donuts in the car on the way there. There were a few things I was looking for on this trip: some miniature stuff, history, science, good fiction, etc. As soon as we got inside, there was the craft section, so I perused the books.   I pulled a few dollhouse books off the shelf - one I already had, one that  looked somewhat interesting. And then, wait for it, I pulled down a very familiar-looking book (and somewhat familiar title) from the shelf. I exclaimed, "Are you kidding me!?" Lo and behold, it was THE book, the one I've been looking for and just had a dream about not a few hours before.

Now I think I might be paranoid next time I have a nightmare - lol.

Well here is the book. It's called There's a Decorator in Your Dollhouse by Melanie Kahane. She was an interior decorator in the 1960s, I understand. Here's a link to an article about this book and Ms. Kahane (which I found now that I finally know the name of the book!)

This book is great for kids and teaching them how to look at everyday items and using them for crafting. It's also a great idea book for adult miniaturists as well. You may see something here that could spark an idea for a project...who knows! I want to sit down with it and read it like I did so many years ago and hopefully get some fun ideas. :)

By the way, the bookstore we visited was Old Saratoga Books. Here is their website.  (And, yes, we met Sam, their feline mascot! He was delightful!)

PS: Hmm, 97 followers! Only 3 more until I announce the grab bag giveaway! Here's a photo to entice you - a box that's full of crafty goodies that I will be giving away!!

House of Miniatures!

Who likes House of Miniatures kits?

I think I am becoming a collector! I bought my first one just a couple of months ago at Aunt Katie's Attic in Scotia, NY. She has a basket in her shop (on the second floor) that is chock-full of miniatures (of varying scales) on any given day. I always love to stop in and see what she has (plus there's a lot of life-size vintage goodies, too!).

I then discovered the wonder of shopgoodwill.com about a week ago, thanks to a friend on Facebook. I found a lot of 3 kits for very cheap and bid on them there.

So, right now I have 4 kits: Chippendale Desk, Single Low Post Bed (Chippendale), Chippendale Wing Chair, and Hepplewhite 3-Piece Dining Room Table.

Well tonight, I won 3 more on eBay (2 different auctions) for very low prices (yay!), so soon this collection will grow to 7. I've no plans for them at the moment, but I love having kits on hand in case I get the creative, need-to-build-something-now feeling and am not inclined to work on a bigger project (which happens more often than one would think). And there is a bit of pride in displaying furniture that one has made herself. :) Who knows? I might make a period-specific roombox! Or perhaps one of the dollhouse kits still in their box will become a scene with HoM furniture? We shall see! :)

Oh, I also found this useful site, if you are interested: http://www.houseofminiatures.info/hom.php

It not only lists all of the different kits out there, but includes pdfs of the instruction sheets! :)

(And HELLO to the newest readers of my blog. Just 5 more subscribers until I announce the giveway!)

Dollhouse architecture: Dutch Colonial Revival

I have been thinking about writing short blog entries about styles of home architecture I find inspiring. While there are many, including Tudor, Carpenter Gothic, and Spanish Revival, I would like to start with Dutch Colonial Revival, a style common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I finally got around to looking up the style of my childhood home (where my parents still live) about two days ago. I knew when it was built and that there are quite a few styles of this house in PA (and here in NY), so I googled “house plans 1929” which eventually (after a lot of clicking) led me to Dutch Colonial homes. According to antiquehome.org, these houses are characterized by “[a] gambrel roof, with or without flared eaves, and the frequent use of dormers.” Interestingly, since I was little, I always thought my house could be considered a "farm" house because of the gambrel roof (even though we lived in the suburbs and I had no idea what a gambrel roof was at the time).  Below is not a picture of my parents' house, but a sample I found on the web that looks somewhat similar, in order to illustrate this style.

Photo credit: Antique Home Style

Sears and Roebuck, as well as other companies, offered Dutch Colonial plans in catalogs (see links at end of entry) that future homeowners could purchase and have built.

Having reviewed the floor plans for these homes, it seems to be common that these homes have a living room that extends the full length of the house (which results in a very narrow room) with a fireplace at one end or in the center of the room (as is the case in my parents’ home), a dining room and kitchen taking up the rest of the first floor, and 3 bedrooms and bath on the second floor.

Working with dollhouses has introduced me to many new kinds of architecture and has increased my interest in architecture in general. Likewise, I often try to find dollhouses that model a particular style that I like.

Here is what Google has yielded when I searched for “Dutch Colonial Dollhouse”:

http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/14906938

http://www.blujay.com/item/Doll-House-Plans-No-783-Dutch-Colonial-six-rooms-Toadstool-Studios-10110500-3558050

http://earthntree.com/miniatures/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3_5&products_id=21

I would love to build a scale version of my childhood home and I love how the first dollhouse link shows someone starting such a project in 1/2” scale. It certainly would not be difficult to build (at least a prototype) in foamboard once I get all of the needed measurements. Add that one to the list of things to do!

If anyone has any more information on Dutch Colonial Dollhouses, please feel free to comment!

More Links on Dutch Colonial (Revival) homes:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/daily-bungalow/4170559204/

http://www.antiquehome.org/House-Plans/1925-Gordon-VanTine/Fillmore.htm

http://www.antiquehome.org/Architectural-Style/dutch-colonial.htm

http://www.antiquehome.org/House-Plans/1924-Bilt-Well/24bw-4208.htm