Cool! Icicles

Chris in Canada writes:
I have found a way to make some really beautiful 'trashicles' for house eaves. These are crystal clear, and with care can be made to have the bumps, forks and rings of the real thing. All you need is an empty plastic water bottle, scissors for cutting the bottle, wire cutters or any strong cutter for cutting the ends from the finished icicles, two pairs of tweezers/needle- nose pliers and a candle of any sort, as long as the wick and surrounding wax is fairly clean. Unless you want a dirty icicle, that is. ;-)

Step 1- Cut off the neck and bottom of the bottle, then snip out a rectangle about 3/4" X 2". This little bit will be a test piece to determine how much time, heat and pulling you'll need to shape the icicles. If you follow the instructions carefully, you'll have made two icicles, but if something goes wrong, relax. It was just a materials test, not the real thing yet, and the materials you used failed to perform as expected. Just repeat the test until the results are acceptable. Can you tell I volunteer with primary grade ESL students?

Step 2- Light your candle, and holding each end of the strip in the tweezers or pliers, lower the centre of the plastic into the flame bit by bit until the strip starts to look wet, then remove it, trying not to pull it out of shape. This is the furthest into the flame that you can go for good results with your particular plastic. Too much heat and it will liquify rather than stretch, or poof into a tiny self-extinguishing flame at the mid-point of the strip.

Step 3- Next, test how it pulls by lowering the strip into the flame again. When it starts to look wet, begin to pull and stretch the plastic gently and evenly, at the same time moving it slowly up and out of the flame. You'll see and feel it getting very soft when it first looks wet, and then becoming almost liquid. As it comes up out of the flame it will stay soft for a few seconds giving you time to start stretching it into a strand. Work slowly, and when it starts to resist the pulling, simply reheat the strand by passing the whole thing through the flame for a few seconds and pull. Pulling slowly will leave the icicle completely clear, and pulling faster will result in tiny bubbles forming which is a common feature of most very large icicles. Repeat as needed until the strand thins out to almost nothing in the middle and breaks apart into two plain icicle shapes. Cut the icicles off at any length you want, possibly leaving a bit of the strip attached (then bent at a 90 degree angle with reheating) as a secure base for the glue if you are making thicker or longer icicles. Smaller icicles cut flat across can be attached with a dab of SuperGlue or simmilar.

Now you can make the basic tapered shape, try twisting the strip as you pull to create bends and twists, or make a forked shape. Cut a lengthwise slit about 1/4" long starting at one end of the strip. Hold the uncut edge in tweezers/pliers and working slowly, heat the cut end using the other tool to pull alternate halves of the end into separate strands. Let cool until firm (10-12 seconds), hold the icicle in tweezers just at the point where the forked section joins the main icicle, then heat and pull the rest of the shape. For rings, make a basic shape. Place the tweezers/pliers where the first ring will be, heat the icicle right above the pliers and give a little tug followed by an immediate push, being careful not to squeeze the tweezers/pliers. Let cool and repeat along the icicle as desired.

WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SPRAY THESE WITH SEALER, FAKE SNOW OR GLITTER ETC... DITTO FOR NAIL POLISH AND ENAMELS. ANYTHING OTHER THAN WATER-BASED PRODUCTS WILL CAUSE PERMANENT DAMAGE TO ALL YOUR HARD WORK.

Happy Trashcicling.

Trimming the Tree

Easy Christmas Tree Trims and Garlands

NOTE: I shared this idea several years ago on one of my groups and apologize if you've read this T2T already, but with Christmas coming up it may be helpful to some.

Here are three easy steps to make teensy silver tree garlands and curly-cue icicles:

1) Find a guitar player who uses metal wound strings on the 3 or 4 lower strings and ask him/her to save the old strings the next time the strings are changed. (Classical guitars strings are the best source because they are real silver wound over a fibre core, but any metal wound acoustic guitar strings will do the job. I haven't tried using violin strings, but the G and D strings should work as they are close in diameter to the higher guitar strings.)

2) Cut one end of the string off at the point where the string straightens out, find the end of the metal strip and gently pull it to unwind the metal from the core. Hold the core end in the other hand and go slowly so you don't stretch the 'spring&# 39; out of shape.

3) For icicles, cut the spring into 1/3 to 1/2 inch lengths stretching the springs if needed to open them up a bit. Attach a loop of sewing thread to one end with CA glue. For garlands, slightly stretch a long piece until it looks good to you and wrap it around the tree, outdoor pillars or railings, a mailbox or whatever you fancy.

BTW, you can also use the metal strips in jewellery both RL size and mini, and it can be soldered.

Chris in Canada

Dawn's Miniature Village

Dawn Weaver, of Cary, North Carolina, has graciously allowed me to make this post about her awesome Miniature Village project.

She says : The houses and shops, are from the Liberty Falls Collection. I started buying them in the fall of 2012, sometimes a single one, other times a grouping of 7 or 8, all on eBay. When I finally got them all in place I found I did not have one duplicate in the entire lot of 60. 

#1...Shows the jigsaw puzzle boxes that I used to make hill. There was a larger one at one end to give more space for the farm type buildings. The fawn/light brown material is one of those body wrap blankets that were so popular a couple of years ago. It was soft and gave some body to the green material that went on top.

#2...Shows some of the roads on the lower level. Note the people and cars that viewers put down where they thought appropriate. (once the full Village was up)

 
 

#3...More roads and the beginnings of the park that will hold the skating rink and the Village's Christmas tree.

 

#4... I put the wires between the green and the fawn colored covers as I did not want to cut the blanket. It was quite easy to put my hand down to the slits I had cut in the green material and pull the wiring through to the back of the Village.

 

#5...Shows a lot of the wiring laying on the fawn colored top. I did no more than 5 lights to one wire and most were two's and three's. One set of streetlights got lost in customs in NJ and did not arrive on time .I will be rewiring for next year

 #6...The roundabout where the important Village buildings were. The Town Hall, Library, etc. I put different street lights here. I took apart some others and used them in these lights. Worked very well, but the lights could have been brighter. All the lights were 3 volt.

 

#7...Downtown with the shops and service buildings

 

#8...The completed village. You can make out some of the lights

Miscellaneous: The roads were made of black foamcore which is 1/4" thick. I cut short slits in it for the streetlights. This gave me more body to glue them in. I also put some grommets down at the base of the lights to make them look more realistic.

The only figures that are glued down are the ones at the skating rink.

I made the Christmas tree from chenille stems. Am not satisfied with the lights on it (powered by AA batteries) so will use the 3v lights instead next year. Probably will use 20 lights in groupings of 4 lights.

These lights are powered by a coin battery. The lights themselves should last hundreds of hours so all that is needed are some extra batteries which also last a long time.

Needling Ya

Chris from Canada wrote:
As there are only days before Christmas this is a super- quickie, and surprise(!) even seasonal, for anyone who has even the smallest branch cut from a live evergreen inside, especially if you want fillers, smaller plants or work in the smaller scales.
Before you vacuum up the last of the needles from your Christmas tree, or toss the evergreen branch along with the rest of the stuff in the arrangement your Aunt Beatrice sent you, save a handful or two of the needles. When completely dry, they can be used in mini flower
arrangements as fillers or as stalks for spring flowers (a tiny touch of craft paint on the tip creates a flower bud). For the truly brave, bunches of 7 or more Scotch pine needles, trimmed to the desired lengths at the blunt end and arranged carefully, make a 1:12 non-
flowering yucca plant, or any other plant with straight, spiked leaves.

All That Glitters...

Marilyn in CT posted this in All Things Mini Yahoo Group:

My first intro to glitter houses was in the 40’s when I was a kid living in Hamilton Ontario.

I have made a 1/4” glitter house using some of the directions on the Glitter house web site. I also made some tinier ones. The cardboard can warp but to help prevent it be sure to paint or paper both sides of the card. Here are a couple pictures of ones I have made. Since you have limited space you might like to make some like I show in the third picture or the tiny house in the bigger one.

1/4” glitter house made from a Christmas card.

I furnished it instead of just a hole in the back for a light. Notice the tiny glitter house in the bedroom

like the big one. Had a bit of warping on one side but it can add to the charm of a hand made piece.

A row of tiny glitter houses that could go on a 1” scale mantle. These are made from solid wood pieces.

The fences are card.

Valentine's Day

Tanya made this fabulous scene for Valentine's Day....

Don't it just make you all warm and fuzzy?
Here is a link to her Picturetrail album:
http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/7251673

Epiphany in Spain

Liz, in Staffordshire wrote:
In Spain, each town or area of a city has it's own "Belem" or Nativity scene. El Masnou, near Barcelona, has a "live" one in the streets every night which has to be seen to be believed. For some reason they always include rabbits, a "naughty" boy and a sort of harvest festival stall with fruit. I can't remember seeing the naughty boy at this one as he's usually doing what should be very private LOL! Some of the model ones are in Churches, others in public buildings and some are huge, with a story of Christ from Christmas to Easter in mini scenes. Most shops also have mini nativities, often handmade, sometimes reflecting the type of shop, in their windows.

You can see a few pictures of Belems and Sagrada Santa (Easter models) here:
Miniatures from Around the World

People order their cake for Epiphany ("King Cake" in English) then queue down the street, so you can tell which is the best baker! It's a bit like tea bread with cream, and inside you find lottle charms and figures, including the King charm. Whoever gets that must be king for the day... and buy the cake next year! We usually buy one and share it round the campsite where we are staying, along with our own Christmas cake, which all the non-British campers find very odd.

As for coal (and we have a family tradition that one of my uncles had just that one year!) you can buy little sacks of "coal" before Epiphany, rather like the "Reindeer Droppings" we see. You also see Three Kings climbing ladders up houses (or blocks of flats!) like the Father Christmases we see here.

The best is in the afternoon or early evening. On our first trip, not knowing anything about it, we saw lots of processions on TV but now we always go out to find it. The Kings are splendidly dressed and might be on one or three floats or even on individual horses. In Cadiz their arrival by boat is heralded by canon fire! The parade can take ages and includes lots of decorated floats with people throwing sweets and/or plastic flowers to all and sundry. It starts off very sedately but they end up "lobbing" them at their friends, who might even "chuck" them back! Everyone is dressed in their best clothes and often all the children in a family are identically dressed - boys in shorts and tights the same as their sisters' skirts and tights, and all ages too. They must cost families a fortune, but it is a frequent sight. All generations are out together and it's one of the few days that most of the men are not in the bar for long as it really is a family occasion. The grandads are the funniest, elbowing everyone else out of the way while they fill carrier bags full of sweets, supposedly for their grandchildren. The teenagers dive for them in a dangerous manner or congregate together shouting for Balthazar.

Balthazar always seems to be the most popular King, and is usually blacked up. They end up with one pink cheek as all the children are held up to kiss them and the make-up gets rubbed off. In Fortuna, in the South East of Spain, we saw a queue form long before the town band could be heard at the front of the Kings' procession. It weaved to and fro filling the square and big children looked after younger ones; it was very rare to see even a very little child being chaperoned by a parent. They must have queued patiently for an hour or more, to be presented with a gift which they acknowledged with a kiss on each "King's" cheek. This wouldn't be seen to be at all odd in Spain or Portugal, where children are treated very differently from here and family values / local friendship groups still seem very strong.
The Spanish know how to party and we are usually ready to stagger off at this point, but I doubt very much if anyone else gets to bed before the 7th!

Corn husk angels

Finally the hot, humid weather has gone, so last weekend I cooked up some of our fresh Ontario corn inside, instead of on the BBQ. I was putting the husks and silks in my green bin container and thinking about how soon Christmas would be upon us and what tree decorations I would have to replace, when the light turned on. Here were the makings of more corn-husk angels to replace the ones that the cats had mangled a few years ago ...... AND why not use the same husks to make mini corn-husk angels? My original angels were just shy of 2" tall, reduced from instructions I found on-line, but they could be made any size you want by using the thinner husks found closest to the cob.

The green husks and silks are easily dried by letting them air dry in a collander or strainer for a few weeks, or they can be laid in a single layer on a paper towel, covered with another towel and micro-waved. I did mine for 2 minutes on high, let stand for about 5 minutes, them flipped them over, paper towel and all, and nuked them another 2 minutes. I then spread them out on a clean paper towel and let them sit out overnight. Voila, 'almost instant' dried corn husks for free, versus the $4-$5 craft stores charge for a 'kit' consisting of a few corn husks, a cotton ball to use for stuffing the head and some photocopied instructions, probably taken from the internet.

Tonight I made a "HUGE" corn husk angel (LOL!!!), a hair over 7/8" tall without her halo. I wanted to start big and work my way down to 1/2" tall so she would fit into either a 1:12 Christmas scene, or minus wings and wire halo, serve as a decoration for a country style home or a pioneer child's doll. . Her eyes ran due to the fibres of the husks so she looks as if she hasn't slept in a long time, so if I do eyes on another, I'll seal the face first. And I'll use regular bunka for the hair, or some brushed out acrylic yarn, not the stuff I snipped off from the fringed pillow beside me.

Today I made another, this time measuring in at 9/16" including her halo. This size would fit in well in a 1:12 scene, as most RL cornhusk dollies are 6-7" tall. And except for it being a bit fiddly when the time came to tie parts together, she was just as easy to do as her big sister. Next time I plan to go for 1/3, and if that works ............ .... :-D

Happy Birthday Canada!

Try this quiz : http://photopeach.com/album/12vwh4m

If you want background to the questions, see the Slideshow: http://photopeach.com/album/12vwh4m

Easter Basket

Glenna Humberstone made this charming little bunny in a basket for her Easter project.

She said : the tricky part was to get the bunny small enough to fit in the basket.
The instructions for making the bunny were in American Miniaturist Issue 36.
I made the Easter basket using the plastic square from a punch-out gum packet (Dentyne).
I then bought some braiding cord at Wal-mart. It comes in 3 different colors on one card for about $3.50 (12yds per color). I put glue on the outside of the plastic square, started at the top and wrapped the cord around the square , working my way to the bottom, then adding one final row on the top. Then to make the handle, I took about 12 ins of cord, folded it in half to make 6 ins and started to twist it up tight then held it while I held it in half again and twisted it together to make the handle.

Wreathed with Smiles!

It is near March and St Patrick's day soon. Susan Gearhing has made several seasonal wreaths.
http://susansminitalk.blogspot.com/2009/09/more-theme-wreaths-to-come.html

Still Partying?

Thalia Stambaugh's QS scene, featuring a RL sized Asti bottle.

The wine bottle on the table is a plastic sales tag (see http://littleroomers.blogspot.com/2009/06/quarter-inch-wine-bottles.html)
She wrote: I know the corkscrew confetti is out of scale, but I couldn't resist it. I cut very narrow strips of colored paper and wound it very tightly around a straight pin. Then I sprayed it with satin sealer (to make it keep it's shape) and cut it in tiny pieces. I used micro-glitter in red blue and gold to make the regular confetti.