Simple chandelier

Making things from a stash. I bought a bag containing some large sequins.

 Already had a 3 prong fish hook and wire, along with necklace chain.

Put them all together, make some air dry candles and voilà!

Parasols

Instructions with kind permission from Viola Williams,
www.violasdolls.com

Times and fashions do change, don't they? Sometimes they go in circles. Once upon a time, privileged ladies of the upper classes valued a pallid face, which indicated they had the money to achieve this result. Elaborate parasols protected them from the sun, while ingesting arsenic, or applying lead based creams supplemented the effect. 

Heaven forbid you had freckles! Remember the portraits of Queen Elizabeth 1 of England? A real paleface! She was a redhead......just  saying.....  It was only working class women who worked in the sun who were tanned.

Times changed again in the 1920's, popularized by Coco Chanel, and the privileged could spend time in the sun, with a tan being associated with health, wealth and leisure, while the pale working class were confined to factories and offices.

Now again, with more knowledge about the harmful effects of too much sun,  umbrellas are seen more on sunny days, as well as in the rain.

Probably the most popular periods for the parasol were Regency, Edwardian and Victorian. Some parasols to were quite tiny, just large enough to shade one tiny lady, while others were larger. 

The photo below shows the smaller size on the left, larger on the right.

To make a parasol, you will need

• Pull tab from a beverage container
• Lace (straight edged works better on smaller parasol, and stiff lace is best) 
• Tacky glue
• I Dowel or wire for handle
• 1 small and 1 larger spools

Remove the circle from the pull tab and punch a small hole in the centre. 

Gather the side-edge of a strip of lace. Then pull gathers, join ends together and tie off, forming a circle to create the top of the parasol.

Tacky glue the lace to the top of the plastic circle, using clips to hold in place.

Gather a narrower strip of lace, join the two ends and slip over the handle to cover the plastic circle. Glue in place.

Push a dowel or wire from the insides through the centre of the plastic circle so that approximately 1/16 to 1/18 inch protrudes through the top. Glue the handle securely.

Stack two spools together to support the parasol. Drape the lace into a parasol shape. Give the parasol several coats of clear drying glue, hairspray or other stiffener.

Cover the top of the handle with flowers or a bead. Please note the larger parasol has lace glued to both inside and outside of the parasol.

How elegant, swelligant!

 

Making Wall Sconces

Hmmmm, now what could be used to make these?
Take a push pin, a star acrylic bead, a small circle punched from paper, a round bead and a seed bead. Also, cut an oval from card.

Then put some Play Dough or something similar into one segment of the star bead and glue in place. This will provide a point of attachment to the wall.

Place the star bead on top of the push pin and glue in place.

 

The circle of card gets glued on top to make a platform for a candle.

Add the round bead and the seed bead to the bottom, 

Add the oval to the back. Paint the whole thing black.

Whole thing painted black

For the Birds

The stand for this little birdcage just doesn't have much presence, does it?

So, take a bamboo skewer , a scrap piece of 1/32 diameter dowel and a small cap. Add a scrap of cardboard.

Make a cradle out of Play dough or Fimo by rolling a piece to a 1/34 inch thickness, cutting a strip about 5/32 inch and ... long. The length will depend on the size of the cage.  Lay the cage on its side and see where you wish the cradle to be. Poke holes in either end and in the centre, and form the strip in a semi-circle around a generic paint bottle. Let dry or bake.
Soak the dowel in warm water and shape it around a paint bottle and so that the ends will fit into the holes you made in the cradle strip. Let dry.
Glue the dowel and the cradle to form an oval.
Drill a hole in the cap and insert the skewer. Cut the the other end to the desired height, and insert/glue into middle hole of the cradle.
Attach the birdcage to the top of the dowel oval with a piece of thin wire.
The assemblage should look like this.

You may need to add weight to or widen the base to prevent tipping.
Paint the stand and age by dry brushing.
Here is the finished product.

Cleaning up

Our group worked on a little cleaning caddy.
There is a tutorial from Joanne Swanson, with printies and a pattern for a dust pan. She suggests using a restaurant jelly container for the caddy.
http://joannswansondiyminiatures.blogspot.ca/2011/05/creative-minds-are-rarely-tidy.html

Trim the edging, then cut a strip of cardboard a little smaller than the length of the container.

Now, score a vertical line about 2 inches up the strip. Fold the strip over and trim the edges.

Measure how tall you wish the handle to be. (approximately 1/2 to 3/4 inches). Score this measurement on either side of the first fold

Fold along score lines.

 The strip should now look like this.

Glue the middle together.

Trim the tabs so they fit inside the jelly container.

Cut holes for the handle.

File the handle smooth and maybe file the corners.

Glue the cardboard to the jelly container. Gesso and paint. I used Patio paint.

Here is my finished caddy. 

The gloves are cut from paper, painted and podged.

All Fired Up!

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.

The Cutting Edge

CAUTION: These knives are sharp and actually cut. Do not use in a child's dollhouse, and watch your fingers when you are making them.

If you need realistic knives for a kitchen or table setting, serrated knives are easy to make from the metal cutting strip from a box of aluminum foil or plastic wrap. Peel the strip from the box, then use old scissors or metal cutters to cut a piece about half the width of the strip and the length of the knife including the handle. Snip this strip at the point where you want the handle to end, cutting from the serrated edge to the middle of the strip. Trim off the serrated edge on this handle end, fold the handle in half lengthwise with pliers and squeeze to flatten. Trim the blade end to form either a pointed or slightly rounded end depending on what the knife will be used for, and round off the ends of the handle slightly. Finish by applying a few coats of paint or nail polish to the handle to thicken it and conceal the overlapped metal edge then seal with a clear sealer or clear nail polish. To vary the blade size, just make the starting strip wider or narrower.

Happy knife-making. :-D

Chris in Waterloo, ON

Magazine holders

 Posted by Chris Shibata:

If you buy salt in a box (round or rectangular) with a pull
 out metal spout, you have the makings of a magazine
 holder for 1:12 magazines, cookbooks or ???. Snip out
 the spout leaving about 1/4" of the surrounding
cardboard. Soak the piece in some warm water with a
 few drops of dish soap or shampoo for a few minutes
until the cardboard gets soggy, then remove the metal
part. Rinse the holder off and dry. On the side that will
be the back of the holder, there are either two or three
little triangles of metal sticking out (depending on the
container) and you can either bend them back and flatten
them into the holes they were cut from using a pair of
pliers, or snip them off to create a decorative open design
on the back of the holder. Cut a snippet of card stock to fit
across the bottom of the holder and glue in place with CA
glue, WeldBond (or any glue that will stick to metal). If you
have opted to flatten the triangles, now is a good time to
brush a good thick coat of glue over and around the edges
of the triangles to seal any teensy gaps. When the glues
have dried, paint the holder with a sealer (clear nail-polish
 works best) then paint with craft paint and seal with a
brush-on product like Delta Ceramcoat. For a kid's room,
these look nice painted in co-ordinated colours, with decals,
paper punch-outs or tiny stickers on both sides, and filled
with age-suitable books.

HINTS:
1) I prefer the Satin finish since it doesn't produce much
glare in photos, but the Matte also looks good, especially
on darker colours.
2) If you have nail polish in the colour you want, skip the
first clear sealer coat, but make sure to dull the shine with
a brush-on sealer at the end

Glassworks

Chris from Canada wrote:
Remember those glass serving plates and trays made from all different colours of glass put together that were so popular as wedding gifts in the 60's and 70's? Well, here's a way to duplicate that look using (what else) items most people trash.

Last spring I was looking at a photo album trying to get some ideas for something different and retro to make for swaps, when I noticed my 70's glass plates in use in a family photo from 1975. I was thinking about about attempting these in miniature using small chunks of plastic melted into a mold when I remembered as a small child having used torn squares of tissue paper glued to pickle jars to make vases. I also remembered how pretty they looked when the sun hit them, and so the plates came to be.

First I made a plate blank by brushing two thin, even layers of Sobo glue (used because it's clear, dries just a bit flexible and happened to be handy) onto a piece of plastic wrap. When that had dried, I sandwiched the plastic wrap between 2 layers of white paper, and used a large hole punch to make circles. Mine were 7/8" and 3/4" in diameter. (Scissors work too, but I'm lousy at cutting circles out by hand.) I then took the circles and placed them on a piece of craft foam with the plastic wrap side down and gave them another coat of glue. Then I pushed them down into the foam with the blunt end of a marker to make the plate shape and let them dry in the foam, as you do with mini rice paper flowers. (I let them dry overnight because by then it was nearly 11 pm, but I am sure they would have been dry in 10-20 minutes.)

The next day, I tore some scraps of 3 colours of tissue paper that had come wrapped around swap items into teensy pieces about 3/16" square. One piece at a time, I dipped them into a 50/50 water-glue solution then smoothed them (with the colours chosen randomly) onto the plate blanks, which were still in the foam, using a paintbrush and a wet pinkie finger to remove any wrinkles. The overlaps and odd shaped bits became part of the design. When they looked good, I let them dry for a few minutes, then removed each one in turn from the foam, trimmed off and smoother any ragged edges, and placed it back in the foam. Finally, I brushed on two (3?) coats of glue, and when everything was dry, removed them from the foam and peeled off the plastic wrap, revealing some really groovy retro glassware.

Ironing Board

How I did it:
If you want precise step by step measurements and directions here FUGETTABOUTIT! But here is a fly-by the seat of your pants tut.
Materials :

• 1/8' strip wood
• cardboard
• paper towel (Viva if available)

Step 1:

• Cut ironing board shape from cardboard (below)

• Apply 3 layers of felt to one side of the ironing board surface. Apply the paper toweling and trim as shown. Clip the toweling so that it can be glued evenly to the underside of the cardboard. It is easiest if you glue small spots on opposite ends, side to side and back to back and then work your way around, so that paper towel or fabric does not bunch up and create folds.
  

• Apply a piece of white card to the underside of the ironing board.
  

• Cut 4 pieces of 1/8" strip x 3 3/4" long, at 45 ° angles on opposite ends. (below)

• Cut braces for the for the legs. Glue together. The total width of the legs cannot be more than the width of the ironing board!
  

• Paint the frame, then glue to the top. Voilà! C'est Fini!
  

Additional ideas:

• paint the ironing board with silver to mimic a Teflon cover.
• if you are doing a vintage scene, forget about the legs and suspend the board between 2 chairs (resting on the top rail between the stiles of each chair back)
• what about just one support, and the ironing board folds down from the wall from the back of a door or a built-in cupboard?
• remember the Coke bottle with the sprinkler top filled with water (before spray bottles, kiddies!) When ironing multiple items, you would dampen by sprinkling with water, rolling them up like towels, place in a plastic bag to keep them moist, and take out one article at a time to iron. (If you couldn't finish the pile, the bag went into the fridge until the next day!)
  

Clutching at Straws - Mini Chair

Chris from Canada has another brilliant idea, and writes:
This is an offshoot of the cold drink lid dishes idea of last week and makes use of the scoop-ended straws that come with things like "slush", freezies" etc.... to make tub chairs. The main use is for 144th scale BUT don't forget that 1" scale children have dolls and doll houses too! The second idea works for any scale.

1. THE SCOOP END: Flattening the scoop with your fingers, cut off the end of the straw approximately 3/8" from the top.
2. THE OTHER END: Cut off a 1/8" to 3/16" slice. If it is not even, repeat until you have the perfect slice.
3. Glue a bit of fabric softener sheet, thin felt or whatever is on hand to the inside curve of the scoop end cut-off and let dry. Trim off the excess.
4. While the back is drying, stuff a bit of padding into the littlesegment of tube, using enough so that there is a bulge at one end. This will form the rounded top of the seat.
   
5. Using the back as a template, cut out a piece 1/8" larger all around than the back. from thin fabric that has been sealed on the back with a thin coat of glue. Apply a small amount of glue to the centre of the piece and place it centred over the back leaving the edges free.
6. Press in place and let dry, then snip in all the way around the loose edges to create
   some ease for the curves and glue the resulting flaps down.
7. While that's drying, cut 2 circles of fabric slightly larger than the end of the straw, glue to each end of the seat, snip the edges and glue the flaps down.
8. When well stuck, cut a strip to go around the seat, glue in place and trim so the ends just meet. DO NOT overlap the ends (too much bulk) but if there is a small gap it will be hidden when the back piece is glued on.
9. Using the back piece as a guide, cut a piece of fabric the same size or slightly bigger and
   trim it. Test fit this to the unfinished side of the chair back and make anyadjustments before gluing in place.
10. When everything is completely dry, carefully bend the back piece so it fits snugly around the seat, with bottom edges of both pieces lined up. Apply glue and hold in place until the glue grabs before setting it down. (Small elastic bands, floral tape or mini-clamps come in handy here.) You're done!
    
    But what about the other 7 or so inches of plastic straw? Well, a piece 2" long can be packed with polymer clay which you then push out bit by bit with a skewer or small dowel and slice off to make perfectly round even slices for making QS cakes, 1" scale cookies or plates (use a flat-bottomed glass to flatten and enlarge the circle, then impress the centre with a dowel). Use the straw cut into rounds of varying height as bases for round containers/cans using printie labels plus paper punch or foil circles on the ends, or use a wide slice for a mug or juice jug with half of a narrow slice for a handle. Stove pipes on a
    roof? Sliced lengthwise for eavestroughs? Whole for down spouts? Pinprick holes made with a hot needle for a vintage lampshade on a mini-light? OK, that's a stretch, but I used to have a lamp with a red shade covered in small holes that turned using a convection current created by the heat of the light bulb, making moving stars all over the walls and ceiling.

Flowers and how this can lead to that

Working on a gazebo, and making hanging ferns, I took a look at these wee ladies and went digging in my stash.

Came up with this bush, and

a package of dowel caps and chess pieces.

Cut the top off the chess piece, glued the dowel cap onto the top and Bob's your father's brother! Now, the magic word "paint" to look like stone.
Then take a floret and glue into the dowel cap. Start gluing pieces of dried floral around and into the floret. I even painted one of the the finished arrangements.

Larger Dowel caps can be used effectively as well:

See the Minitreasures Wiki Plants page, scroll down to links for the Dutch TUT on masking tape ferns.