Check back often

Have you checked out all my blogs?


Dollhouse Minis: http://joannesminis.blogspot.com


18” Dolls: http://joannes18dolls.blogspot.com/


General Crafts: http://joannes-place.blogspot.com/


Cooking: http://joanne-kitchen.blogspot.com/





Also if for some reason I can't post I will try to give a head's up on the Facebook page so check there too.

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Dollhouse Miniature Chenille Stem Teddy Bears


First please ignore how horrid my nails look this week. I felt they needed some time not having any polish or acrylic on them.



So this week we are making some really cute little teddy bears out of chenille stems. I love this project and I feel like this is just the tip of what can be made. Just think- longer ears you have a bunny, maybe the ears could be larger and bent down for a dog, let your imagination take hold and create an entire toy store of stuffed animals. If you do be sure to share a photo with me!

I usually use the tiny little glass seed beads for the eyes and nose but decided to try my Scribbles 3-D paint and I like the result. It is a lot easier to get the eyes and nose where you want them but the trade off is it doesn't look as nice as the beads. It is up to you which route you take to finish off the face.

I am always amazed by the difference in these little guys when I get the eyes and nose on. They go from just looking like a lump of chenille stems to a stuffed animal.

I know there are several different ways to make these guys this is just the way that works the best for me.







Sunday, July 24, 2016

Dollhouse Miniature Toy Boats


I have still been working on trying to organize my craftroom/office and once again found myself distracted by looking at the magazines I was trying to put away. It is just so darn tempting to page through them as I sort them out. LOL (by the way the oldest one I have is from 1975, so the collection is huge)

As I was looking I happened upon a photo of a miniature bedroom for a little boy. One of the items that caught my eye was the collection of toy boats on a shelf. These were totally cute and although I didn't stop to read the article they looked pretty easy to re-create.



One again I pulled out the box that I put the small pieces of scrap wood into. It is just one of those plastic shoe boxes and it is pretty full. I have odds and ends of a lot of different types and shapes of wood. Some are off cuts from projects, some are leftover wooded pieces I have purchased and a few wooden beads have found their way in there as well as a few craft sticks.

I just grabbed an assortment of items and started playing with sticking them together.

I knew the boats needed to have pointed fronts so I got out my Eazy-Cutter since that is my favorite wood cutting tool for small bits. I also grabbed a couple of bottles of craft paint. It was really fun and after a little while I had a couple of little boats that looked pretty good I think.

Start with the base of your boat, I used some craft sticks (regular size and jumbo) and also some scraps of strip wood. Just keep scale in mind when you work on this.

I wanted my boats to be anywhere from a little over a ½” long to just under 1” long. I found I liked this part painted white the best but any color would work. I think a slightly larger one painted all in gray with black details might be really cool too.

I also painted an assortment of small beads, small dowels, and small strip wood at the same time. (I even got to use the drying rack I made for last week's tutorial)

When all the paint was dry I got out my glue and started to assemble my boats. I am not trying to replicate any real boats but I am sure it would be fun to do so. (If you do that be sure to send me a photo)

I was going to try to make some sail boats but totally forgot when I got started. To that all you would need to do is cut some triangles from cardstock and glue to the top of the base part. Maybe next time.

So this is certainly an open ended project. You can go so many directions with the basic idea and you could create an entire marina of boats.

Here are a couple more photos of the boats I have made so far.





Remember to share a picture with me if you do make some. I love to see what you are making too.

Also if you have something in particular you want to learn to make let me know maybe I can figure out a tutorial for it.



Sunday, July 17, 2016

Drying Rack for Miniatures


For the last couple of weeks I have been doing a cleaning/organizing project in my craftroom/office. Things had gotten a bit messy (okay, let's be truthful here, a lot messy) and I had to do something to gain back some floor space.

As part of this project I have been re-organizing my huge collection of mini magazines and books that I have on hand. One problem with this is that from time to time I start browsing in the pages of those books and magazines instead of putting them where they belong. Anyway, while doing just this the other day I happened to come across a picture of a drying rack that someone had shared in one of those magazines many years ago. The design stuck in my head and I decided to come up with something very similar for my craft table. I think this is going to be a very useful tool so I had to bring you all along as I assembled it.




I didn't think to write down where I had seen the original, sorry, I know I should have but didn't even think of it at the time.

So for my version we need:

a piece of wood for the base. I was hoping for something a bit larger than what I ended up using but this is what I had on hand

a short piece of square wood strip around a ½” in size by 3” to 4” long, 1 end needs to be cut straight

4 wooden clothes pins with one side cut short

wood glue

super glue

I am once again using my two glue method of super glue to hole immediately and then wood glue to the work of holding my project together long term. I decided on wood glue this time because it gives a much superior bond with wood. In fact if properly cured the wood glue bond will be stronger than the wood itself.

Fist glue the piece of square strip wood to the base. The just glue the clothes pins as I showed on the video to the top.

Allow the project to dry at least overnight before using to allow the glue to cure.

My son pointed out that in his opinion the clothes pin clamps were backwards. He is left handed, so if you if you are like him, a lefty, simply face the clothes pins the other way. Then you have a tool that is customize to you.

I think this little tool is going to be very useful on my work table and I love that it was made with stuff I had on hand so it was free.

Andhere is a link to my other drying rack video in case you want to check that one out too.


Sunday, July 10, 2016

Wood Coloring- Follow Up





This week we are finally getting back to our wood coloring experiment. I filmed the original video over a year ago. I had planned to do this follow up after 6 months but I totally forgot to. I even had it in my planner to do, it just got pushed out until it was forgotten. If you haven't seen that video (or don't remember it) you can find it here.

Someone had asked me a couple of months ago and I had intended to get to it but again I just never did. So I totally dropped the ball on this one. Someone asked me again on my Facebook page so I decided that rather than just plan to do this I would make myself do this first thing today.

Over all I really think this is a fun experiment. Would I use any of these products on projects? Sure, not all of them but some did turn out really well. I have already done tutorials using nail polish on wood, that has been a favorite of mine for years. I think I am going to have to plan out some project using some of these other things too. Now that being said, I would not use any of these to finish an expensive mini piece. These are for fun projects. I am not sure what the long term results would be.


So here are the photos original and follow up. Side by side so you can judge for yourself what worked and what didn't.

Coffee and Tea
now
then


Food color
now
then


Hair dye
now
then


Ketchup & mustard
now
then


Kool aid
now
then


Lip products
now
then


Markers
now
then


Nail polish
now
then


Red wine
now
then


Rit dye
now
then


Soy sauce
now
then


Wrapping tissue
now
then


Sunday, July 3, 2016

I Need Some Ideas for Tutorials

Okay guys, you read my blog and you watch my videos and I am so thankful for that. I need some help from all of you now. I am having a horrid time coming up with tutorial ideas, or should I say new tutorial ideas. At least 4 times in the last week I have had on idea for this week's tutorial, (I even rounded up materials for a couple of them) only to check on my channel and find that I had already made that project. I have over 300 videos on my channel now, most of them are tutorials and I am running out of new ideas! I need you to all help me.

So I am asking for two things, first off if you have a project you are stuck on and would like a tutorial for it let me know either here or over on the Facebook page. Large or small I just need ideas!

Secondly, what are you working on? Tell me about it, I might get some ideas from your projects.


So everyone put on those thinking caps and give me some ideas so I can film more tutorials for you. I do love making the videos for you. (more about that in a couple of days)