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Sunday, April 5, 2015

Dollhouse Miniature Daffodil Kit


I have to admit I was pretty terrified about starting this kit. I have been looking at this line of plant kits for a couple of years and have almost purchased them before. I have always talked myself out of the purchase because I was too worried about the difficultly of putting the kits together. This year I decided to go for it and buy not just one but 3 different flower/plant kits. I looked at all three this last week and decided to go ahead and do the Daffodil kit since at that point I had a bunch of daffodils in my yard that were just starting to bloom. I had planned to pick a couple of them to have for reference while I worked. Unfortunately Mother Nature had other ideas and with a really fast and hard hail storm wiped all of my pretty daffodils into a pile of wilted petals and broken leaves. Since I didn't want to wait until they all bloomed again next year I decided to just go ahead without the benefit of the real thing in front of me. 

 

This kit is a paper laser cut, printed kit with all the parts of the flowers included. You still need to provide glue and tools.

If you want to purchase a similar kit here is a link to the website for the lady that makes these. I only see her book on making decorated tables on her website but her contact information is all there. I am sure you could email her if you want to purchase some of her plant kits.

Here is a list of the tools I used:

Sharp craft knife
tweezers
locking tweezers
dental pick
wooden skewer
wire cutters
toothpick

For glue I used Tombow Aqua glue and a small bit of super glue.

I have to admit this was probably the most stressful tutorial/demo I have done in a long time. I was truly worried about how it would turn out and if I was skilled enough to actually complete the kit. I bet you know the feeling. You look at the dealer's table at the show and see all the pretty plants all made up and so pretty. You take a look at the kits available and while you are standing there in the middle of the show you feel like this is going to be easy. You think to yourself “I can do this” and you dream about how nice all these plants are going to look in your scene.

Then you get home and the cold cruel reality of fear sets in. You start to question yourself, “why did I buy this?” you ask. You think about the money you spent and you look longingly at the pretty picture on the front of the kit. You know you really want to do this but, you ask yourself “what if I mess it up??”

Yeah, I went through all that and more the last couple of weeks. I decided the best way to get past my own fear and hopefully to get you past your own fears was for me to just jump in and do one of these kits. Once I made that decision I was still really worried about messing up the kit and not having it turn out.

That was the reason I decided to make up one flower before I did the demo on camera. I wanted to at least figure out a few things. I am still very much a beginner at these kits but I hope that you are now brave enough to try one for yourself.

I still have two more plant kits: a Tea Rose and an Oriental Lily to do in the future. I hope to do videos on those too and I really hope that we all see improvement in how I do with those.

One thing this kit did for me was to really make me appreciate the wonderful artists that do make miniature plants and flowers. I am always blown away at how real some of them can make their plants.

The big question I guess at this point is will I buy more kits for plants? I think so but I do want to try kits from different artists so I can see how different people put their kits together. I really don't feel like I know enough about the kits to give you an in depth critic on how well this kit was made.

I think it was well made. I think the wire in the kit was a bit too heavy for the laser cuts but that is just my opinion and maybe with more experience that wouldn't have been a problem at all.

I would have liked to see some illustrations on the instruction sheet or the ability to go to a website to see illustrations of how to do some of the steps. I am not sure if that is something any of the artists that put the kits together has available or not.

I do recommend trying some plant kits either from this artist or another. If you are like me and have never done this it is a great oppurtunity to learn some new skills and the end result is a plant to display that I can say “I made that!” So even though my daffodils are not perfect I am perfectly happy with them and I am looking forward to learning to make more plants in the future.

2 comments:

  1. The link for the kits 404ed out, can you put it in again? Thank you, Shelly

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  2. Hi Joanne! I am so glad to read what you have posted because I feel the same way!
    I purchase the Tea Rose kit last year and I continue to look at it unopened, but then I tuck it away again. Fear plays a big part, and the fear of messing up is Very Real, so I am looking forward to seeing you take the plunge and dive into it. What a timely bit of inspiration for all of us kit chickens, Thank You! :))

    elizabeth

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