Tips for Dollhouse Miniature Crafting- Sanding

Watch the video here.

This Thursday we have another tips video. I thought I would take just a couple of minutes to talk about some basic sanding tips. It would be impossible to cover the entire subject of sanding in just a short video so I just talked about some of my favorite tips.

If you have a favorite sanding tip be sure to leave me a comment and let me know. And if you have a question about sanding feel free to ask and I will do my best to help you out.

Dollhouse Miniature Stove pt 3

Watch the video here.

This week we are finishing up the stove for the dollhouse kitchen. I have to say I am loving how this turned out. I had been wanting to make a dollhouse miniature glass topped stove for a while now so this was a perfect opportunity. I had planned to make a trip to Home Depot to look at some of the stoves in person but I didn't have time so I just winged it by looking at photos online. Hopefully it is alright. If you want more details on your stove-top be sure to paint them on the underside of the plastic layer or on the piece of card stock that is directly under the plastic.

As for cutting dimensions for the stove-top all we need:

1 piece of paperboard (thick like a Bisquick box)

1 piece of black card stock

1 piece of clear packaging

all of these are cut 2 ¾” by 2” for my stove. Be sure to measure your stove to confirm the size you need.

The white card stock is cut so that there “wings” that are about ½” to fold around to the back. The rounded rectangle opening was cut 2 ⅝” by 1 ⅞”. I would recommend cutting the opening a bit smaller maybe 2 ½” by 1 ¾” instead so that you have a bit more of an edge. Mine was really hard to work with and a bit more paper on the top surface would have made it a lot easier.

The handles are cut from skinny stick at 2 ⅝”

I almost forgot to add the base to my stove. I actually started to record the end of the video and realized I had forgotten to put the base on. LOL So I had to quickly get that added so I could finish this up. That is why this is late getting posted, I ran out of light to take photos and had to wait until Sunday morning to get those taken and edit the video.

So this is the end of our kitchen series. I hope you have enjoyed the projects. I know I have. I tried to make all the projects in a way that everyone, especially beginners could make them and be successful.

I have another large project planned that should start soon. So get excited for it. The next project was a request from one of my followers on Facebook and I think it will be a lot of fun.

Dollhouse Miniature Trash to Treasure Milkshake

Watch the video here.

This week for the Trash to Treasure I thought it would be fun to make the dolls some milkshakes.

This is a project that has been around for many years, like a lot of the Trash to Treasure projects. I put my own spin on it for you.

You really only need a few items to make this. First the wire nuts, these are used in electrical wiring and should be really easy to find and pretty cheap. They come in several sizes so pick small ones for the 1/12^th scale. The slightly larger size would be perfect for Barbie and her friends too.

If you want to provide the dolls with a straw find some plastic covered paper clips, again a fairly small size. I got mine at the dollar store.

For the milkshake or really the whipped cream that would be on the top of the milkshake we use our standard latex caulking. I love using this anytime I want to make whipped cream or frosting. It is really easy to use, easy to find (any place that sells paint for your real home) and cheap.

I did use a toothpick to put the caulk into the container since I cut the tip of my tube of caulk too big for this project. It is pretty easy to make a whipped cream swirl with a toothpick. Just play with it a little bit until you are happy with it.

If I would have thought of it I could have added some glitter “sprinkles” to the top.

Be sure to add that straw before the caulk starts to set up.

Dollhouse Miniature Stove pt 2

Watch the video here.

I had planned to have this video up on time like a normal Sunday morning. Then I messed up the project and had to start my filming over. I had worked on the door to the stove over the course of 3 days (Wednesday through Friday) and I had the door complete and ready to install on the stove. This we Friday afternoon. That is when I discovered I had cut the door 1/8” too wide to fit! I couldn't believe it, and I have no idea why in all that time I hadn't dry fit the door on the stove to make sure it fit. I guess I was distracted and busy with too many things at one time. Anyway, I had to start all over. So first thing Saturday morning I started all over and you can be sure I measured more carefully this time and I dry fit the door at pretty much ever step of the way to make sure it was going to still fit. So learn from my mistake, be sure to check your measurements and do a dry fit!

Because of my blunder I didn't get as far as I wanted to this week.

We need very few materials this week here is the list of what you need to cut:

Foam core (door)

2 ⅝” by 1 ½”

White Card stock:

¼” strip (to cover cut edge of window opening)

2 ½” by 2 ¾”

⅞” white ribbon cut about 1 ½” to 2” long (hinge)

clear plastic packaging a bit bigger than window opening

Gray Card stock:

2 ½” by 1 ⅜”

Cut the window opening ½” plus a tiny bit in from each edge just make sure it doesn't show from outside. 

And a piece slightly smaller than bottom of oven to cover ribbon hinge.

Tools for Making Dollhouse Miniatures- Sanding Tools

Watch the video here.

This month I decided to feature sanding our projects with both this tools video and with the tips video later in the month. Since sanding is so important to the finished look of so many of our projects I thought it was worth the time.

So what are my favorite sanding tools? Hands down it would be emery boards. They are small so they fit into tight spaces. They are cheap and they are easy to find. I do get most of mine at the dollar store.

Other handy tools are of course sand paper (again cheap and really easy to find) and some of the other nail filing/buffing products like the ones I show in the video.

Dollhouse Miniature Stove pt 1

Watch the video here.

This week we are beginning work on the stove for our kitchen project. I am so excited to get this one finished so we can see the kitchen complete.

We are sticking with our same materials that we have been using all along on this series. The majority of our stove is made of foam core from the dollar store. I love working this foam core because it is inexpensive, easy to cut with just a craft knife and it creates a sturdy project in the end.

I did use some paperboard for the sides of the stove, I used a box from Bisquick because these boxes are much heavier weight material than the normal cracker/cereal box. Use whatever is the heaviest paperboard that you have.

This week we also need two colors of cardstock, white (or whatever color your appliances are going to be) and some gray (for the interior of the oven)

Here are the cutting dimensions for the pieces I use this week:

Foam core:

1 (back) 4” by 2 ¾”

1 (bottom) 1 ¾” by 2 ¾”

1 drawer front 1” by 2 ⅝”

1 (control panel) ⅜” by 2 ¾”

2 (oven sides) 1 ¼” by 1 ¾”

2 (oven top/bottom) 1 ¾” by 2 ⅝”

Paperboard:

2 (stove sides) 2” by 2 ¾”

the back piece of cardstock

White cardstock:

2 (sides) 3” by 4”

1 (drawer) 2” by 4”

1 (back) 4” by 2 ½” - cut corners like photo

Gray cardstock:

1 strip 2 ¼” by the width of the paper

1 (oven back) 2 ⅝” by 2 ⅝”

Be sure to dry fit the parts as you go. Especially the oven interior, it needs to be a tight fit so that light doesn't leak in. At the same time you do need to be able to get the pieces to fit. 

Dollhouse Miniature Trash to Treasure Books

Watch the video here.

This week for the Trash to Treasure project I decided to do yet another method of making books. I love how worn and used these turn out looking. So play that fact up and make some of yours look really old and used.

I just painted the covers on mine. Partly because I wanted to keep the video short and the prep for the video short. And partly because I wanted to leave it open for you to use your imagination in making covers. Instead of just painting a solid color you could paint (or draw) designs, you could use pretty paper, you could find pictures of covers of real books and use those. The options are endless.

I have been playing with this technique for a week or two and I found any where from two to four layers of cardboard work just fine. By four layers I mean like in the video where I folded the two pieces of cardboard to make 4 layers. Just folding a single piece of cardboard (two layers) gives you a thinner book, the 4 layers a thicker book. I also made some that had the one piece folded plus a single layer in the middle. That makes a nice size too.

I love how these books look like the pages are all spread out and bent up. I hate it when real books look that way but in mini I love it.

Remember books come in a lot of sizes so make you mini books in different sizes, it makes you scene look more real and more interesting.