Dollhouse Miniature Trash to Treasure Half Barrel

 

Watch  the video here.

I had so much fun with the last trash to treasure project that I decided to do another one today. This time I am starting with one of the plastic tubs that cat food comes in (in this case the Meow Mix brand) and I am turning it into a half barrel like I see used in landscaping so much. I have seen these used as beautiful planters as well as small water features in gardens. I also saw a really cool coffee table made with one. I love the look and I think I may make myself some more of these so I can make multiple projects using them in the future.

Off camera I cut the rim off the container using a pair of heavy duty scissors/shears. It was a lot easier than I expected. I had decided to do this step off camera because I wasn’t sure how I would end up doing it. If I had realized how easy it would be to cut off I would have filmed it.

 

 

After the rim was off I cleaned the inside with some isopropyl alcohol to remove anything that might prevent paint from sticking. Then I gave the inside a good coat of black craft paint. Allow this to dry.

 

 

 

Next I painted some thin cardboard to use for the wooden staves on the outside of the barrel. This is one of the sheets of cardboard I have in my stash that was part of the packaging for cat food. It is about the same thickness as a cereal box, use whatever you have that is about the same thickness. I first painted with a base coat of a warm brown. I used a burnt umber paint. Allow this to dry.

 

Next I used a couple of colors of orange paint (Buttered Yam and Pumpkin both from Anita’s) to dry brush on some “wood-grain” over the brown base coat. This is really simple and once cut into strips and mixed up it really fools the eye into thinking it’s wood. Allow to dry.

 

 If you had any spots where your dry brushing left a blob go back with the same brown as earlier and dry brush that over to blend those spots. Now allow all the paints to dry completely.

 

 

 

Once the cardboard sheet was dry I cut it into ¼” wide strips then cut those to 1 ½” long. I coated the back of each strip of cardboard with tacky glue, added three dots of super glue to the barrel (1 at the top, 1 at the bottom and one in between) then added the strips of cardboard. I did my best to keep these all straight up and down. This means that they do overlap at the bottom a bit on most of them and I tried to keep the tops tight against each other. The next to last one had to be cut down in width then the last one added in to fill. Allow the glue to dry enough to hold everything in place.

I did get a lot of super glue on my fingers in this process and I did manage to lift a big chunk of the black paint from the inside bottom of the barrel because of this. It was to just cover up that spot with some more paint when I was done.

Meanwhile I had painted a scrap of medium weight card stock with some more black paint to use as the bands that hold the barrel together. Remember distance around the circle is just over 3 times the diameter so allow long enough area. (diameter times 3.14)

Once the paint was dry I cut 4 strips that were 1/8” wide and longer than I needed. I cut 4 because I was planning to use 3 for the bands on the barrel and I wanted an extra “just in case” (it’s been one of those weeks) but I ended up only using 2 of them. I decided that a 3^rd band would have looked too crowded on the side of the barrel.

Just add some tacky glue to the back of the strip and add one at the very top of the barrel covering the ends of the staves. Then repeat at the bottom of the barrel. Feel free to add an additional one in the middle if you like.

Once the glue dries your half barrel is ready to add to your mini world.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

Dollhouse Miniature Trash to Treasure Fountain

 

Watch the video here.

 

This week I have a really fun Trash to Treasure project for you guys. The trash part is one of those cover thingies that is on the top of stick deodorant. You know the thing I mean, right? The shape has intrigued me for the longest time and I kept thinking I should be able to come up with a mini project of some kind to use it. Then it hit me a couple of days ago, its perfect for the base of a fountain. So here we have a trash to treasure project for the this week’s midweek tutorial.

We need to start by building a base for our fountain to sit on since the bottom of the plastic piece is not flat. For that I cut 2 pieces of a regular width craft stick to 2” and also a wider craft stick to 2” long. I placed the two skinnier ones on a piece of tape that is taped down sticky side up on my work tile with a small space between them. (I used a scrap of craft stick as a spacer) Then I glued the wider craft stick piece on top, trying my best to have it centered side to side and all the ends even. Let the glue dry. I do suggest adding a weight to the top of this while it dries to prevent warping.

Now we need to add our fountain basin to the base. Since I am gluing together a plastic piece to the wooden base I would normally have to dig out my e6000 or something similar to make that work. We all know that those types of glue smell really bad and take a while to dry. Since I am going to be using my UV resin for the water in the project I decided to use it as the glue for this part also. Since my basin piece is clear it will allow the light to reach the resin to cure it just fine. So put a bead of the UV resin in that space you left on the base add the basin and place under the UV light for the time your resin requires.

 

 

Next I gave the entire fountain a base coat of black craft paint. This will be the final color for the base but just a base color for the bowl. If you feel it needs it give the fountain 2 or more coats until you happy with the coverage.

 

For the bowl of my fountain I wanted a copper color but I don’t have any copper color paint (or nail polish, which would have also worked here) so I mixed craft paint to get a color I liked. I started with some gold and pumpkin colored paint but after the first coat of paint dried I decided it needed a bit of an adjustment so I added just a touch of a bight red and it turned out perfect. I did need 2 full coats to get both the color and coverage I wanted.

Now onto the fountain part of our fountain. I had to make a quick run to Dollar Tree and of course I had to check out the craft aisle. They had these black beads and I thought this would be the perfect piece for the fountain. The only down side is they have a huge hole in them, I needed to fill in that hole and at the same time add the little bit that comes out the top for the water to come out of. For this I grabbed a wooden skewer and painted a portion black. Once the paint dried I cut a piece of the skewer that was just a bit longer than the diameter of the bead. The bead is about ½” in diameter and I cut the skewer to just under 5/8” long. I then wrapped a few layers of black paper around the base of the skewer to help fill that hole a bit better. You will have to play around with yours to get the right amount of paper to fill the hole and still fit in there. Allow the glue to dry.

Off camera I took a small container to the parking lot and found a small pile of sand that would work for rocks in my fountain. I then took those home and washed them and allowed them to dry completely. Remember sand in real scale is the size of small rocks in mini.

 

 

For the first layer in the fountain I wanted just a thin layer of the “rocks” along with some resin to make a level base to set the bead part on top of.

 

 

 

 

Next add just a thin layer of resin and set the bead in place. Do be careful that it sits straight up and down and cure as directed on your resin.

 

Next I added another thin layer of rocks followed by a very thin layer of resin and cured it again. You can add as many layers as you want to get the look you want. I did leave mine so that the very top surface of the larger rocks are just peeking out of the top of the resin.

Now it is time to add the water coming out of the top of the bead. I have no idea what that part is called, maybe the spout or bubbler (???) I have no idea. But anyway start by adding just a drop of resin the top of that skewer that sticks out of the top of the bead and cure it. Keep repeating this until the water stands up on top to form a what looks like the water coming out of the top of the fountain.

Now we can add some water running down the sides of the bead into the basin of the fountain. I like the look of this with more areas of the bead dry and just a few streams of water going down but make yours the way you like best. Just work with a small amount of resin at a time and cure it often. Remember gravity is a thing and will pull that carefully placed resin down until you cure it.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

Dollhouse Miniature Trash to Treasure Bowls

 

Watch the video here.

I have a really fun, easy, and versatile trash to treasure project for you today. We are going to take something that would normally get thrown away or tossed in the recycling and make some bowls. The “thing” we are using today is a blister pack from some over the counter medication. But there are so many different items that come in this type of package. Not only can you find a large variety of round shapes that hold things like medication but there are other shapes too. For instance I know I have had gum that came in rectangular shaped ones, those would make some fun mini serving trays. If you look around I bet you can find a lot of shapes and sizes to play with. Really if you look hard enough you can make so many different things with this easy project.

The first step is to empty the blister packaging in a way that preserves the shape. I like to use a knife to cut the foil at each location and pull the foil off to release the contents. This is a habit I have gotten into over the years of making miniatures and trying to save all kinds of stuff to use to make things with. Once the package is empty peel off as much of the remaining foil on the back as you can. Concentrate on the areas around the openings.

Once you have reached this step clean out the openings if needed. The package I was using had some powdery residue in each one so I used a cotton swab to wipe them out.

I know some people like to cut the little containers free and then add the finish to them. I find it so much easier to add my finish to them while they are still connected. Once this dries I can cut them free and do any touch-ups needed.

Today I am using some nail polish to add the finish. You could use other things but I like nail polish for this for several reasons. First I know it will stick to plastic pretty well and it is fairly durable. Second it is cheap, well at least it is if you buy yours at the dollar store like I do. Also it dries pretty quickly and I have a lot of colors of it on hand.

So I like to start adding the polish to the outsides of the bowls. I did use 2 coats on the outside and then 2 coats on the insides of each bowl.

I had been planning to make the insides of the bowls the same colors as the outsides. However one of the tasks I was doing while waiting for the polish to dry was putting my dishes away. I noticed that the majority of the bowls I like to use in my kitchen have white interiors and colors on the outside. I simply like the way food looks in those bowls. So I decided to do the same when coloring the miniature ones today.

 

Once the polish dries we can start to cut them apart. I used a pair of regular craft scissors to cut the packaging into strips then to cut each bowl apart. It is much easier to cut around the individual bowls if they are cut apart.

 

Off camera I did play around with different tools to cut the bowls free and found that the one thing that really worked the best for me was a pair of inexpensive curved cuticle scissors. I tried with a couple of different craft knives and found they were just too difficult to get the shape the way I wanted it.

Once you have your bowls (or whatever you are making) it is time to color the rim at the top, this will finish off the bowls and give them a bit more visual thickness.

To do this I made a small pool of nail polish on a piece of parchment paper and placed the bowl into it top down. Allow it to sit for a few seconds and carefully remove, turn it right side up and allow to dry.

 

 

 

 

And that is all there is to this project.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

Dollhouse Miniature Footstool

 

Watch the video here.

This is really a trash to treasure project since everything I used were found objects. I started with the base of the footstool, a 1” piece cut from the tube from inside a roll of aluminum foil. The tubes for aluminum foil are skinnier and made from thicker cardboard than other rolls in my experience. To cut this I used my miter box (the regular size one from the hardware store) so I could cut the tube easily without smashing it.

For the top I traced the end of the tube onto a piece of cardboard that was the backing for a tablet of paper I had used up.

I then glued a piece of a cotton ball onto the top of the cardboard circle to give just a bit of padding.

Once the cotton ball is glued on it is time to cover the parts of the footstool. I used some plain white 100% cotton fabric. You can use any fabric that is lightweight, I do recommend using 100% cotton but any color or even small prints would be fun for this project. I didn’t have the energy or time to dig through my fabric stash so I used white with the intention of painting my footstool later in the project.

For the top cut a piece of fabric that is big enough to fold under the edges. I like to trim as I glue so I have enough fabric to work with. Try to make the fabric tight enough there are no wrinkles and the edges are as smooth as possible.

To cover the base I used a piece of the same fabric cut to about 3” by 4 ½”

Fold over one edge (on the shorter side) to form a hem and glue in place onto the tube being sure one long edge is lined up with the bottom of the tube. Once this is in place cover the outside of the tube with glue and wrap the fabric around the tube. There should be some overlap where the piece meets the spot you started. Glue this in place. Allow the glue to set up enough that the fabric won’t move around.

 Now carefully fold the fabric down so that there is a fold at the top edge and there are two layers of fabric. Add a small bead of glue to hold the hem/seam in place and allow the glue to dry a bit.

 

 

To finish off the covering of the footstool spread some glue on the inside of the tube and neatly tuck the excess fabric up into the tube. This will give the footstool a nice finished appearance on the bottom and inside.

Then run a bead of glue around the top of the tube and add the top cushion to the footstool. Make sure it is centered and looks the way you want it to look then let this dry.

 

The next step is to add some cording to the spot where the top cushion meets the side of the footstool. I used some kitchen twine on mine but you also use yarn. The yarn would be the best solution if you are using a colored fabric or a patterned fabric and aren’t going to be painting the footstool. If you are not painting your footstool you are done as soon as the glue dries.

 

If you are going to paint your footstool do that at this point. I wanted a light beige color which of course I didn’t have so I mixed up a color that I liked. I did need to give mine 2 coats to get a good coverage.

 

 

Once dry you are done and ready to display the footstool in your mini scene.

 

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

Dollhouse Miniature Modern Lamp

 

Watch the video here.

For the midweek video this week I thought it was time to do a good old trash to treasure project. So as I was thinking about what I wanted to make I a couple of mornings ago I took note that the top of my tube of toothpaste was one of those that looks like a lamp shade. I know a lot of us have used these for exactly this purpose but I decided it would still be fun to do again. Kind of like visiting someplace familiar.

Since we have been hit with bitter cold this last week or so I am not leaving my apartment building so this project had to be make completely from stuff on hand.

So I dug through my stash to find a lamp base, I had thought of using a large bead but I was really wanting to do something a bit different. Then I saw these golf tees in my wood stash. Perfect! They look like a modern lamp base. So off to the craft table to make a modern lamp.

For the lamp base I am using this golf tee, I looked them up online and I see they come in different sizes so you could make lamps of this style in different sizes too.

Safely cut the tip of the golf tee off so it just fits into the cap with just a bit of the skinny part showing to look like the part where the bulb screws into. The idea is you want the shade to sit a bit above the wider part of the base (mine is about 1/8” above) so it looks right.

Then use the glue of your choice that will glue plastic and put some into the cap. Then center the golf tee in the cap keeping it as straight up and down as possible. I used e6000, but you could use whatever glue you have. I think this might be a good place to use the dreaded hot glue gun even. Allow the glue to dry completely.

 

And there we have a modern lamp for the dollhouse. I think I need to make extra sure I get the same kind of toothpaste next time too so I can make a matching lamp. I think these would be perfect as a set one on each side of a couch.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

Dollhouse Miniature BBQ Grill pt 5

 

Watch the video here.

This has been such a fun project and I am happy to say that today we have the finished grill for the doll family!! I want each of you to just take a moment and think about how far we have come in 5 tutorials. We started with a toilet paper tube and we now have this awesome BBQ Grill.

Okay on to today’s tutorial.

 

So first things first we need to paint that side shelf we added last week with some black paint. This is also a wonderful time to go over the grill once again and touch up any spots where the black paint missed. Make sure everything is painted and let the paint dry completely.

 

Once you are happy with the coat of black on the grill it is time to seal the paint. I am using Mat Mod Podge because it is what I have on hand. I know that there are products that the model rail road guys use that give a true mat finish and that would be better here but I don’t have any. So the Mod Podge will have to do. It will seal the coat of paint so that it doesn’t chip off every time the grill gets bumped. It will also help to that if anything gets on the grill that you need to clean off you will be able to do so with less fear of ruining your paint. You only need to use 1thin coat but do be sure to cover all the areas that have been painted.

While the Mod Podge is drying we can work on the handles for the lids of the grill. I did try to come up with a way to elevate the handle away from the grill but I couldn’t come up with a way to glue the tiny pieces that would be secure enough. So the handles are going to lay flat against the grill. For the handle I am using a bamboo skewer. They are a good diameter to make a handle and they are easy to find. I probably got the one I am using at the dollar store. The first step is to give about half the skewer two coats of a darkish gray paint. Your want a good coverage with the color. Let the paint dry.

 

 

Now we can add a coat of a silver metallic paint to the skewer. I only needed one coat on mine. Since I was going to cut this up I let the paint dry overnight at this point. I find that helps to have nice cut edges on things like this.

 

Once the silver paint is dry you need to safely cut the skewer the correct size. I just eyeballed how far across both the main lid (the one that opens) and the lid to the side firebox) and cut what looked right. Do use something that is designed to cut hard materials. I see way too many people on YouTube cutting this type of thing with scissors and this is very, very, very dangerous. I like to use pet nail clippers, they are strong enough to cut hard nails (these cut large dog claws) and they have the bonus of being made to cut a round object. They leave very little to sand away, an almost perfect cut every time. Once cut touch up the cut ends with the same silver paint and allow to dry.

 

Use some tacky glue to attach the handles to the grill lids in the appropriate places. Allow the glue to dry.

Next up is one of my favorite details on the grill, the thermometer. For this off camera I made a tiny dot with some white paint ¼” up from the handle and centered on the lid of the main grill. This is used for placement. I added a dot of super glue to the area around the dot and added a 4mm silver colored jump ring. Do your best to get that dot centered under the ring and allow the super glue to set up for at least a half hour.

 

 

Once the super glue sets up add some white paint to fill in the area inside the ring. I used the end of the handle of a small paint brush. You just need to cover the black inside the circle. I did use 2 coats of paint and then let the paint dry.

 

 

Now we are going to use some different finishes of Mod Podge to make different areas of the grill really look the part. We start with some Satin Mod Podge on just the wheels, we want them to look like they are plastic so they need a bit more of a shine that the rest of the grill. Allow this dry enough that it won’t smear on the next step.

 

Next we can add more of the Satin Mod Podge to the silver colored handles. This will allow them to look like they are made of metal not bamboo skewer. If you do get any of the shinier Mod Podge onto the body of the grill you can do a touch up with the Mat when everything is finished. Now is also a good time to add just a drop of Gloss Mod Podge to the thermometer, it will probably need two coats to fill up the area. You are trying to have it be level with the jump ring when it is dry. Allow all this dry before handling the grill.

So there you have it, our finished BBQ Grill! I am so happy with how this turned out and I hope you enjoyed it also.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.