Dollhouse Miniature Cactus Cookie Jar

 

Watch the video here.

This week I decided to make another cookie jar to add to the collection, this time one in the shape of a cactus. I am pretty happy with how it turned out and I hope you like it also.

We start this cookie jar the same as always by making a base of card-stock to build the cookie jar on. This is easy to do with a strip of white card-stock cut ¾” by 4” and wrapped/glued around the barrel of a permanent marker like a Sharpie. Let this glue dry completely before moving on to the next step.

 

Once the glue dries we need to add a thin layer of white clay to the outside of the paper cylinder as well as a bottom to the cookie jar. This is held on with a coat of TLS (Translucent Liquid Sculpey) and baked for 10 minutes at the temperature recommended for your clay. I am using Original Sculpey for this. At the same time I also created a small plug shape of clay that I will build my lid on later.

Be sure to allow each step of the process to cool to room temperature before moving on to the next step.

Once cooled add a thin layer of green clay to the outside of your cookie jar using a layer of TLS to make sure it adheres. Also add a couple of branches to the sides with small pieces of clay. You can use any color of green clay you like for this, I noticed the real cactus cookie jars come in a variety of colors of green. Add some texture to the green layer, I went the simple route and just added some vertical lines to mine. Now make a half ball of the same green clay to work as the lid and add it to the little white plug piece you made from the white clay, use TLS for this step also. Bake for another 10 minutes.

Now using a tiny ball of a pale pink clay (or any color you wish) create a simple flower to add to the top of the lid. Use a tiny bit of TLS to act as your glue and bake for another 10 minutes.

Now all you need to do is add a very thin coat of Gloss Mod Podge and allow to dry and you have another cookie jar for the collection.

I would like to thank Plaid for the Brush and Mod Podge they provided so I could use it in making videos for all of you.

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 Enchiladas

 

Watch the video here.

This week I thought it would be fun to make some enchiladas for the dollhouse family to enjoy. This is a project I have been meaning to get around to doing for a while now.

We start out by making our “meat” filling. It is simply made by using at least 2 colors of brown polymer clay, I like to use a reddish brown and a dark brown then chopping that up fine and pressing it together then rolling a snake from that clay. This gives the illusion of the cooked meat mixture very easily. We will only see a tiny bit of the clay and the tiny bit of detail will work nicely in the finished project. Roll this into a snake about the diameter of a toothpick and set aside.

The next part of our enchiladas the tortillas, since once again we are only going to see a small portion of the tortillas we are going simple. I used some Original Sculpey but any off white clay would work just as well. Roll it out as thin as possible and use a ½” round cutter to cut the tortillas. Since I lost most of my clay cutting tools when I moved a couple of years ago I had to get creative, I found the lid to a chap-stick tube was just the right size for cutting these today and will be a welcome addition to my tool collection until I get some more clay tools gathered up.

Now that we have the basic parts to our enchiladas it is a simple matter of placing the “meat filling” snake on top of a tortilla.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Rolling the tortilla around it to make an enchilada shape,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and trimming the meat filling even with the edges of the tortilla.

 

 

 

 

Then using a pointed tool. I used my dental pick texture the bit of filling that shows at the ends. 

Make as many as you need. I did add a small amount of a light yellow ocher chalk to the tops of the tortillas wrapped around the enchiladas so they will look a bit more baked when finished.

Now we need to make some sauce for our enchiladas, I used some oil paint and TLS (Translucent Liquid Sculpey) to make my sauce. The colors of paint I used were: Rose Madder, Vermilion, and Yellow Ocher.

I first mixed the paints to give me a color I thought was close to what I wanted then mixed just a bit into some TLS, not too much or the TLS won't cure properly. Since red is a very hard color to get correct I baked off a small amount of the TLS mixture to test my color and adjusted it to make it what I was looking for.

Once I had the TLS/paint mixture the way I wanted it I coated the bottom of the baking dish I was going to use with a thin layer and added my enchiladas. I then added a good generous layer of the “sauce” to the top. I also placed a pool of sauce on a piece of foil added a couple of enchiladas and sauced the top. These can be glued to a plate in the future.

The casserole dish I used for the project was just one I quickly made a while back from card-stock. Let me know if you would like a tutorial on these.

Now everything can be baked at the recommended temperature for your clay for 10 minutes and allowed to cool.

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 Blind Bags March 2022

 

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Every time I post a blind bag opening video I get a ton of questions about how to find these little treasures so today I am going to go into some detail on how I find them.

So far I have purchased all the blind bags I have shown on the channel from eBay. I have heard they are also available on Alliexpress but I don't shop over there so I can't say for sure.

When I open up the eBay screen I go to the top of the page and in the search bar I type – dollhouse miniature blind bags the last time I also added 10 to the end of this to limit the selection to only groups of 10 bags.

Then I hit enter and let the search process complete.

Once I have first page of choices up on my screen I go to the top of the page and look for the box that says “best match” and click to bring down the menu.

Now since I am looking for the best deal I click on the line that says “price+shipping lowest first”

Then it is just a matter of scrolling down and finding the auction that catches my eye.

No let's look at what I got in those10 bags.

Bag number 1- this one is a little glass that has details pressed into it to resemble cut glass. This is going to look great in the dollhouse and I would love to get an entire set of these.

Bag number 2- this one held a green mug that appears to be closer to Barbie size than dollhouse scale. I think though that it will make a really cute planter, I know I have seen real planters in the shape of cups/mugs and I always think they are really cute. I think we will plant something in this in a future video, I might also paint it to go better in the current dollhouse too.

Bag number 3- this one looks to me to be a rather typical beer mug/stein like would be made of glass in real life. I know this one will be useful in the dollhouse.

Bag number 4- a bit oversized but I think it is not too far off, this champagne flute can certainly find a home in the dollhouse. It does however have a bit of a tilt and doesn't stand up straight so it will either need to be fastened in place or I will need to figure out a way to straighten it a bit.

Bag numbers 5, 6 and 8- I am going to put these all together here since they are pretty much identical. Here we have 3 wine glasses, I would call them red wine glasses because of the shape and they are another one I would love to have a set of in the future.

Bag number 7- is another wine glass, this time more in the shape of a white wine glass, I wish there had been at least one more of this one in the batch.

Bag number 9- this glass is way too big for this scale but I am sure I will think of something to use it for. It is cute and a bit smaller would have been so good

Bag number 10- this bag produced another beer mug/stein this time a bit bigger and more plain in design.

So what do I think about all of the pieces I got this time. I am very happy, only 2 of the 10 were out of scale and I know at least one of those will be have a place anyway.

Once of the reasons I choose this batch of bags was I was hoping to have a few repeats so I could start building a collection of glass ware for the dollhouse kitchen. I think I got a decent start on that collection and I just might have to order a couple more of this set to see what I can get to add to 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 Bunny Butt Decoration

 

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So this wasn't what I had planned to do for today's tutorial, I had something completely different in mind. Then as I was looking at something else online I came across a picture of one of the cute bunny butt decorations and I knew I had to add one to the front porch of the dollhouse. Since it is my goal to have all the Easter projects finished by the end of March I decided to switch gears and do this one really quickly today. These little guys are just so darn cute I couldn't resist.

While have made these several years ago it has been a long time so I did have to remember what I used to do. Then I had to dig for materials. Ideally I would have had a slightly smaller pompom for the body and tiny white one for the tail. However my huge bag of pompoms did not contain exactly what I needed. So I used what I have on hand.

First let's talk about the container to put our bunny into. I usually use a plant pot but I also didn't have one of those. I did have some wooden buckets that were about the correct size. You want something that is about 1” tall and ¾” in diameter.

I decided to use this pretty blue to paint my bucket with so it would coordinate with the other Easter decor we have made this year. This paint as well as all the other paints and brushes used today were provided by Plaid for use in making tutorials for you.

I then used my favorite silver paint to paint the straps on the bucket.

Once dry I tackled the bunny.

For the body a ½” to ¾” pompom would be ideal. I had that size in lots of bright colors but not a single white one in the bag. (I have gallon size zip-lock storage bag stuffed full of pompoms so you would think I would have whatever color/size I needed....) I did have a lot of 1” white ones so I made that work today. For the tail you need a tiny pompom (about ¼” in size) again I had lots of colors of them in that size but not a single white one. I decided to try painting one and it worked just fine. It is no longer fluffy and a white pompom would have definitely been better but this works just fine.the paint takes a long time to dry though so be prepared for that.

Since my larger pompom was too big to really fit into the top of my bucket I dug out some tiny rubber bands and wrapped one around one half of the larger pompom. This compressed that half enough that I could shove it into the bucket and get it glued in place. The rubber band won't show when you get it in place so it is fine.

Once the body is glued in place add the tail (make sure the paint is dry if you had to paint yours like I did)

I did let this glue set up a bit before I went to the next step since I didn't want to knock off the tail or accidentally pull the bunny out of the bucket.

The only thing left at this point was to add some back paws. I just used a standard hole punch to make two little paper rounds, I used some 140 weight water color paper but any heavy paper or poser board would work.

Glue the paws in place then using the handles of a couple of paint brushes add the little paw pads to the bottom of the paws using some pink paint.

And he is ready to join his bunny friends on the front porch of the dollhouse for the Easter season.

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 Easter Cookie Jar

 

Watch the video here.

I wanted to add an Easter Cookie Jar to our growing collection of mini cookie jars. I will be the first to admit it is not up to what I had hoped for, I am going to just say I am still not feeling well and hopefully you all will see what it can be.

Like all of our cookie jars I am starting with a strip of heavy white card-stock that measures ¾” by 4. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is wrapped around a permanent marker and glued to form our base, the glue from this step does need to dry completely before you go on to the next step.

Once the glue is dry we can start to build up the shape of our cookie jar. I was aiming for an egg shape, not completely happy with the final shape but it will do.

I used TLS (Translucent Liquid Sculpey) as a glue to add the raw clay to the paper base. I used some white clay, in this case Original Sculpey, to build up my shape over a couple of steps baking in between steps. I also created a small disc of clay that will be the base of the lid for the cookie jar.

 

 

Once I had the basic shape I added a layer of a pale purple clay to my cookie jar for the final color and shape. I mixed this particular purple by combining some of my white clay with some purple I had in my stash.

Once I was happy I set the cookie jar base on my baking surface and created the little pieces that I will need to make the face of the the cookie jar lid, a beak (2 pieces) and a few feathers for the top of the chick's head. These were baked and set aside to cool.

 

 

Next I took some pale yellow clay and formed the head/lid of the cookie jar. It is a basic half ball shape that is the same diameter as the finished cookie jar. I added the beak and the top feathers using some TLS and baked for 20 minutes.

Once cooled (I stuck mine in the freezer to speed the process) I added the disc of clay to the bottom of the lid with more TLS and baked for another 10 minutes.

Once cooled I added some details with craft paint (eyes and dots) and allowed to dry.

To finish off our cookie jar just give it a light coat of gloss Mod Podge and allow to dry. Be sure to make this a very thin coat.

Once again I want to thank Plaid for providing the paint, brushes and Mod Podge I used.

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 Table Cloth

 

Watch the video here.

I have something a bit different for a Saturday tutorial today, I thought we could tackle making a table cloth that drapes like a real table cloth. This is a really fun and easy project and I love the results. I have had this tutorial in mind for a very long time but never got around to it. Since I have been a bit under the weather the last couple of weeks I decided this was the perfect time since it is a really easy project.

I know a lot of us have made miniature table cloths in past using something like starch to get the correct drape. I usually have very mixed results with that method. Also in the past I have had issues with some fabric starches turning yellow over time. Or leaving a residue on the top of my tables. Now with the table I use in the demo that wouldn't be terrible but if you have a more valuable table you might want to not take the chance.

Also this method of making a table cloth is meant to be able to be changed out and stored so perfect if you want to add some holiday table decor to your dollhouse (note slight hint of possible future planning....)

For the demo I am just using some plain white fabric but you can certainly use any color or design you wish. I think these would be absolutely adorable in tiny holiday prints. After the holiday just remove the table cloth from the table, flatten it out and store it with all the other holiday items.

I do recommend using a 100% cotton fabric if at all possible, that will work much better since we need to use an iron to put this together.

Other than your fabric of choice you will need a piece of aluminum foil and some paper-backed fusible web, I prefer Heat 'N Bond Ultrahold for this. You can pick whatever brand you wish but do try to use a permanent, ultra bond, one that is meant to hold and not need to be sewn. If you are not familiar with this product it is basically heat activated glue that is joined to a paper backing. Your use the heat from an iron to transfer that glue to your fabric and to glue/bond your two pieces to become one. This stuff can be purchased in packages (like the one I have) or by the yard in a fabric store.

The first step is to decide how big you want your table cloth to be. I looked up the proper sizing of table cloths online and found that most places recommend a drop of 6” to 12” on each side for real life tables. This translates to ½” to 1” in our mini world. This is for standard dining tables, if you want to go very formal you can choose to have the table cloth all the way to the floor if you wish. I like the 1” drop on the table I used in the demo, I tried one with ¾” drop and it just looked a bit too short. I think on a smaller table it would have been fine though.

So since my table top measures 3 ½” by 6” I need to add 2” to each of those dimensions to get an inch on each side. So my finished table cloth needs to be 5 ½” by 8”, the same rules would apply to round or oval tables also.

The first step is to draw the finished table cloth size on the paper side of the Heat 'N Bond, then cut that with a bit of extra all the way around. This way we will have the fusible glue all the way to the edge of the table cloth and it won't need to be hemmed.

Following the directions on your package/piece of fusible web use your iron to apply it to the back of your table cloth fabric. Usually this first step is a very quick iron, then I like to allow it to cool before trimming on the drawn line.

Next carefully remove the backing paper starting in a corner is usually easiest. This will leave a shiny layer of glue on the backside of your fabric.

Now it is time to use the iron again to bond the fabric to the aluminum foil, this is usually a longer press with the iron and I like to do a quick press on the back side also. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then allow to cool completely before you try to trim to size.

Now all that is left is to fold the edges up, I like to do this using one of my quilting rulers then place on the table and form the corners.

 

 

 And here you can see what the same table looks like with the ¾” drop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.