Dollhouse Miniature Tomato Slices

Watch the video here.

I do want to preface this blog post by telling you that if you also follow my 18” doll channel/blog I am doing the same project over there this week. In fact some of the video will be the exact same footage, but then will cut to scale specific to finish the project.

This week I decided to tackle a cane that I have wanted to do for a couple of years. I have just been to chicken to try it. I have looked at several of my resource books at directions and the tomato cane just looked so complicated that I was a bit scared to try it. But I really wanted to make this so I made the decision that this was a good time to just jump in and do it already! So here you are, tomato canes.

I am really happy to tell you that it really wasn't as hard as I feared it would be. Just go step by step and take it slow, it really isn't any harder than some of the other canes I have demonstrated on this channel in the past.

I did manage to make this entirely out of Sculpey III and Premo clays this time too. I know that some of you have a lot of trouble both getting Fimo and using it once you do find it.

Here are the colors I used today:

Sculpey III Lemonade (a light yellow)

Premo Spanish Olive (a dark green)

Premo Translucent

Sculpey III Beige (a pinky flesh color)

Premo Pomegranate (an orange red)

I have put a description of sorts after the colors to help you find other colors in your collection that might work. The only ones I didn't do this for is the translucent because other than Cernit I don't think any of the other translucent clays will be translucent enough for this project.

When you reduce your cane you want to go down to around ¼” in diameter. I say around because tomatoes come in a lot of different sizes in real life so you can make yours the size you are comfortable with.

After making your cane and reducing it to size be sure to freeze it for about 10 minutes so it will be firm enough to cut.

Slice the cane as thinly as you can without distorting the cane shape. I like to use a pointy tool to give some texture to the area around the seeds but that is optional. I do like how it turned out though.

Since I am using Sculpey and Premo clays I am baking at 250 degrees Fahrenheit. For this scale they only need about 10 minutes.

Then after cooling you make the area around those seeds look more like liquid by adding some kind of a gloss coat to just that part.

There you now have tomato slices that your dolls can enjoy! I hope you enjoyed the process and be sure to share photos with me if you make these or any of my projects.  

Dollhouse Miniature Tool Box

Watch the video here.

I realized two things last night. One that Father's Day is coming next weekend. And second that I very seldom do project that are for the guys that live in our dollhouses. So I decided in honor of Father's Day and all the dads in our lives that I would come with special project.

One of the first ideas I had was to make a tool box, I thought it would be a fun and easy project. I was careful to keep this one simple and only used things that are easy to find.

We start out by making holes in each end of a regular size craft stick for the handle to eventually go through. I just used a drill bit to make the hole. On the little tiny ones like this I find I don't really need any tools other than the drill bit. I will warn you though it is a bit hard on the fingers.

The tool box on the video was actually the second attempt, on the first one I discovered that making the bottom two layers thick makes it much easier to construct the box.

I cut the base 1 ½” long (make 2) and glued/clamped them together. This gives us an edge that we can glue the next pieces to.

The ends are cut 1” and glued to each end of our base.

Sides are make of the jumbo (wide) craft sticks and cut at about 1 7/8”, I find it is easier to sand them to size than to cut them exactly to fit and then get them lined up. With regular wood it is much easier but the craft sticks tend to warp.

The handle is just a toothpick, wait until the glue dries to cut the excess off the ends.

This tool box is super simple to make and goes together fairly quickly. Really most of the time is spent waiting for the glue to dry.

Painting is optional, I like the blue color I picked out for mine.

Dollhouse Miniature Breads

Watch the video here.

First I am so sorry about the noises my fan caused throughout the video. We are under a heat advisory this weekend and I needed the fan in order to function. Hopefully in the future I can position it so it causes less noise.

So this week I had planned to attempt to make a tomato cane. I had all of the clay I needed except for translucent. So I went to Jo-Ann's yesterday to pick up the clay and some things I needed for a sewing project. I know I had the clay in my basket. I am really sure I put it on the counter with my other purchases. However, it was no where to be found when I got home. At least a quick check of my receipt showed that I wasn't charged for the clay. I am not sure if it got lost between the time I picked it up or if the cashier put it to the side and missed it. Whatever the case I don't have enough translucent clay to make the tomatoes so they will have to wait.

That of course meant I had to find something else to show you today. I did a quick look through my collection of mini resource books and came to an article on bread. I decided that it might be fun to give you all a basic tutorial on bread. This is more about the basic clay mix, how to texture it and how to change the color to make other breads than it is an in-depth tutorial on bread.

For the basic white bread I like to use mix of 2 parts white and 1 part tan/beige clays. This time it was Fimo white and Sculpey III Tan. The mixture is a bit darker than I normally go with but it is still in the ballpark for our project.

Next we need to talk about texturing our bread. I am going “old school” for this. Way back when I first started making clay foods I saw a lot more people using things like cornmeal to texture the clay to give the bread like texture. Now almost everyone uses a pointy tool to dig the crumb texture into the surface. Personally I like to use a combination of the two techniques.

You have several choices of materials to add to the clay and you should be able to find at least one of them in almost any kitchen. I used cornmeal today but you can also use: ground rice, semolina, or ground nutmeg to name a few. Now this does come with the risk of inviting critters into our miniature scenes to snack on our creations. I can say that I have been using these materials for over 20 years and haven't had a problem. I do know a few people that say they have had problems. I tell you this so you can decide for yourself if you want to take a chance on it.

One of the cool things about using the cornmeal is that it does expand just a bit in the clay during the baking off process. This creates a nice texture (more visible if you cut the bread after baking) I am not sure if you can see it in my project today.

What I want from today's project is for you to take this information and get creative. Find some pictures of some cool breads from bakeries and make something really cool for your dolls. 

Dollhouse Miniature- Cheese Board

Watch the video here.

This week is really exciting for me because we are putting the cheese board display together that we have been working on for a few weeks.

It is always fun to take all those little parts and assemble them into a larger display.

So this week we are taking the marble board (I had baked off the leftover marble clay into a couple more boards and I ended up using one of those this week too), the crackers, the cheese and the fruits to make some wonderful pieces. These could be displayed together or separately. Or you could take the parts and make something totally different.

Here are some closer photos of the project.

Remember if you make any of my projects I want to see pictures!

Dollhouse Miniature- Fruits for the Cheese Board

Watch the video here.

This week I am going to make just a couple of simple fruits to add our cheese boards we started a few weeks ago. Next week we will be doing the assembly of the cheese board and bringing all the elements together.

I started with grapes, mainly because the are fun to make and really easy. The real secret to the grapes is to use a lot more translucent clay than your colored clay. In the case of the ones shown on the video I used Sculpey III in Plum.

Off camera I also made some green grapes and for those I used a mixture of a leafy green (Sculpey III in Leaf Green) and a yellow (Fimo Sunflower)

For the grapes start by making the core that we will build on and some loose grapes. Then bake those. While it is possible to do this without pre-baking the components it is much harder. By pre-baking and using some TLS to stick the parts together we get much better control and don't have to worry about smashing our tiny pieces.

I like to add grapes to the core then bake and repeat. I do this as many times as necessary to get the bunch to look as full as I want it to be. Depending on how the grapes will be displayed I sometimes fill in the flat bottom of the bunch too. This time since I am going to be attaching them to the marble board I decided to leave the bottom flat to make that attachment easier.

For the last baking I usually bake the grape bunch for a full 10 minutes to ensure that the TLS is completely cured.

For the apple slice again we are using mostly translucent clay with just a touch of colored clay. Since most of the apples I have recently purchased have been of the red variety that is what I made for the dolls. For these red apples I mixed a touch of yellow (Fimo Sunflower) into just a bit of white clay. Since this particular yellow is so strong I ended up adding more white and only using a portion of what I mixed.

If you want to add some green apples to your display substitute a leafy green for the yellow . Mix that with a bit of white and proceed just as I did on the video. Use a pretty apple-ly (I know not really a word LOL) green color of chalk to corm your apple peel.

Since I wasn't concerned with the apple slices squishing a bit while slicing so I didn't chill the clay. If you want to have your apples more consistent in shape feel free to freeze the cane for a while to get it hard so you can slice without squishing. 

Dollhouse Miniature Cheese

Watch the video here.

This week we are going to make some cheese to go on that cheese board we are working on. This time we are making 4 of my favorites both in real life and to make in mini.

One of the beauties of making mini cheese is that the shapes are pretty simple so once you mix your colors of clay together the forming of the clay to get the end result it fairly easy.

Before we talk about the individual cheeses and what clays to use I want to say that I have been working on the color mixtures for a long time, I don't even remember where I got the clay “recipes” from in the first place. Depending on the brands of clay and the exact colors I use I almost always have to fiddle with the proportions each time. That is where baking off a sample of the clay mixtures will save you both clay and time in the long run. On the mixture I was using for the Swiss and Gouda cheeses I showed an example the value of this step. I do bake off samples on most of the projects I show you but I don't always tell you about it. This time I wanted to use it as a part of the tutorial.

Also before we get to the individual “recipes” for the cheeses I want to talk about the measuring system. You can make as much or as little of these mixtures as you want. Simply pick an amount to represent 1 part. For me this was based on how much clay I had left in a block of white clay I wanted to use up. I knew I needed 8 parts of white for two different mixtures today so I cut the amount I had in half and then one of those halves into 8 pieces. That amount became my “1 part” you could use any measurement you want as long as you keep the that measurement the same throughout the project.

First up is cheddar, I figured most of us are very familiar with this one so it is a good place to start. Now I know that cheddar from different areas can be vary a bit in color. This is the color that works for what I buy, you can add or subtract clay to get the color you want. My mix today was:

8 parts Fimo White

2 parts Fimo Sunflower yellow

1 part Tangerine orange

For my cheddar I just wanted to form a block or brick of the cheese and to make some slices for display.

Next we made a clay mixture for two varieties of cheese the Swiss and the Gouda. For this one my mix was (this is corrected one that I used in the end)

8 parts Premo Translucent

2 parts White (this one had no label it was another leftover bit)

1 part Fimo Sunflower yellow

Today I made the Swiss into a wheel shape but just as often I make a brick of it also. I used a ¾” round clay cutter for the wheel.

The Gouda uses some of the scraps of the clay left from the Swiss. Simply form some clay into a small ball and cover it with a very thin layer of red clay (I used Fimo Indian Red) You could also change out the color of this outer “wax” coating to fit your brand of cheese.

Lastly we made a round of Brie. Just form a slab of clay and cut it into a circle with another cutter, I used the 1” one.

Now before we can go on that clay needs to be firmer and to accomplish this we are going to freeze it. It doesn't hurt the clay to freeze it and it makes it a lot easier to work with. I wanted some of these pretty solid so I froze mine for 30 minutes. You want it firm but not totally frozen hard.

Once the clay is frozen to the point of being firm we can go ahead and do any cutting without worrying about distorting the shape of our cheese.

When you are happy with how you have cut the clay let it come back to room temperature and do the final work on shaping on the cheeses that need it.

For the Swiss we need to add the holes. Super simple to do with a ball stylus or two. Add as many holes as you want.

Since I like my Brie on the runny side that is how I make it in miniature too. For that just mix a bit of the clay that we cut out of the wedge with some TLS and add it to the cut edges.

When you are happy with the way your cheese looks go ahead and bake the cheese and allow to cool.

Now the only step left for today is to paint the rind onto the outside of the Brie. Just be careful not to get the paint on the cut area.

I hope you enjoyed today's project. I would love to see pictures if you make any on my projects. 

Dollhouse Miniature Crackers

Watch the video here.

First off I wanted to let you all know why the “Sunday” tutorial did not show up until Thursday this week. I had a really busy week last week because my oldest son got married on Saturday. I was busy making my dress to wear (yeah, I put it off until the last minute) and I have to admit I was a bit on edge worrying about everything coming off on time and with no major problems. I am very happy to report that the day was wonderful and even the weather was perfect!

So on to our project for this week. Originally I was going to make the cheese before I made the crackers but at the last minute I decided to do the crackers first. For one thing they are a bit easier and quicker to do. For the crackers we are building on some of the skills I have shown you in the past.

The next tutorial will be the cheeses, I am currently planning for 4 types. After the cheese I am thinking we will want some fruit for the dolls to eat with the cheese and crackers. Then I will show you how to put the cheese board together.

I made 3 basic types of crackers this time but by taking my methods and changing out the colors of clay and the shapes of the crackers you make any crackers you want. I purposely made my crackers in the video to not reproduce any specific real cracker, at least none that I am familiar with. I wanted to leave it up to your imagination what ones you make.

The basic clay mix of equal parts white and beige clays is the place to start for just about any cracker you can think of. The brands of clay don't really matter in this project. Today the clays I used were a white from Premo and beige from Sculpey, mostly because those were the ones that I found first in the correct colors.

The first cracker is a simple round shape with 4 larger holes in the top. Super simple to make. For this one I used a brown chalk to dust over the top.

For the second one I added just a touch of Fimo Sunflower yellow to the base mix, not enough to make the clay really yellow, just a hint of color. To shape this one I rolled the clay very thin and used the teardrop Kemper cutter. Use whatever shape cutter you have that is about the same size (3/16”) Remember crackers come in all kinds of shapes.

For the last example I added just a touch of Premo Burnt Umber to the base mix. This made a light brown. For this one I just cut the clay into a series of tiny squares. See you don't need to have any fancy cutters to do this project.

I did brush each variety of cracker with a different color of chalk. The chalk does two things (at least 2) it highlights the texture you have given you crackers and it makes them looked more baked.

So pull out your polymer clay and have some fun making crackers. And be sure to show me what you are working on.