Recycling and upcycling

I haven't been good at blogging in the recent months; I have hardly blogged at all, and one reason is that I have been very busy making miniatures! In the past, I used to make stuff to be used in various projects: furniture and accessories for dollhouses and room boxes, fruit and vegetables for a market stall, bread for the bakery, messy stuff for the messy kitchen, books for the library, and so on. I have seldom, if ever, made anything for the sake of making it, without having any special project in mind. Partly this was because I started attending a miniature club where you could do a larger project or just do whatever you wanted inspired by what other people were doing. I wanted to try various materials and techniques, to learn new skills. It was also liberating to be able to finish something at one go. 

In this post, I will share some things I have made recently, mostly my own design and mostly made from rubbish. I have already shared many of these small projects in various groups, but here they are all in the same place, in no particular order. 

I will start with something that has received much praise and that I am really proud of because I have never seen anything like this. 

I had been saving these boxes from interdental brushes for years, knowing that one day I would come up with something ingenious, and that day eventually arrived. As we all know, painting plastic is a h-ll of a job, but thanks to chalk paint it has become easier and neater. When I paint with chalk paint I use a hair dryer which not only makes the paint dry quicker but also makes it dry smooth. The keyboard is a printie, and I also printed out a nice screen saver, covering it with transparent plastic, recycled of course. The laptop can be opened and closed, and there is also a printie on the bottom. I made five laptops with different screens. 

Another project that I am quite pleased with is rusty objects: buckets, milk canisters, tubs and such. 

For canisters, I use eyedrop dispensers. I made a few in zink look, but I wanted to practice making things rusty, and miniature friends seem to be more enthusiastic abiout them, possibly because they need more effort and patience. The lids are metal buttons. The rectangular tubs are butter containers you get at hotels, the round one, if I am not mistaken, clotted cream, and the bath tub is cut from a shampoo bottle. The handles are paper clips. To create the rusty effect, I first paint with ochre chalk paint, then rub with various shades of chalk pastels. 

Kitchen scales was a challenge: I saw one on the web and thought: I can make it! A small wooden cube, four tiny beads for legs, metal eyelet, metal button frame and a face printed from the web. The most difficult thing was to resize the face to fit exactly on the cube. 

This was another challenge I saw on the web, but I used a full-size cat gym as a model. It was great fun to make, but you should have heard all the swearing when the bits kept falling apart.

 

For Easter, I made Easter decorations, making eggs from polymer clay and using bottle caps for plates and some other rubbish for wreaths. 

A ridiculously easy project is pencils and crayons made from toothpicks. 

Another easy one was bars of chocolate cut from a catalogue page I had been saving for years. I photocopied the images on a black background and wrapped around pieces of cardboard. 

I believe I have shared rugs made with embroidery thread before. Somebody gave me a band the true purpose of which is unclear to me, but it has a perfect width for rugs, and I am amused by inventing interesting designs. 

 

Round mats can be made with twine. 

Golf pegs can be used for many things, for instance, pretty decorative lamps with thimbles for shades. I bought a dozen or so thimbles some time ago in a charity shop. 

Roll-up curtains are easy to make with a square of fabric, skewers, thread and beads. 

Venetian blinds are cut from bamboo place mats and glued onto craft sticks. 

A stool made from that famous pizza holder, with a seat made from floor protection pad - the kind you glue onto table and chair legs. 

The plates are cut from egg cartons, painted and decorated with decoupage - I used paper napkins with floral patterns. 

Last but not least, a few things I have upcycled. You can - or could once, before they raised prices - buy inexpensive miniatures at the Danish chain shops Tiger. They are good quality, but far too new and shiny. I like things to look natural and well used. Compare the before and after picture. 

 

I also painted shiny metal pots and pans set from Tiger to resemble the traditional Swedish enamel kitchenware Kockums. Authentic Kockums miniatures cost a fortune, but I am pleased with my imitation. 

I will stop for now, but I have more to show, including a range of plants and flowers so come back soon. I promise it won't be another year! 

Tudor bathtub

Among many small details I have wanted and never got round to in my Tudor house is a bathtub. The excellent book by Brian Long explains how to make an authentic-looking bathtub, but for some reason it just hasn't happened.

Yesterday I had another successful round of charity shops. (They are all in the area where I have my hairdresser and my dentist). This is what I found:

Not sure yet what I will do with the metal things, most probably candlesticks. The glass jar will join other jars in the larder. The handbag I will give to my friend the happy shoe shop owner. Every now and then I give her something to add to the shop.

But can you see what the napkin rings will be?

I think they look very, very authentic.

But do I really need two bathtubs in the Tudor house?

One can go into Victorian kitchen. Among many other things.

In any case, two very nice objects that took me about five minutes to make.

Ivy

I want some ivy on the front of my house. I have a bunch of plastic ivy for Christmas decoration that I have inherited and used occasionally.

Many years ago I tried to make a plant out of it by cutting leaves into smaller shapes. It wasn't very convincing, but I was less demanding then. What I have now noticed with my trained eye was that the leaves were assembled individually and very easy to take apart.

I cut off a branch and stripped it of all large leaves. Then I took all small leaves from other branches and stuck them onto my branch. There are tiny pegs, and each pair of leaves has a hole.

I now had four branches with small leaves. Commercial dollhouse ivy you can get from ebay has leaves 1cm broad. So I am not too far off the mark. I also had to twist the leaves to make them all face in the same direction (which I guess is the opposite of the original).

To make it look natural, I attached every second or third leaf to the surface with sticky dots. In real life it is of course the stem that sticks, but it was easier so. I used two branches on top of each other. They are of course deliberately asymmetrical.

I think the house exterior is getting more interesting with each step. I will now try to make some hanging plants to put on the upper balcony. Come back soon. 

PS I have conscientiously put all large leaves back on the remaining branches so that I can still use them for their initial purpose.

Topiary

I want two topiary shrubs in front of the main entrance. I made topiary plants before, so I knew exactly how to do it. You use a large bead or, as in this case, a felt ball, paint it green, cover with glue and roll in grass powder, the kind model railway people use. Except now, as then, I didn't have grass powder. I first tried knitting wool, and it didn't work at all because it looked fluffy and unnatural. So I tried embroidery yarn, and that looked much better, and the colour was better too.

This time I also wanted to do it properly, so I used a bit of real dry oasis (sorry, the picture turned out too dark, but it's too late) and then covered it with tiny decorative pebbles. I had to select the smallest.

 

I am really pleased with the result.

Fireguard

Once upon a time, more precisely three years ago, I bought some buckles at a carboot sale.

I was confident then that they would be useful for something - mirror frames maybe? - but they turned out to be one of those things that you save for years and never use. However, as I was going through some missing bits in the house, I needed a fireguard. I have a few, made from different things, and this time I remembered the buckles. This is a typical fireguard, don't you think?

But it needs some improvement. I believe of all rubbish I bought at flea markets ten years ago, when I had just started making miniatures, lacy plastic placemats were among the most useful. It's easier to say what I have not used them for.

Then paint gold, to fit the environment.

 And here it is!

More recycling tips for miniature makers

My most popular blog post by far is one of the very first, in which I shared some ideas about recycling. I don't know whether people hit it because they are looking for something else or whether they find it helpful - I'd like to know. If you read this and have visited that post, please leave a comment.

Since then I have been recycling more and more, and I am always looking for new materials. I thought I would collect some pictures and links here, hoping that people might find them useful. It will come in no particular order, but organised around a particular material or object.  For instance, look what you can do with buttons.

Here is what you can do with corrugated plastic from a candy box:

Here is some other things you can do with candy boxes:

Hats
Kitchen pots and pans
Door pediments 

With single eye-drop containers you can do wine and milk bottles.

And with eyedrop bottle caps you can make lamps (this is a scene from Alice in Wonderland):

The bottle itself becomes a milk canister.

 With large wooden beads you can make jam jars.

From fans you can make all kinds of things. A pedestal. A cradle. Or a modesty screen.

Spice bottle caps make showers:

Broken clock hands make fireplace tools:

Jewellery box lids make TV and computer screens. Here is a whole room full of computers.

Toothpicks have a variety of potential. For instance, knitting needles.

Hard foam (the kind electronic appliances are packed in) are excellent to make chimneys.

If you are throwing away an old printer or other device, there are all kinds of wheels and cogs and small bits that can be useful.  Resistors make excellent food jars (this is a half-scale dresser):

  From a metal toothpaste or tomato paste tube, you can make a lamp:

 

Envelope clips become door knobs (the door is, by the way, made from thin card).

Plastic lids make great modernist tables and stools, with legs made from paper clips.

Champagne wire can be used for many things, including bar chairs. My best invention is kitchen hooks, but as you see I have also used it for handles.

Pen caps can be used to make wall sconces.

A fish hook becomes a chandelier. And the ceiling rose is a lid from a yogurt jar.

From beer bottle caps you can make pie forms, but also clocks. 

And talking pie forms, trays from eye shadows are indispensable.

 

I think I will stop here. It was fun going through my old posts and pictures. Of course I haven't even mentioned things such as junk jewellery that can be used in scores of projects. I never buy card, but use old binders, and for window panes I use transparent plastic binders. I use chess pieces for lamp posts, table legs and ornaments. I use various bottle caps for almost anything, from fruit bowls to birthday cakes. Paper clips, cable clips, pen caps, medicine containers - everything comes handy.

But I also have a huge collection of rubbish that I have been saving for years and not figured out what to do with. It will be another post.