Makeovers

Some time ago I found a toy shop in Germany that had lovely wooden educational toys that I couldn't resist. I knew they were wrong scale and wrong style, but I bought them anyway.

Some things actually fit quite nicely in my modern kitchen. I put the packages into shelves, some as they were, some with new labels, cut from catalogues. I also put labels on bottles to make ketchup and cooking oil.

I put the cutlery in a stand, it doesn't really matter that the scale is wrong. The fruit and vegies are almost ok. I use the red tumblers for flower pots. But it wasn't an essential buy. Most of the things I could make myself.

When I buy things, very often I make them over in some way. This set of bottles came in a larger lot. I am sure anyone who is into miniatures has seen them.

What I did was merely change labels: again, I cut them from a wine catalogue. It makes a huge difference. And they are guaranteed unique.

Clocks

Simple clocks are easy and fun to make. The best way is to use a metal bottle cap:

 

I cut clock faces from catalogues. They always show ten to two, which I think is for symmetry. There are printable clock faces on the web, in any style and size, but as you know, I am a recycler. I have experimented with various ways to make simple clocks, using plastic rings, bottle caps and buttons. I use transparent file binders for "glass".

But if you want something more fancy, there is another well-known technique: tin can rings. 

Again, I cut the faces from a catalogue. In the small openings I glued tiny real watch cogs. I think the effect is stunning. All in all it took me no more than an hour to make. 

Making things from kits

If you have followed my blog you know that I prefer making things myself, recycling rubbish and finding all kinds of uses for useless objects. But a couple of times I went to a dollhouse store not far away from where I live, and then I cannot resist the temptation and buy kits to build more advanced things. For instance, I made a cake stand from kit.

 

I also made a rotating bookshelf.

There isn't much challenge in such projects. It looks nice, but anyone can say that it is made from kit. Yet they make good addition to a crammed Victorian living room.

Hats

This is a very simple project. I used the inside of a chocolate box. The bows are from a hobby shop.

Miniature picturebooks, part 2

In my previous post, I showed how I made a picturebook with strips of pictures I found in a magazine. You are not always so lucky so I have used a similar technique when I only had single pictures. These come from a course catalogue, and I chose those that I liked and arranged them in a sequence that made sense: it starts with antiquity, through Middle Ages, art, music, nature, astronomy and all the way to computers and neuroscience. Then I glued them onto thin paper to make strips.

 

 Otherwise, I made the book exactly the same: folded the strips and glued pages back to back. 

  

 Then I made the cover and the jacket, and glued the pages into the cover.

 

 This is the finished book.

 

Miniature picturebooks

I have written about how I made fake books and bookshelves. But I have also made books that open and have pictures. For one of them, I was lucky to find a magazine that had three strips of square pictures. I cut out the strips and folded them:

Then I glued the pages back to back, except the first and the last one.

I made a cover from a piece of card and cut the jacket from handmade Japanese paper somebody had given me.

 

  
I folded the jacket and glued it onto the cover. I learned how to do this from a dollhouse magazine. They had cut-out pages and jacket, but you had to cut the cover.

Next I made endpapers - and I used handmade paper I made myself from plants (that's another hobby I have)

Then I glued the pages into the cover. I also found a suitable title page in a book catalogue

 And here is the finished book

Buttons

 Buttons are real treasures for a miniature maker. They can be used for so many different things. Here are some ideas.

 Large metal buttons with crests can be... well, crests, if you have this type of house.

Small metal buttons can be picture frames. You can also paint a plastic button to become a frame.

 

They can be used as plates, or made into clocks. They can be bases for decorative urns. Or cat food bowls.