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Sunday, April 14, 2013

Something From Almost Nothing...

This is the almost nothing...I have been rolling an idea around in my head since I started this project.

I wanted the plastic drawers, like the ones in my real workroom.
I was wandering around Walmart this morning checking out packaging...No, not merchandise.  Packaging.  I was looking for blister packs small enough to make drawers for the stackables that I have in real life.

Something made me remember the hooks and eyes that I used to buy, when I was still doing a lot of sewing.

Dritz puts out a package of 20 sets in these little plastic boxes.  The blister packs are only slightly larger.  They are about an inch across and two inches long.  Cut them in half crosswise and you have about the size that I needed for the drawers.

When I find something like this, I don't cut the drawers to fit.  I build the case around it.  No measurements.  Sorry, but I will tell you how I did it, in case you want to try.

I took one of the half blisters and cut the back of it so that the bottom would fold upwards and the sides inwards, to tuck inside the back flap.  I glued those together at the back.  The front was already done.

Then, I used one of the cardboard boxes that I built the other day and worked from there.  They happened to be !" by 1 1/2".  I stuck a drawer inside and cut the box to fit the length of the drawer. Then I cut two dividers for in between the drawers.

Starting at the bottom, I stacked a drawer, divider, drawer, divider, drawer.  I marked the box where the top drawer stopped and cut that part off.  I then took the end that I cut off and glued it just inside the top, lining it up with the top edge.(I did flip this over and make it the bottom.  I thought it looked better that way. 

Then One at a time, I took the inside pieces out and marked where the dividers had to go.  I then glued in the two dividers, making sure that the drawers would still slide in and out.

After that dried, I glued #10 crochet cotton to all of the edges to make it look more finished.


I painted the outside and inside charcoal gray....I don't like it.  I think I am going back and paint it standard white.  I do have a couple of real ones in black, but after seeing it in here, I am going back to white.  I can see a couple of spots that I missed with the dark paint.  Definitely white.

Anyway, The last step was to bend three small round jewelry findings in half and slide them on the drawers as pulls.

You could make these in any size, depending on what size cheap blister pack you find.  Did I mention that the boxes with the hooks and eyes in them will be used somewhere just as plastic storage boxes and the hooky part of the stuff inside can be bent out straight and put in a scissor case.  The two loops look like a pair of scissors sticking out.  The eye parts can be bent out and used as drawer handles...No waste.  But I imagine you already knew that. 

Voila!  Plastic storage drawers.  As soon as my favorite snake leaves the top of the cabinet, I will start painting again...

Gotta go chase a snake now.

See you tomorrow.

6 comments:

Lucille said...

Hi Casey! I've always wanted plastic mini stackables. I have loads of them in real life filled with mini stuff. How brilliant of you to use blister packs to make them. I also like your idea of using the hooky parts as scissors and then the eye parts as drawer handles. Great tutorial! Thanks Casey. Good luck with the snake. Be brave! In real life, would you be brave if you had a snake in your house. Well, I can just imagine the panic that would ensue were I ever faced with such a situation. I am not the bravest of souls when it comes to nature.

Caseymini said...

Lucille, I would be fine with the snake in the house, as long as it was not poisonous. Here in AZ, it is easy to tell. Most of the bad ones have diamond shaped heads. The only one that doesn't is the Coral snake and that one is brightly banded and easy to spot.

Kathi said...

Another great idea. :D
I am distracted by the cute little southwest display to the right.
I really need to get back to making minis!

Fabiola said...

I like this idea. The transparent drawers are fantastic.
Bye, Faby

Marisa said...

how very creative and very easy to follow the only thing that got me was the snake! why a snake..I hate them more than Indiana Jones does.

Norma Bennett said...

Only other miniaturists would understand the need to go out to buy packaging instead of goods - the 'normal' world would probably class it as insanity ;)