A Rockin' Good Time!

I don't have the faintest idea who first thought of the egg carton rocks idea. It has been around more that twenty years. It is the bestest, fastest way to do rock walls that has so far been invented.

I decided to use it on the fireplace in the bedroom. I like it so much that I may just do it in the living room and on the exterior chimney also. I haven't used it for a long time and I had forgotten how easy it is to do. And yes, I am saving the carved surrounds to use somewhere else.

Tessie has "lost" the wand again and has been very bored all morning. I asked her to fetch me a piece of heavy paper. I forgot to specify the color.....Yup. Purple. Rather than search for gray, I got out the Ceramcoat Hippo Gray and painted it. Needless to say, that didn't make her happy.

For any wall or other surface that you want to cover with rock this way, you can apply directly to said wall or cut a template. I choose to do a template for the fireplace since it is already in place and I didn't want to stand on my head to install it. I do use a gray background for this. It makes the process so much easier.

I used the carved fireplace surround as a template. After painting, I let it dry so that it wouldn't curl. Then I proceeded to cut random rocks. In this case, I wanted them to look as if they had been shaped. I used regular scissors to cut the shapes and nipped off the corners. If you have to cut angles, be sure that you have the rough side facing up so that the angles are going in the direction that you want them. For example, I had to have pie shaped pieces to curve around the top. I made sure that the rough side was facing me so that I would get them going in the right direction.

As you can see, I didn't try to make the pieces fit exactly. They can easily be trimmed after they are glued to the template.

I started at the center top and worked out to the bottom of each side. I made sure that the inside of each piece overlapped the paper. That way when I get it glued in place I will be able to glue matching pieces inside the fireplace for dimension.

Tessie is sitting on a pile of the egg carton tops that I have saved. Some people save the bottom parts as well for more curved rocks. I don't. If I ever need those, they are easy enough to collect. You can also save the carry out cup trays from theaters and fast food places. They are a little rougher texture if that is what you need.

Here is the painted surround. I used a pallet of charcoal, hippo gray, trail tan, old parchment, light ivory and leaf green. They are all Ceramcoat. I just dabbed and dabbed with a stiff brush. I don't clean between colors. I will hit the stones with a couple of coats of flat varnish to finish and protect them.

Tessie is now raising a fuss because she doesn't have a fireplace in her cottage. I knew this was going to happen. To quote her,"A witch needs a place to keep her cauldron! Spiderwort Manor is

going to have a big stone fireplace! Is that understood??? After all, it's so easy I could do it myself!".

I replied, "Have at it Tessie!"

I am leaving soon. I have to go to Wednesday Witches mini meeting. I don't want to listen to her complain all afternoon! Sweet relief. I just hope that she doesn't find the wand while I am away...

See you tomorrow.

Never Give a Witch a Wand.........

Sorry I'm late. We went to see Harry Potter today. I already gave my opinion in the comments over at Nikki's Witch and Wizard Miniatures http://nikkinikkinikki72.blogspot.com/ . She shared my opinion.

Anyway,in the movie, Olivander's Wand Shop was destroyed. So much for buying Tessie a nice wand......

What made me think that buying or making Tessie a wand was a good idea? Sometimes the six year old in me just doesn't think before she leaps. This was one of those times.

I came home and got out some index cards, fancy paper, velvet ribbon, and a couple of Japanese carved toothpicks. With glue, scissors, an Exacto knife and an emery board in hand, I went to work.

First I drew spirals on the toothpick from the "handle" to about an inch out. Then with my trusty Exacto I carved the barley twist on it by making a "V" on each line and smoothing it with the emery board. I stained it with Minwax Provincal stain.

While that was drying I built a box for it. If Olivander had boxes for his wands, Tessie will want one to store hers in when she is not madly waving it at everything in site.

Then using the lines on the index card as a guide, I did a 1/4" box that was just a bit longer than the wand.

You can build any box this way. All you have to remember is to make the inside box just a smidgen smaller than the outside. In this case, I made one about 1/16" longer than the other and for the width, I simply folded the inside box inside the lines on the bottom and the outer box on the outside of the lines. I glued fancy paper to the outside top before folding and some velvet floral ribbon to the inside sides and bottom.

Before I was even half way done, Tessie grabbed the wand and started waving it around, pointing at various items and trying out spells. There were things flying this way and that. She finally calmed down when I told her if she made the mess, she cleaned up the mess. She knows that threat is a solid and very serious one. I did have to get Mookie down from the high plant shelf, but other than that everything was back in place.

Remember how Spike was sitting attentively in front of her, watching every wave of the wand? I was looking through the magnifying glass, marking the second wand so that you could see how I did it. I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye......

"OK, TESSIE!!!! THAT'S ENOUGH!!!! Spike does not want to live his life as a gigantic gargoyle! You have sixty seconds to turn him back!" That was me....

Tessie's reply? "But it is such an improvement! He can fly!"

I then pointed out that if he was a gargoyle he was made of stone and couldn't move or breathe.

She quickly waved the wand and put him to rights. He is now hiding under her bed and wouldn't come out for even the T-bone steak that she offered!

I am either going to have to wrestle her to the ground and take back the wand or go somewhere and hide too. I will have to ponder the choices for a little while. What was I thinking?? Tessie with a wand???

See you tomorrow.

The Happy Camper....

This morning I wasn't in the mood to work on the cottage. I am still contemplating what to do with the bedroom fireplace. Definitely not carved wood. It just doesn't look right. So instead I decided to make Tessie somewhat happy.

I don't think that she is ever really happy when she has nothing to complain about. The somewhat part comes from a pot of spiderwort. This is the real one that used to grow in my backyard. The frost got it one year. Yup. It really does frost in AZ. We even have had snow at Easter a couple of times!

Mine isn't as pretty as that one was, but I was just doing a quickly for the sake of keeping Tessie quiet.

Spiderworts are probably one of the easiest flowers to reproduce in mini. There are only three petals and some fuzzy yellow stamens in the center. The leaves are very plain spear shaped leaves that curl.

Basically you cut three petals from purple scrapbook paper for each blossom. Then you cut a bunch of slivers off of the edge of green paper.

You then use a ball stylus to cup the petals. I use a double thickness of suede leather for a pad. This allows me to cup them without having them fly up and hit me in the eye. I curled the leaves with the edge of my tweezers, like you do curly ribbon at Christmas. Soft curves please. No whirligigs.

I put a piece of dry floral foam in the pot. I covered that with glue and miniature railroad ballast. I have been known to go out in the back yard and grab a handful of dirt in times of need. It works fine.

I poked a stem, with glue on the end, down through the dirt. Then I coated the top end with fast grab Aileen's glue. I put a bit of railroad floral foam(yellow) on the tip and then placed three petals, curve up around the center. I fiddled with them until they were pretty much an equalateral triangle.

After that, I started putting the same glue on the bottom end of the leaves and arranging them in a circular pattern around the stem. Some times there are a couple of flowers coming out of one of the crowns. Just keep building until the pot looks full.

They may not be perfect, but Tessie is looking at them as a promise of things to come.......Keep dreaming Tessie, old girl!

See you tomorrow.

Ancient Pottery...?

I was sidetracked this morning. It was much more fun meeting April for coffee and antiquing than staying home, going to pot. We spent a couple of hours wandering around our favorite mall. I only bought one box of metallic embroidery thread for 4.00....She sprinted past me and bought everything else. The thread was a real bargain, but not of interest to miniaturists. It is more for "real" embroidery.

When I got home I put another coat of paint of the pots from yesterday.

I remembered some Italian terracotta pots that I had years ago. They had designs on them that almost looked like they were made of rope. I decided that it could be done in miniature with #5 pearl cotton. I dug around and found some brown. With white glue, I made raised designs on the larger pots. The two on your left are with just the thread. The larger one at the rear is with one coat of paint over the thread.

I then put two coats of paint over the thread, letting it dry between coats.

Last, I did a wash with burn sienna Ceramcoat. They look kind of raggedy and old. that's the way I wanted them. I have decided to let them be until I decide what to put in them.

If you want some examples of aged pots, go over to Nikki's blog Witch and Wizard Miniatures. http://nikkinikkinikki72.blogspot.com/ She sent everyone to a website for real aged pots yesterday. There are some wonderful ideas there.

I will probably put some other aging and moss on these after I decide what I am going to use them for.

I know where one is going. Tessie didn't even ask. She grabbed the one with the swirl design on the sides. She informed me that it was going to have spiderwort planted in it and It was going to......

Do I have to say it???

Spiderwort Manor.....She wants matching pots for either side of the front door. Is she serious??? Dream on, Tessie!

See you tomorrow.

Gone to Pot.....

On Wednesday I need to do fast minis, because of the Wednesday Witches mini meeting. For the past couple of days I have been thinking that there are other possibilities with Marlie's technique with the pitchers.

I decided to try making terracotta flower pots with the same idea. I started with some computer cardstock, a compass, pencil, glue and scissors. Later I had to find gesso and terracotta paint. That's all I needed.

I am not going to give you patterns for this. If you have a compass you can make a pot as small or as large as you want, with ease.

The two arcs that you see drawn on the left of the photo are for the larger pots. I drew the arcs, making sure that the point of the compass was always in the same hole in the corner of the paper. On the opposite side I did some 1/8" arcs for the rims.

The next step is to cut the arcs out with sharp scissors. Then roll the strip on your thigh with a pencil or pen, ala Marlie's directions for the pitcher.

I then curved the strip around and determined how large I wanted the diameter of the pot and drew a line. After cutting off the excess you could make this your pattern and do a bunch in the same size.

I did this assembly line style so I used the clips this time. I didn't do this with the pitchers because I was too lazy to hunt for the box of clippies. Years ago I got a whole bag of them in the thrift shop for a dollar. These are the ones that we used to use long, long ago as instruments of torture. remember sleeping on these things? Horrors! I had enough of these that I was passing them around to friends and still have a whole box full. Either there was a lady with a huge head that gave them to the thrift shop or a bunch of ladies dumped them all at once. Whatever the circumstances, thanks ladies!

I glued two strips to the rim of each pot to make it thick enough. Then I ran a line of glue around the bottom of each pot and glued it to a piece of cardstock. This gives you something to hang on to while you are painting the pots. I did three to a piece so that it would be easy to reach all sides of each pot.

After the glue dried, I proceeded to paint the outside and the inside of each pot with a thick coat of gesso. I tried to keep the outsides of the pots and the rims as smooth as possible. Then I let this dry thoroughly.

The last step for today is to paint the pots, still glued to the card(Easier to handle that way) with terracotta or similar colored paint. The ones in the photo aren't quite dry. They will lose the shine when they are dry.

Tomorrow I will cut them off around the bottom edge and paint the bottoms. I am thinking that they may get some mold and moss before they are finished. I like old pots. I will also have to put something in them.

That's all I have time for this morning. I will finish next time.

See you tomorrow.

I'm Still Here.....Just a Little Late.

At this minute, the temperature outside is exactly 100°! The humidity is high and I am very lazy. I decided that I didn't want to work on the Clockwork Cottage. I didn't want to stand on my head to paint walls and ceilings. It's just too icky.

I kind of wandered around for a while and then decided that the bottles that I am going to be making from the pens and pencils will need trays to sit upon. I dragged out my "easy" basketmaking stuff. If you want the original directions, go here. http://caseymini.blogspot.com/2008/03/very-easy-basket-tutorial.html Since I was just making tray baskets, I figured that it wouldn't take long......It wouldn't have if I had just made a couple. I wound up making eight.

I used a scrap of Penelope canvas that fit around the woodsies that I was going to use. Instead of gluing first like I usually do, I went ahead and ran the overdyed floss through it first. I normally like to glue the pre cut canvas to the base so that I can make the floss go in a continuous weave.

I decided to try something new. I did all of the stitching. Then I ran some glue over the back of the stitched area, leaving the space in between un glued. It was easier to trim that way.

I let that dry. Then I did the trimming into strips.

Meanwhile I picked out the bases that I wanted to use. I put glue on one side of each one and laid fabric on them. Then I trimmed the fabric flush with the edge.

Here are the steps in case you want to do one.

First the woodsie of choice.

Next the fabric glued and trimmed.

Then with glue on the edge of either the woodsie or the canvas, glue it around the edge and trim the end that overlaps to about 1/8".

Last step is to cut lace to fit and glue inside the rim. Oops! I missed the lace on the green one in the back row.

I can't say that I am completely happy with some of the color choices, but I will make them work with what I put inside. Just to show you, I put some of the pencil points in for size comparison.

I imagine that you are wondering where Tessie is today......Look at the colors.....Does that answer your question? No puce to be seen. She refused to come out and help unless I did puce. Alas....No Tessie. Now I know how to keep her at bay. I am not making the making of the purple ones til last. So there!

See you tomorrow.

Two of a Kind.....

The feud continues. This morning Zar pleaded with me to make him a spray bottle that would fit his hand. He was having difficulties with mine. He specified that it should be the same color as mine. He liked that part. However, being a staunch Techno-Victorian, he wanted one with a metal sprayer. None of this silly plastic stuff for him. He is getting as bad as Tessie. He followed me around repeating "Casey.....Casey.....Casey" with about 5 seconds in between each one. He kept it up until I gave in and tried to help.

Do you have any old gel pens, preferably, or ball points laying around doing nothing? I was sitting at this desk the other day reading something on the screen and saw one in the flower frog on the side of the desk. I couldn't resist. The six year old started taking one apart. I untwisted the writing end. It was a perfect size and shape for a bottle.

A little side bar here....Did you know that the clear barrels on some of them can be used to store parts? The pink and blue one in the photo both have two ends that screw off. The top end is solid and the bottom end has a small hole in the screw part to accommodate the pen point. The hole can be sealed with a drop of glue. Then you can just screw off the top and put tiny things inside. Since they are see through you can easily tell what you have stored in there. The screw top can also be used for a plastic drinking cup. Some of the tops are like a little plug and have to be pried out. They aren't as easy to work with.

OK. Back to the subject at hand. Some of the pens have a clear screw off end on the writing part. Some are molded in one piece and you have to cut them off. The one that I made Zar's bottle from was the kind that just screws off. No fuss, no muss. I simply took a tube filigree finding that could be pried apart at the seam and forced it open. then I took parts that I clipped out of earring backs and made the trigger and barrel. Last, I glued a watch stem on top for the cap. It was about 10 minute's work including finding the glue, needle nose pliers and the side cutters.

That worked so well that I started messing with parts of the pens that you see on the table, excluding the whole green one. This is what I found in them. Zar now has several bottles, a couple of beakers and two jars.. I used various watch parts and the rose colored jar has a top made from a hubcap from a model car. I need to put bottoms in them all, but that will be simple with some transparency plastic. Some of the pieces had to be sawed with my miter box to get a straight cut. I used good old E-6000 to put everything together.

Now about the spray bottle war......It seems that Zar couldn't find Tessie. So he confiscated her rubber chicken and threatened to pickle it. It is now in a jar on the table. He thinks that Tessie will come to it's rescue ant he will be able to blast her.

We all know that Tessie is always two steps ahead. I left Zar's drink tray in the bedroom the other day when I was working on the secret room. Tessie found it and is threatening to pour it all down the drain if he touches a feather on her chicken's body. Never mind that the chicken doesn't have feathers. She wants her chicken back.....and Zar has to empty the spray bottle before she will give the drink tray back to him.

I think that Tessie won this round. We all know that Zar always needs a wee bit of whiskey after a tussle with Tessie.

I am going away now and let them fight it out on their own. May the best witch win......

See you tomorrow.

The Easy Way Out.....

Since twining wasn't as easy to explain and do as some of the other basket making techniques, I decided to do the easiest finish that I knew how for the bag. But first let me show you the raised stitch that you see on the side of the bag.

It is actually a wrap that I use when I am doing wicker. It is a single stranded wrap. You can either use one of the weavers that you are doing the twining with and come up short later on or you can add an extra length of thread for just the raised row. That is the method that I prefer because that way I don't run out of one thread before the other when I go back to twining.

It is basically two steps forward and one step back. You simply loop the thread around a spoke and come back to the front. Go to the next spoke and do it again. All the way around. If you are doing it right, you will be going in front of two threads and back between them each time. If you look carefully at the photo, you will see that the thread is looped around one spoke and I am about to go around the next one.

To finish the bag I cut all of the spokes about 1/4" from the edge. It looks like fringe at this point. I put Aileene's Fast grab inside the bag and pressed all of the fringes to the inside.

I had about ten inches of the two weavers left when I finished. I left them attached and stopped at one end of the opening on purpose, so that the handle would be in the right place.

I made cord with the two weavers by twisting and twisting tightly until the thread started to curl back on itself. You can see it in the middle and right at the edge of the purse. Hang on to the end so that it doesn't unwind. Pull it out and find the middle of the twisted piece. Grab that spot and, still hanging on to the end coax it to curl back on itself. It will make a nice cord. This technique comes in handy for making rope like cording for all sorts of trim.

After it was curled back on itself to make the cord, I put some glue on the end that I was holding and stuck that and the piece still attached to the bag to that side of the bag. Then I simply took the other end of the cord and stuck it inside the other end of the opening.

Tessie is very pleased with the outcome. She has decided to go green and use it for a shopping bag for the time being.

She is standing on the base of my brand new Ott Light. Last Wednesday at minis I had the chance to try out Joan's Ott light. I liked it so much that I got the urge to go shopping this morning. I had a 50% coupon for Michael's. You have to love those coupons! That one saved me about $40.00! It says on the tag that it prevents eye strain. I am starting to be a believer. I like it a lot.

I need to go back and test it some more. I still have to finish the cozies for the remotes.

See you tomorrow.

The Fourth Basket.....

I have done three other tutorials for baskets on this blog. Each one is a bit more difficult than the one before. The third one was a twined basket with a wood base. In that one I give basic instructions for twining, so I will just send you to those rather than repeating myself. If you haven't twined before, you probably would be better off trying one of those before you do this one just to get used to the technique.

The entry with the instructions is "Not So Easy Basket" at http://caseymini.blogspot.com/2008/04/not-so-easy-basket.html It will explain what is going on.

Here you see the simple supplies for the bag type basket. I used over dyed floss, all six threads. There is no need to separate them. When you get good at it, you can do it with less threads for a finer basket. The warp of the basket is linen thread that people use to do macrame jewelry. It can be purchased as craft store and bead stores.

If you want to make a stiffer basket you can use cloth covered wire. That will have to be painted or dyed to match the thread that you are using. It only comes in bright white and once in a while green in #32 gage. That's the size that you want to use.I prefer the linen thread because it is softer and easy to work with, especially for a bag. I started out making "Spirit bags" like this to hang around the neck. After that I made them smaller for minis.

You can make the bag any size that you want. I did this one with 20 pieces of linen cut about 6" long. There should be excess in the length.

The first thing that I do is lay it out on a work board and straighten it into one layer. I then tape it to the board with some blue tape for the first couple of rows of twining.

This is how it should look when you start. I doubled the floss and looped the center over the first spoke on the left. The piece of thread at the front goes over the back thread and under the next spoke and ends up in front again. See the other blog entry for further instructions.

Twine to the end of the row. Flip it over and go back to where you started. Now work around the end of the first row and do a row on the opposite side from the last row. That way you will be starting the bottom of the bag. Pull it tight every few stitches and try to keep them even. From here on you keep going round and round. No more back and forth.

After you have about five rows you can start bending the bottom so that the sides will come up. Be sure to pull tight on each end as you go around. This will force the sides of the bag upwards.

When you run out of thread simply flip both ends inside as if you were going to go behind the next stitch, but stay inside. Then simply start a new thread the same as the first. Double it and loop over the next spoke to continue weaving.

By the way, you can use regular floss You will end up with a bag that is all one color or striped. If you start behind with two different colors knotted together in place of the loop, you will have every other stitch one color and the ones between the other color. Experiment. Play. You might just invent something totally new.....

The Inspector General is making sure that everything is correctly done. She is not happy because I didn't finish the one that she found yesterday. I tried to tell her that you would have to learn from the beginning.....She dragged out the magnifying glass and is knit picking for all she's worth. Her main complaint is "If you had to start a new one Why didn't you do the one to match my hair?" I quickly shoved that skein under the box and told her I couldn't find it. I also made sure the puce wasn't in sight.

Next time I will show you a couple of fancy stitches and do a "how to finish" segment. For today I am quiting. I am going cross eyed from this and I am getting a headache. I am not sure if it is from the basket weaving or from Tessie's complaints. Either way, I have to do something else for a while.

See you tomorrow.

Pleat After Pleat.....

I finished pleating the skirt of the bed. I worked out this system to make box pleats. I thought it would be faster than using pins or a regular pleater. It was somewhat. I don't think that there is any way to speed pleat. If you want to try it, this is how I went about it.

I measured from the floor to the top of the bed blocks. With the teak beads under it, it was 1 7/8" high. Then I proceeded to cut lots of little pieces of index card 1/2" X 1 7/8". Then, keeping it as straight as I could with the pattern on the fabric, I cut a strip about 3' wide all across the width of the 45" material. With silk that is 36" you need all of the width to do a standard bed, so I figured to save time, I would just do the whole width in pleats and then cut off what I didn't need. I did have some left over. Not a lot though.

Next I laid out the fabric face down. If I didn't have any experience I would have marked with a pencil all across 1/8" from the edge for the hem. I had to cheat on the first photo. I accidentally deleted it from the camera and the computer both. I had to take a photo of how the layout goes after I was done. Here you see the fabric with a ruler laid on top. Since I had half inch strips, I decided to put them a half inch apart. I simply put a light coating of white glue on the back of each strip and laid it 1/8" from the bottom edge. That part becomes the hem in the next step.

Glue up the hem all along the bottom. Then one at a time, run glue down the sides of two of the strips and push them together. The fabric will push up in between them. Then you can press them down on both sides to form a box pleat.

Since my bed is 4 1/2" wide I knew that the half inch pleats would fall right without any gaps. When I finished the pleating and let it dry a bit I started in the center of the pleats and stood that up in the center of the foot of the bed. It fit, so I put fast grab on the bed itself and put the skirt against it and pinned it in place. Then I proceeded to do each of the sides and wrapped about an inch around the top end and glued and pinned that in place.

At this point, the top end of the skirt should be standing straight up all around. Let it dry thoroughly before trying to miter the corners of the excess and gluing them down to the top. The next step will be the mattress. That will be tomorrow.

As I was finishing this part and getting ready to show you a photo. I heard mumbling on the other side of the bed. Tessie popped her head up over the edge and I knew she was up to no good. She said sweetly "May I pose with the pleats?". I said she could. What could it hurt?

Then I saw what she was up to. She had her pocket full of purple headed pins. She was quietly replacing all of the pins that I had put in the skirt with "puce" ones.

She hopped up in the bed edge and I thought she was pointing to the piece that I had left over...... I think that, in reality, she is pointing proudly to the puce pin that she just pushed into the side of the bed. Please note the white one laying on the board to your right. She is not terribly careful of where she discards the "icky white and yellow" pins. I noticed that they are going to have to be picked up after she finishes.....Her last suggestion was that I buy all new pins, pick out the pretty puce ones and throw out the rest.

I don't think that is going to happen.....Only about five puce pins to the package. By the time I finished buying pins and picking out the puce, I would probably have spent enough on pins to buy her a mansion! When I told her that, she started wandering around the board, sadly picking up the other pins.....Then she brightened up considerably, saying "Where's the puce paint left over from my bedroom? YOU could paint them!" She doesn't know how close she is to going back into the glass box!

See you tomorrow.

Betcha Can't Make Just One!

I did a lot of yard work this morning. This afternoon I decided to relax and play. I continued the Tampax experiment.

I went and found some more different scraps of paper and this time some tiny trim lace. The first set I made was at Tessie's request. She wanted something exotic in which to store trinkets.

She picked the paper. It was a photo from a fabric ad in Veranda Magazine. I buy Veranda because it has great ideas for dollhouse decorating, but also for the heavy, glossy, colorful photos that can be used for miniatures and also for collage in real life. This was a full page photo of some decorator fabric laid out flat so that you could see the design.

I did these three boxes and have plenty of paper from this one page for a lot more. The braid on the box under her elbow is the loop braid that you see for sale at shows. I decided it was too big after I made it. And Oops! I placed it upside down in the picture. The other trim I used is a very fine lingerie lace. I will have to look up where I ordered it. I know it was from on line somewhere.

You could even use #5 or 8 Perle cotton for trim if you wanted to have something a bit smoother. I am also thinking that the adhesive backed metallic strips of fancy designs that are used for scrap booking would work well.

After I finished these, I noticed that the smallest one was stuck just at one spot, making it a hinged lid. If you wanted this on purpose, you could attach a small piece of ribbon between the lining and the outside on the bottom of the box and simply attach with glue to the inside of the lid.

By the way, notice that some of the boxes are oval. I simply smooshed(technical term) the tubes on two sides to make them flatter. The top and bottom paper hold them in shape.

All in all, I made seven boxes. I kind of like the boxes made with the Mary Englebrit paper that are sitting by Spike. He is still trying for something with bones on the outside so that he can keep his doggy chews inside. Sorry Spike, no luck so far.

The last set I made was from dollhouse wallpaper that is leopard skin on the bottom with a frieze of animals running across the top. I used a leopard head from the border to top the large one and some leaves were placed on the smaller one.

Anyway, as I said before......Betcha can't make just one! Have fun!



See you tomorrow!

"I Have a Pocket!!!"

The puce and purple lasted about four hours in all.......Tessie decided that they did make her look fat and they didn't go with her hair. And she couldn't ride the dragon.She didn't want to hurt Cordelia's feelings so she came to me for help. I made her a new apron and vest. Then she said that would be enough new. She went back to the old style of vest without bows and a very sedate apron. She did have one request though. "Could it have a pocket? I've always wanted a pocket to keep things in. I have never had a pocket." That was simple enough to do. She is now happily stuffing everything but the kitchen sink in the tiny pocket that I put on her apron. I can't imagine going through life never having had a pocket. It always amazes me that they went for hundreds of years without them before someone got the bright idea to invent them....I wonder who that was?

Speaking of places to put things, Zar's kitchen didn't have any canisters for flour, sugar, tea and coffee. What ever happened to the old tin ones that our moms used to have? They always had such neat designs and were so colorful. Now all we have is stainless steel, glass and sometimes plastic. None of them are very pretty. I think that the old tin ones have all rusted to pieces for the most part. Because of that, we mini people have to make our own with what we have.

Sometimes what we have is not very pretty to begin with, but can be made that way with a little work, glue and wallpaper. I am talking about the infamous Tampax Tampons(they must be the cardboard tubes!). There. I said it.

Nobody likes to talk about them in real life, but they are so handy in mini. Remember the barrel purse and the bolster pillows that I did tutorials for way back towards the beginning entries of this blog?

Judee Williamson taught me to use them for bolsters about 25 years ago. I have been thinking up uses for them ever since. The canisters and the purses were both those"wake up at 3am and can't get back to sleep" ideas. I have been making them for a years, since a couple of middle of the night AHA! moments.

I keep a combo pack of them handy exclusively for minis. That's the ones that they put out that have 3 sizes in one box. They are wonderful little gadgets. Please allow me to demonstrate.

Here you see the start of a large canister. I used the largest size. Each size is actually two different diameters. In this case, that is essential.

For the large canister I cut three pieces from the tubes. Use a sharp exacto to cut. To measure where to cut, simply wrap a strip of paper the right width around the tube and mark with a pencil. The shorter, outside piece and the lid rim are cut from the larger tube. The liner, that the cap sits over to stay on is cut a little taller from the inner tube. Take them apart like they are in the photo. The outer piece, in this case was cut 5/8" tall. The inner piece was cut about 1/16" taller. I cut a strip of mini wallpaper the same height as the outer one and long enough to go around the tube. I also cut a strip 1/8" to match the piece that I cut for the rim of the lid.

I used white glue and attached the wallpaper to these two pieces. You can overlap if the paper is not too thick. In this instance, I cut it exactly, without overlapping.

When the glue dries, set your larger pieces on the wallpaper and trace around the edge. I just glued this piece straight to the edge of the top and bottom without overlapping anything. After it is dry I used a gold pen to edge the top and bottom of the canister and lid. For some reason, in the photo the gold ink looks kind of green. The last step is to put a bead on top for a handle.

You can make various sizes of these for different applications. The ones that I remember had four different sizes. If you wanted them shiny like the old tin ones, you could use glossy varnish on them. You can also cut the smaller ones shorter and make old fashioned body powder boxes that open and then put a pompom inside for the puff.

Tessie grabbed this one before I could do the shiny part. She whipped the spoon out of her pocket and immediately started searching for things to fill it with. I imagine that one will be for flour. It is the largest.

She is back to being a happy camper since I didn't make her put the skirt back on. I'll tell you a secret. The skirt that she usually wears is actually a petticoat. She took to wearing that, her chemise and a vest a long time ago. Those and an apron is all she needs. Oh! She does have bloomers, but she won't ever show you those. Shame on you for asking!

Anyway, things seem to be back to normal, now that Tessie can properly ride the dragon without her skirt hiking up.

I guess I should go make the other three canisters. Tessie needs a place to keep the cappuccino.

See you tomorrow.

P.S. I added a couple of extra instructions in later. I hope they make everything clearer.

Little Miss Muffet Wants a New Tuffet

I was going through some of my sewing supplies this morning with Tessie looking over my shoulder. I found some pincushions that I made from water bottle caps a couple of years ago. At the time, people were making them with elastic on the back so that you could wear them like a ring to keep your pins handy.

Tessie's eyes glazed over and she started crooning "I want that. I want that. I want that!" Actually, she was right on target. She complained that her feet didn't touch the floor in the new armchair that I made her a few days ago. One of the pincushions would solve the problem. Meanwhile, until I finish hers, she has pulled up one of mine and made herself comfortable with a cup of tea to watch. In case you want a tuffet or two, I will show you how to do it.

You can make these pincushion/tuffets in whatever size cap you can find. This one came off of a Nestles water bottle. Plastic seems to work better than metal. You will have to adjust the patterns if you want to make them bigger. It is very easy. The larger circle should be about 3 times the diameter of the cap. The bottom circle should be the diameter of the cap + a half inch extra all around for the fold up part. The edge strip needs to be of a length to fit around the cap with no overlap. I decorated the one that you see in the photo for real life, not mini. I embroidered a pretty big spider on the top and used a herringbone stitch around the edge. For mini, I would use braid instead of the herringbone stitch, although Tessie seems to like the spider.

This is basically all you need in the way of materials. Oh and you do need a cap. The one that I made was a 1" diameter cap, so the large circle is 3" and the bottom circle is 2". The strip is 3' long and 1/2" high. You also need white glue and a needle and thread to match the fabric.

On a side note, when choosing fabrics, use a lightweight cotton or silk. No synthetics please. They don't glue well.

Cut one of each of the circles out of fabric, matching or co-ordinating. Smear a light coat of glue on the strip and stick it to the fabric. Then cut a 1/4" outside the strip for turn under. Miter the corners on the strip and glue the fabric around to the back. Cut Vs out of the edge of the smaller circle. Center the cap on that circle and glue the Vs up on the sides to cover the bottom. Now gather the larger circle with a running stitch and pull the thread to gather. Before you pull it tightly, stuff it with batting. Then pull up tightly and fasten off with a few back stitches.

This is what the three pieces should look like. The next thing that you do is wrap the strip around the cap with a bit of glue on the back of the strip to hold in place. I sew the narrow ends together to make sure that it stays in place.

Next you push the puffy part down into the cap and whip stitch it to the upper edge of the strip.

At this point, you decorate it to your taste with braid, embroidery stitches or whatever your heart desires. Bet you can't make just one! I would love to see what you make.

See you tomorrow.

You Asked For It!

Not all of you asked for it, but Kat did. I think that she has been taking wheedling lessons from Tessie. She asked so nicely that I decided to make another chair and document it so that if anyone wants to try it, they can. This is going to be a long one. Here we go.

You will need:
Quarter inch thick balsa wood at least 2 1/4" square.

A piece of interlock canvas about 8"x8". Please don't try this with regular canvas. It will ravel and you will be very unhappy.

A piece of bonded batting about 3"X6". I use a double thickness.

One piece of fabric about 4" square to cover the seat.

Some Linen cord to match the canvas. You could substitute something else for this, but the linen cord is available almost anywhere and is not expensive. Use what you have if you have something that you like the looks of. Be sure to use natural material though. It is much easier to work with and glue than synthetics.

You will also need white glue. I used fast grab. You will need sharp scissors, pins and a clothespin or two.

Tessie and Spike are here to help. Just ignore them and maybe they will go away.

The only real pattern that you need is the seat. As you can see from the photo, I cut it from 1/4" balsa. I sanded the corners to a bit rounder shape so that the stiff canvas would curve around with more ease.

Cut a strip of interlock canvas that is 1 1/2"x 8" to go around the bottom as the skirt. Then you will cut another piece that is 3" x 5 1/4" for the arms and back. Cut slits in from the edge 1 3/8". These will be cut straight down from the top to 1 1/4" from the bottom. Trim off all of the little threads that stick out to make a smooth edge on the slit.(see photo) Don't cut anything off of the arms yet. Fold the back in half and use your glue bottle or something similar to draw a curve on each side of the back piece. Cut this off.

Fold down the arms straight across. The make a second fold 7 holes out from the front edge slanting back to nothing at where the arm meets the back. It should look like the photo with my hand holding it.

Next cut two layers of the bonded batting to fit the seat. Use a dab of glue to affix these to the seat. You don't need much. Now lay the seat, batting side down, on the wrong side of the fabric. Put glue on the inside corners of the fabric and a line of glue on the bottom front and back of the wood. Pull the fabric around the front and back and glue it down. Wrap the corners as if you were wrapping a package. The glue should hold the corners in and then you can glue the sides to the back. You should have a smooth top. Don't worry if the sides and bottom aren't perfect. They will be covered by the canvas.

That's the next step. Put glue around the edges of the seat and glue the 8" strip around it, lining up the top edge of the canvas with the top edge of the wood. Run glue down the center back and overlap the canvas. It should be no more than a quarter inch overlap. If it's more, trim it.

Don't let the dog get under the seat while the glue is drying. Tessie might pull off the clothespin and trap him!

After that dries, wrap your back and arms piece around to check for fit. Glue it around making sure that it is centered on the back and the arms are even. Here you see it glued and the arms being trimmed. The closer arm is already trimmed and the far one is waiting to be trimmed. The front edge of the arm should only be trimmed on the outside. Not the top or inside. Now glue the bottom edge and the back edge to the side of the chair and pin in position to dry.


Run a bead of glue around the back edge first. I put on 4 courses of linen thread on the edge and then another 3 about a half inch in all the way around the back.

Then I ran 4 threads around the arms. Next around the top edge of the seat and last around the bottom of the chair. Let it dry. Sit back and enjoy. Maybe tomorrow I will do a matching table.

Your dog sitting on it will do no harm. Most mini dogs don't shed much.

Notice......Tessie got her way in the end. She said that if she sat in the smaller chair no one would be able to see the detail. Whereas Spike would let people see everything.

Still no beach building. I think that I am going to quickly put these in a room box so that she will forget about the sand.

See you tomorrow.