Mini Accessories Projects – Thumbwick Mini Blog

Dollhouse upcycle project: Making 1:12 scale fancy bowls from discarded plastic spout rings

With a little effort and a few items, you can make these lovely porcelain-look bowls for your dollhouse. They will add such a realistic designer touch to a miniature China hutch, plate rail or dining room table.

What you will need:

Images of China plate patterns shrunk down to 1″ in diameter and printed on regular printer paper. The kind that has an outer boarder and center circle design with a band of white between them, not a pattern all-over
White or cream colored acrylic paint and a small paintbrush
Plastic ring tabs that are removed from a cardboard carton of coffee creamer or similar container
Sharp scissors for small detail work
Craft blade (optional)
White or tacky glue
Sandpaper or emery board
1″ & 3/4″ circle hole punches (optional, but nice to have)
Gloss mod podge or clear glaze

First you need to prep the plastic rings by cutting the “bowl” part away from the ring. Carefully use a craft blade if you don’t want to dull your good scissors. Cut as close to the rim of the bowl as you can and then sand smooth any remaining bump left. If your plastic doo-hickey is like mine, there may be raised numbers on the bottom but these won’t show when you are done. You can try to sand them down too if they bother you. Then set the bowl level on your sandpaper or emery board and sand a flat spot on the base, so you bowl will sit level.

Next paint your bowl white or cream (whichever looks best with the plate pattern you have chosen). Give it 2 – 3 coats on the bottom and top, letting dry on each side before turning to paint the other.

Now use your 3/4″ circle punch or scissors to carefully cut between the outer China plate pattern boarder and the center round pattern. Trim the center round pieces up to the pattern and set them aside for now. Use a 1″ circle punch to cut out the outer boarder patterns, or cut freehand with scissors, and trim the inner edge of the border up to the pattern. If you understood my explanation you should be left with outer circle shapes of the pattern with empty centers and inner circle shapes of the pattern. These will be glued to the painted plastic bowls. If you try to glue them without cutting the center and outer patterns apart and removing the white space between, you will end up with wrinkles, which you don’t want.

Spread a thin layer of glue on the back side of the center plate pattern and press it in the center of the bottom of the bowl. You will have a little time to move it slightly until it looks centered. Press it evenly into the curved shape in the bottom being careful to not make any wrinkles. Spread a thin layer of glue onto the back of the outer plate pattern ring and press it onto the rim of the bowl. The rim may not be exactly round, so eyeball the pattern ring up until it looks evenly spaced around the center pattern. This means it may hang slightly over the side of the plastic bowl in some spots. You can fill this underneath ridge in with gloss mod podge or clear glaze at the end so don’t worry about it. It’s much better to get it all centered correctly than to match the edges of the bowl, because you will mostly be looking at the front of the bowl, not the underside.

When you pattern is dry you can seal the whole dish with gloss mod podge or glaze using several coats on the bottom and top, leaving it just a little thicker on the underneath edges that are hanging over the bowl to even it up. Paint 2 – 3 coats on the bottom and top, letting dry on each side before turning to paint the other.

Make a whole set of matching bowls or make different coordinating patterns to go on a shelf together. You might want to make matching plates to go with the bowls. When making plates you won’t need to worry about wrinkles, so you don’t have to cut the centers out, just use something that is 1″/25mm across as a base. I haven’t tried it, but I have heard that you can make miniature plates out of the base of egg carton cups, so do a search on that technique if your goal is to upcycle (aka turn trash into treasure). And I think that is a very worthy goal, which is why I wrote this tutorial to begin with.

Have fun with it, improve on it and keep nurturing your tiny obsession, my friends!

Dollhouse 1:12 scale miniature crystal chandelier made from a battery powered LED 15 light string.

Pictures and a description of how I made this elaborate chandelier for my Gothic Victorian room box.

Gothic Victorian parlor by Thumbwick Miniatures

This is the Gothic Victorian room box that I made recently. The huge crystal chandelier was a project that I started about 2 years ago, set to the side, and finally finished. This is how I made it.

I started with a simple LED 15 light string with a lithium coin cell battery switch. Since I had 15 lights, I knew I needed a 2 tier chandelier with 8 lights on the lower tier and 7 on the upper. I created a metal armature with wire from the Dollar Tree. It comes in a 3 pack, with silver, red and black coated wire. I used the silver. I bent wires into hook shapes – 7 with two hooks, and one with one hook (for the 8th arm on the lower tier). Then glued them all to a piece of aluminum tubing. Since the tubing was aluminum, soldering wouldn’t work – plus I’m not that great at soldering, so I used E6000 glue to attach the wire to the base of the tube. Holding everything together with masking tape until fully cured. Don’t try to work with it until then. When dry, carefully bend the hooks so that each of the 7 “arms” are spaced above and between each of the 8 “arms”.

Now take your light string and feed the end through the metal tube and pull to the end of the wire, where the plastic sleeve starts before the battery pack. Start from the first LED light closest to the battery pack and position it at the end of one of the upper metal arms. Then wind the wire around the armature, positioning each LED light at the end of a metal hook, until you have them all in place, with the last light at the end of the last lower metal arm. Wind the wire as much as you need to make the distance between lights correct. Bend the wire in half just past each led light and work your way to the next light position. When finished it should look like the photos below.

Using thin white thread (which I think works better than fishing line), and a beading needle (a sewing needle eye is too big for the seed beads), start stringing small clear glass seed beads and 3mm crystal rondelle beads on your chandelier, draping between the arms. I used the clear glass seed beads as spacers between the crystal faceted rondelle beads to reduce the cost, so I could add lots beads for a totally decadent look. From the bottom I also hung champagne colored tear drop crystal beads. As I went, I wrapped and tied the thread around the wire armature in inconspicuous places and adhered with a drop of tacky glue.

For my room box, I cut a slot in the ceiling and fed the battery pack through to the top. I created a medallion out of a toy capsule top with lace and jewelry findings glued on it, and painted it white to put around the place where the wire goes through the ceiling. You could also buy a medallion to use. The extra lead wire can be wrapped up with a twist-tie. You could possibly hide the battery pack inside the medallion, but you need access to the on/off switch somehow.

And there you have it – a gorgeous 15 light crystal chandelier for your dollhouse, that costs around $20 in supplies, and many hours of your time. One other thing I’ll mention, is that I glued metal jewelry bead cap findings around each metal armature at the base of each light as decoration, but I don’t recommend it. When the metal from the bead cap touches the wire in the light string, which is not insulated, it causes a short that causes the whole thing to flicker. I’d leave that out in the future.

Good luck with your own dollhouse light chandelier project! If you try this, please share your pictures and experience.

Beach Cottage Room Box Build

I recently invested in a better lighting setup in a vain attempt to make myself a better photographer (similar to the expectation that buying new athletic shoes would somehow make one a better athlete). Nonetheless I bought it, and that created the desire to build a better room box for taking photographs of my miniatures.

With summer drawing to a close, I find myself wanting to capture the essence of a summer beach vacation, so I can hold on to my favorite season a little longer. To that end, I created a beach cottage room box to use for displaying new items that I make. The box has light grey walls and white wainscotting, with a white chair rail and baseboard. The wood plank flooring is made from large craft sticks (I call them tongue depressers) weathered to a lovely grey shade with a vinegar and steel wool solution. The trick to getting that shade is to use the finest grade steel wool and allow the solution to mingle just one day, and not much longer. If you are going to faux age wood, you might as well do a lot of it, so I spent the good part of a day soaking wooden sticks in the solution and spreading them in the sun to dry, then flipping each one to get a uniform color. I aged a bunch of the aforementioned tongue depressors, regular craft sticks (a.k.a. popsicle sticks), as well as 5.5″ and 7″ long coffee stir sticks. The finished floor used a total of 22 tongue depressors, their rounded ends being removed with my small mitre box saw. Slender coffee stir sticks are great for making small wooden crates and picture frames. Craft sticks are good for making other more sturdy furniture, or narrow plank flooring.

The completion of the beach cottage room box inspired me to create original artwork for the wall. I pulled out an old picture that I had sketched over 25 years ago. I was going through a bohemian phase one summer, where I hung out at the UW Union pretending to be a young starving artist (emphasis on pretending), sketching the sail boats and such. The endeavor yielded just one picture that didn’t end up in the trash can: a pencil drawing of sand dunes by the ocean with seagulls flying overhead. And speaking of phases, my cat went through a chewing phase several years later, so the original work has been majorly taped back together. I wondered if I could replicate that picture in 1:12 scale miniature (minus the chew marks). For this I used a very fine leaded mechanical pencil, and a 2″ x 3″ piece of sketch paper. I was quite pleased with the result, so tried a second one – another success that was similar, yet unique. Then I crafted frames from coffee stir sticks weathered grey to match the plank flooring. When I mounted the artwork in my room box, I was very happy to see my vision had come to life. I can’t wait to make some shabby chic/cottage style furnishings worthy of this room box.

How to make doll house corks for very small bottles.

Looking for fun and interesting ways to up-cycle all those wine corks you have been collecting? Sure, you could make a wreath, or a cool steampunk style bottle lamp, with the wine bottle and cork, like the ones I made.

Here’s something new you may not have seen though: You can make tiny 1:12 scale corks for dollhouses and miniature scenes from full size wine corks with a few simple tools.

You will need:

A wine cork
A hobby knife with break-off blade or a razor blade
A 1/4″ or 1/8″ circle hand-held paper punch
work gloves
An emery board or about 100 grit sandpaper

Start by laying the wine cork on its side, and wearing gloves, use your razor blade or craft knife to slice thin (about 1/8″) medallion slices of the wine cork. Slide a cork slice into your paper punch and squeeze strongly to punch out tiny corks. Use your emery board to sand one end of the cork at an angle to push into tiny bottles, or use alone in tiny miniature scenes. Need more explanation? Watch the YouTube video I made:

Making tiny corks from full-size wine corks – A DIY Video Tutorial.

Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPe29Im_xCw

Bonus tip: Cut a slit into a larger cork slice, to use as a table name card or business card stand. Happy crafting!

Miniature 1:12 Scale Pink Yard Flamingos for Dollhouse or Fairy Garden

I sell the miniatures I make on my Etsy site, and one of my most popular items is my miniature pink yard flamingos. I can’t keep up with the demand, so they are always selling out.

Miniature 1:12 Scale Pink Yard Flamingos by Thumbwick Miniatures

They are extremely realistic looking and adorable, if I may say so myself. They are also time consuming to make. I know that I am never going to have a business that pays the bills by selling just them. OK, theoretically, I probably could make about 30 an hour, if I really push it, and do that four hours a day, leaving the rest of my time to actually run my business. Then, assuming they all sold, after expenses, I could actually make enough money to comfortably live on. Very soon though, I would get really tired of making tiny yard flamingos. Making a couple dozen is really run and rewarding, but making thousands of them would be torturous.

So, I decided to create a miniature pink yard flamingo kit to also sell on my Etsy site, for crafty, creative people who would also find it fun to make them. This would also make them more affordable for people, because I don’t have to charge for my own time to paint their tiny beaks and eyes, and attach their metal legs. If someone only has to buy the kit and then invest their own time, then there are more practical uses for the tiny flamingos. They become affordable party favors, stocking stuffers and gift toppers. If the paint is sealed with varnish to make them waterproof, then they can even be washed and used as cake and cupcake decorations.

Miniature 1:12 Scale Pink Yard Flamingos Kit makes 12

When I buy a kit, I like everything I need to be included, so I don’t have to run out and buy this or that additional item. I tried to include everything one would need, but to include a pair of scissors or pliers would make the kit too expensive. I also think most people already own those items. I documented the process very thoroughly with pictures to create instructions which I hope are detailed, yet easy to follow.

Painting the tiny flamingo beaks in yellow

If you do happen to buy my kit, please let me know what you think about it. I’m always trying to improve, so feedback is always welcome.

Miniature 1:12 Scale Pink Yard Flamingos – one pink and one hot pink

Thanks for reading!

Margie

Miniature Yarn Shop Room Box

I really enjoy making miniature room boxes. They allow so much creativity, and present a fun challenge at times. My friend opened a new yarn shop in Neenah, and I wanted to give her something to celebrate the occasion, so I created a miniature yarn shop scene.

This is what the final result looks like.

Tiny 1:12 scale yarn shop filled with goodies

I used her actual shop as the inspiration for my room box.

I spent about 25 hours total on this, I would guess, over the period of several weekends. The box itself is made from basswood and foam core, so it is very lightweight, but also a little fragile. In the future I would still work with basswood, but I think a thicker piece could provide more stability. Still, a thicker piece may not be able to be cut with an Exacto knife, and I found it really easy to work with for cutting out the windows and doors. For the brickwork on the front, I used a hot wire foam cutting tool. I hung the door with tiny hinges, and made the window able to be opened. Both the door and window are made from scratch with basswood, and each part of the frame was cut twice, so I could glue a plexiglass pane in the center. I kind of wish I had added an awning. I think that would have been a nice touch.

Brick and stone are made with a hot foam cutting tool

I also added a battery powered LED light string along the ceiling. The battery pack hangs out the back, where it can’t be seen. I love these little wire strings of LED lights. You can used them for so many things.

I used a piece of dollhouse trim I had leftover to frame the box. The wood flooring is made from coffee stir sticks, cut and glued in a staggered pattern and then stained with Minwax.

The yarn hanks are quite easy and fun to make. I separated the strands of many colors of embroidery thread. I even had some variegated tatting thread colors that I picked up at a yard sale, which were already single strand. I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures, but I will try to explain the process. It is really just a modification on twisting a full-sized skein of yarn into a hank. Check out some of these YouTube videos for an example.

If you grab one strand of the embroidery thread, and pull the others away from it, you can extract one strand quite easily.
Keep pulling until you have the length you want, and then cut.
Now take the strand and wrap it around four fingers, about 10 – 20 times, depending on how thick you want the skein to be.
Pull the loops off your fingers, keeping them in an oval, and pinch one end with your thumb and forefinger.
Put a toothpick inside the other endloop, and twist the whole thing about 7 times until it feels tight, but not too tight.
Fold the twisted skein in half – it will start to twist back on itself – and put the endloop you had pinched over the toothpick, on top of the other endloop.
The trickiest part is pulling the bottom endloop up and over the top endloop, which is why you don’t want to twist it too tight.
Now remove the toothpick, and as you do, pull the bottom endloop completely through the top one. This is what holds the hank together.
Voila! An adorable yarn hank. Then I just made about 50 more of them:-)

UPDATE: I’ve created my very first YouTube video of my process for making miniature yarn hanks. Check it out here: Miniature 1:12 Scale Yarn Hank Tutorial.

The only items that aren’t handmade, are the miniature spinning wheel, the clock (which is the face of a really cool wristwatch, and I fashioned a wire stand on the back), and the tiny coffee mug, donuts and croissant on the coffee table, which I bought from another artisan.

Knitting on tiny needles made from toothpicks is quite a challenge.

I do have some pictures of making the chair, but I think I will save that for a separate post. If you like what you see or have any questions on how I made something, please leave a comment, and I will try to review it in a timely manner – but make no promises;-) I would however, love to see some actual legitimate comments on my posts, as opposed to the endless stream of spam nonsense comments that I continually have to delete. Really, what is that about anyway? Is there some big money to be made by posting gobbledy-gook comments on blog posts?? But, I digress… I hope you enjoyed seeing my minature yarn shop roombox.

If you are interested in seeing my handmade miniatures that I have for sale, please visit my Thumbwick Miniatures Etsy shop.

Thanks for reading!

Margie

Miniature Dollhouse Potted Herb Plants in Wooden Crate Tutorial

This tutorial will tell you how you can make a 1:12 scale miniature pair of potted rosemary and chamomile plants in a wooden crate, like the one pictured here. I apologize in advance, because my pictures are not great. I know that, and I’m trying to improve, but tiny items are difficult to photograph clearly. Please remember that this is not a tutorial on taking great pictures. It most definitely is not.

Here is a list of things you will need:
– Polystyrene foam microbeads – smallest you can find like around 1 mm in diameter works best (like the kind used in floam). I found some on Etsy.
– Green jute twine (or natural color and you can paint it green). I found this at Dollar Tree.
– Green embroidery floss
– Reindeer moss (I found this at Dollar Tree too)
– White glue (like Elmers)
– Sawdust (I got some off my husband’s workroom floor)
– White tissue paper
– Approximately 1/4″ mini flower punch (I used the Mini Daisy punch by Punch Bunch)
– Acrylic craft paints in purple, yellow, black and brown
– Paper cups and plates
– Needle or straight pin
– Floral foam (optional)
– 5 1/2″ wood coffee stirrers with flat ends, not rounded, or you can cut the ends off flat (I got 1,000 of these on Amazon)
– Miniature pots (buy these or try to make your own if you are feeling extra crafty – here’s a tutorial to make cute ones out of paper – http://1inchminisbykris.blogspot.com/2010/04/paper-pottery.html). I also have the mini terracotta pots pictured available on my Etsy site.

To make the soil:
Put about 1/8 – 1/4 cup of sawdust in a small paper cup. Add a couple drops of black and brown paint and mix it thoroughly with a coffee stirrer or other wooden stick. You don’t want to make it too saturated, just color it all a nice dirt color. Then spread it out on a paper plate to dry.

To make the rosemary flowers:
Put a small handful of foam microbeads in a paper cup. Add a couple drops of purple paint and mix it thoroughly with a wooden stick. When all the beads are colored, spread them out on a paper plate to dry. While they dry, occasionally stir them so they don’t all clump together. These will be your flower buds.

Separate the strands of a 2″ piece of green embroidery floss. With your fingers, coat each strand with white glue and lay to dry on a piece of wax paper. Wipe your fingers frequently to they don’t stick to your fingers. Move them around so they don’t stick in place while they dry. They should end up kind of stiff, but not “globby” at all. These are your flower stems.

Coat about 1/4″ of the end of each flower stem with white glue. Then roll it around in the purple painted foam beads. Lay these aside to dry, or you can poke a hole with a pin in floral foam and stand them up to dry. Make several of these. When dry shake off any loose beads.

Pick through the reindeer moss to find the best pieces that are kind of sprawly and bushy – don’t know how to describe this, but look for the pieces that look most like rosemary foliage. Get about 3 or 4 good ones for each plant you want to make. Trim your flowers (3 look nice) to the desired height and add to the middle of the moss. Glue the whole bunch together at the base with white glue, squeezing together with your fingers. Let dry.

Thin some white glue with water to work with it easier. Smear the inside of your clay pot with the diluted white glue and fill with your newly made soil. Shake out the soil that doesn’t stick in the pot. Put another small glob of glue in the bottom of the pot and glue your flowers and foliage bunch in the middle. Put some more dabs of glue strategically around the arrangement, packing in soil up to the top of the pot. Let this dry.

To make the chamomile flowers:
Put about a dozen or so foam microbeads in a paper cup. You only need one for the center of each flower, so you don’t need many. Color them yellow and dry them in the same process you used above for the rosemary flowers.

Fold your tissue paper 3 layers thick and punch out daisy flowers. Poke a hole in the center of the 3 layer flower with a straight pin. Using the same stems you made above for the other flowers, push the stem barely through the hole in one flower, and secure in place with a dab of white glue. Moisten your finger and pick up just one yellow foam bead and press it onto the dab of glue in the center of your flower on the stem. Lay this aside or stick in floral foam to dry. Make several of these too.

For the chamomile foliage cut a 1 1/4″ piece of green jute twine. Hold the very end and separate and fray the rest of the length of twine, until you have a nice grassy looking clump. Make a few of these for each plant.

Use the same process above to make bunches of foliage and flowers and arrange them in the pot with soil.

To make the wooden crate:

Your dimensions may be different, depending on the size of the pots you use, so adjust accordingly. I pre-aged my wooden coffee stir sticks to give my crates a rustic look, but this is optional. Here are a couple nice tutorials on aging wood using the vinegar & steel wool method, but there are dozens out there if you look: https://www.lilblueboo.com/2014/04/how-to-antique-and-age-wood-instantly-for-a-weathered-look.html Or https://www.thenavagepatch.com/aging-wood-vinegar-steel-wool.

I have found it to be true that the older your vinegar/steel wool solution is, the darker your wood will be. The wood in my crates was treated with a solution aged 24 hours, and painted with black tea before the vinegar solution. It turned a lovely light grey. I tried the same method with the same solution 2 weeks later, and the wood turned a very dark brown.

From your wooden coffee stir sticks, cut 5 pieces 1 1/2″ long, and 4 pieces 7/8″ long. These cut really easily with a pair of scissors, but the end always goes flying off somewhere, and you need to go find it. I’ve lost many pieces in my carpet, which I find later with the vacuum cleaner. So, maybe try to cut them over a box or something.

Lay 3 of the longer pieces flat, horizontally, evenly spaced out to cover 7/8″ wide. Take two of the shorter pieces, and place them at either of the short ends, perpendicular to the bottom pieces, on top of the very ends of the bottom pieces. Glue them upright vertically in place with white glue, or if you have wood glue, use that, as it will work even better. Hold them up by sandwiching the whole thing between two small boxes, leaning the vertical pieces just barely against the supports to keep them vertical while they dry. When dry, take two of the longer pieces and glue them vertically along the longer sides, on top of the ends of the two short pieces you just glued. You are staggering them as you build up the sides of the box. Follow the picture as a guide. This isn’t how a real crate is made, because a real crate would have a vertical pieces of wood at each corner that you nail the horizontal sides to, and supports framing the bottom of the crate, but since we are working in miniature, you can skip the corner supports, and it still holds together, and more importantly, looks cute. Now glue your last two shorter pieces vertically upright along the shorter sides, on top of the ends of the longer pieces you glued and let dry. So the shorter ends each have two slats, the longer ends have one slat and the bottom has three slats when finished. Feel free to improve on this design, as I’m sure you can. Square toothpicks might be good to use for corner supports, if you want to make your crates look more detailed and realistic. You could also make tiny dots at the corners with a marker to resemble nail heads.

When everything is dry, place your two pots of flowers in your crate. Step back and admire your creation with pride.