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I've been into dollhouse miniatures since the early 1990's now and when I realized how much I've learned during that time, I thought I'd make a blog to share my knowledge with others. I'm mostly auto-deduct, but always found help on the Internet and in specific books. The mini-world starts and ends with your own imagination, so let there be no limit. And never say : I CAN'T .... because you can, you just need to try and have the necessary know-how. And that's the main reason why I started this blog, because I wanna share what I know with newbies in the miniature world or anybody else who might be interested in sharing what I've learned so far. So, hopefully, I'll be able to provide some useful hints, tips and tricks for those of you out there just starting with this wonderful hobby

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Blog Archive

March 18, 2014

TUTORIAL on how to make the wine/champagne glasses


A few of you have been asking me to make a quick tutorial on how I made my wine and champagne glasses and so, here it is. It as a very easy project, even for beginners, you'll just need patience and a steady hand :-)

It as a very quick tutorial, so if you're missing anything, tell me and I'll try to be more specific.

Here's a list of the materials you'll need (see pic below)

* a piece of mirror or anything else you'd like to use to make a tray to display your glasses
* empty gel capsules (these are size 0, but I think smaller one's will even be better to get the correct dollhouse size 1:12)
* tweezers
* super glue
* round bead caps (about 5 mm)
* ear stud flat pads (you should be able to finds those either on etsy.com or in any shop selling jewellry making items)
* small christal beads in different sizes and shapes
* self adhesive gold stickers (available at most hobby and craft stores) you have to make sure to get those with a very small trim
* optional : other jewellery items to make the base


In the following pics, the process on how to make finish the glasses is explained

STEP 1 : take one half of your gel capsule, hold it with your tweezers and glue the tiny god trim all around the top; it should hold since these are self adhesive, but if it doesn't, use a tiny tiny little drop of glue (apply it with a needle, otherwise it will be too much and your capsule will probably be spoiled)


STEP 2 : Glue the bead cap to the bottom of the capsule and LET DRY !!! this is very important


STEP 3 : In the meantime, take the flat ear stud pad and glue 1 christal bead to it (to make higher glasses, you can use one like this and a smaller one on top) ...... if you wanna give it a little more hold, use one very tiny bead on top (see picture below)


STEP 4 : take another bead cap and glue it on top of your base


If you did everything right, it should look like this (the bead cap on the base is the other way around than the one in the gel capsule, this is to give it better hold)


ONCE EVERYTHING IS REALLY DRY AND DOES NO LONGER MOVE WHEN YOU TOUCH IT, you can glue both parts together. This is the tricky part, because you have to make sure to hold it down gently until the glue has set, otherwise, it will probably either fall of or at least go down one side.


I hope you'll enjoy making this little project
Have Fun
Dany


March 17, 2014

DIY : Miniature iPad


Hi everyone

The Mini iPad :-)  
was fun to make and a really quick project

I do need some more practice and I'm pretty sure the next one's will look better, but still, I felt like sharing this anyway


In fact, I simply went to the website of APPLE and used the pics of the front and the back of the iPads (just copy/paste)

I transferred them into PAGES (I'm a Mac User, if you have Windows, either WORD or POWER POINT will do just fine) and scaled them down to 1:12, printed them on glossy photo paper and cut them out.

To make the body of the iPad, I used a tiny piece of very thin balsa wood and you can either paint it or use self adhesive glossy paper, whatever suits you best. If you use paint, you can eventually use a little nail polish to the sides if you want them glossy.

Glue the front and back and you're done ...... just pay attention to glue the back in the correct way, not upside down :-)))) that's what happened to me, so I'm just saying .... hehe

This was my first try, not yet perfect, I know, but the one's I made later looked better, just needed some practice, lol

have fun
See ya
πŸ‘€πŸ‘€

BEACH BAR/RESTURANT/SHOP : The Bar, Work in Progress

Hello my mini friends

As you all know by now, I'm crazy about making almost everything myself
And when I buy a kit and made up my mind what it's going to be, I'm often confronted with the same problem : there's limited space (which is OK), but nothing really fits

This leaves me only 1 option : I have to make the furniture myself

So far, I finished the bar and the counter  this is the one part. I made these doors to look like a door for a refridgerated area, but they don't open, they're just glued on, but it looks really good.
And everything you see here has been made out of scratch


Here's the back of the counter with a printable dishwasher front and more doors to simulate refridgerated areas for drinks to be kept cold.


And here's what it looks like with everything put in place  .......  I haven't finished coloring the bar stools though, sorry about that


Stay tuned for more

See ya
πŸ‘€πŸ‘€πŸ‘€

DIY : Making a wine cooler for my beach bar


Hi there

I'm actually still working on my double project, the beach restaraunt with bar and the beach shop
Since there is always very limited space in these kits, you have to be imaginative in order to fit everything you want and need into that space

After I finished the bar and the counter, made of scratch, I saw that there was an empty space right under the stairs which I could use ..... but for what ?????

HM HM HM ..... thinking, thining

πŸ˜„πŸ˜„πŸ˜„πŸ˜„

and there it was : the idea of making a little fridge, wine cooler .... I mean, this is a bar and restaurant and it's on the beach, so we will definitely need somethig to keep our drinks cool

Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures durint the making process, so sorry about that, but let me try to explain how I made it, since it's a very easy project.

First, take your wine bottles or anything you wanna put inside that little cooler/fridge on order to make sure that they'll fit in the end.

Of course you'll also need to measure the space where it is supposed to stand, and in my case, the space was very limited here under the staircase.

To begin with, I always draw some kind of draft on a piece of paper with all my measurements on it

Once you've got all your measurements, start to cut out. I used balsa wood here, about 3-4 mm thick is OK for this kind of project. For the front, I used the cover of a plastic packaging, but if you don't want that, you can simply use a wooden front with no see-through option.

Before gluying it all together, I used self adhesive glossy paper to cover all the balsa wood pieces.
The handle was a leftover from a previous project, but if you don't have any, you can make one quickly with some polymer clay and beads f.ex.

Be careful what kind of glue you're using because this glossy paper doesn't like to get "in touch" with most glues ..... I used UHU here, but still, you'll have to make sure to use very little glue.

Do NOT YET glue the front, first we need to fill the cooler !!!!

To make the differents compartments inside, I simply used balsa wood which I painted silver and then added the bottles. They are all glued together, otherwise the would never stay in place.

Of course you can make a version with an opening front if you like, just need to add hinges. But in my case, since the cooler would be standing under the stairs and would be difficult to reach, I decided to make a "front closed" version


As you can see in this picture, the problem with self adhesive paper is that sometimes, there are bubbles, but these are easy to get rid off ..... just use a needle and stick in right into the bubble, it'll go away, I promise

πŸ˜‡πŸ˜‡πŸ˜‡


Here is is .... reachable for the bartender who's gonna need it of course

I hope you liked this little project, if you want to try it out, feel free to get in touch 
should you have any questions

Sometimes my explanations are a somewhat vague, I know
I'll try to make better next time, promise

See ya
πŸ‘€πŸ‘€πŸ‘€

DIY : Shabby Chic toiletries and shopping bags

Hello everyone

This post is about more DIY items as you might have guessed already

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Since I think about making a shabby chic project,
I thought that some nice toiletries would come in handy.

These 2 bags and the soap box were made out of a kit I purchased from PAPERMINIS (http://paperminis.com), but honestly I think I'm quite able to make those myself. Nevertheless, they are very nice and absolutely perfect for someone who doesn't want to fiddle around on the computer/printer to make them.

It's worth taking a look at the website, they have a lot of wonderful minis for beginners and more experienced miniaturists ...... all it takes is a lot of patience of course :-)

I made a few other items with gel capsules, like the 2 bottles on the little tray.

Oh and if you're ever asked yourself how these beautiful toiletries are made, please check out the following blog


Lisa was so very kind and posted a complete tutorial about how to make these and I will give it a try, that's for sure

Thanks a lot Lisa





Another way to make these beautiful bottles (which I also found over PINTEREST), is to use the empty gel capsules and fill them with melted window gels (coloured) and melted candle wax ..... I haven't tried it yet, but I guess it will be a bit of a messy job ...... I'll let you know :-)

If you make it right, this is what they should look like ....... fantastic, aren't they .

I borrowed this pic from the following blog, it's not my work !!! .... just to show you what I mean



Check out my other posts about the gel capsules

See ya
πŸ‘€πŸ‘€πŸ‘€

A FEW DIY MINIS ....... THIS AND THAT (part 2 : champagne and wine glasses)

Wine and Champagne Glasses ........ made with swarovski crystal beads, earring parts and transparent gel capsules

It was a challenge to make those, I have to admit that and again I have to say, this was my first try, so they don't look perfect yet

As you can see, there's one that just wouldn't hold still while I tried to glue the top to the base and it fell a little to one side, but nevertheless, the entire project didn't turn out so bad after all

For more details, I added a few pics on how I made the glasses, but feel free to get in touch should you have any questions ..... this blog is about getting people together who love miniatures and I mostly made it to share what I know with others

email me at : dmzminiatures@gmail.com

or check out the post : TUTORIAL on how to make the champagne and wine glasses

:-))