About Me

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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

May 19, 2014

BEACH BAR/RESTAURANT/SHOP : Making items for the beach shop

Hi again

Before I start with a new mini project, and once I've decided what it's gonna be of course, the first thing I do is trying to get ideas on what I'll need for my projects and most of all, on how I can make the items myself

Since one part of my double project here is a beah shop, I needed to gather some ideas what I'd like to sell in that shop, what kind of items people who spend their day on the beach, might need.

So I thought it might be nice to have a few kites to sell, I guess a few kids would want to have one to play with on the beach


Here's a picture of the finished shop, with the kites neatly displayed on the side


I also made a few wind mills, which is always a nice thing to have for the kids when spending a day on the beach. After I finished them, I put some polymer clay in a bucket and glued them into it. Just added a little glue on top and put some sand on it. I thought this would be a cute way to display them in my shop


Here's to show you the size of the windmills


This next picture shows them inside the finished shop


Right now I'm working on making body boards, one is finished, 
the other one's have to be painted yet. 



I made more, and they are hanging on the back wall of the shop, so that customers can see them and choose one.


I made this little rack in order to display my hats and beach bags, all made by me of course


As you can see in the finished shop, it has found it's place on the front porch, so that the ladies can choose a hat or a beach bag before even entering the shop

Well thought 👻👻👻


Here's the wicker chair I made, it sits on the front porch of the shop, just behind the girl sitting there with her dog


Below is a closer view of the beach bags I made

 

I even made sets : Swimming suit, Bag and Flip Flops



The ideas of items to make for my shop just kept flowing 
I had these little boxes, which I just pimped a bit by adding a coat of paint and an anchor and filled them, in this case with sea stars and beach balls for the kids


At some point, I needed to find a place for the furniture and all the items I made, since this shop is a small kit and has only limited space available
So I put in some of the furniture, moved it around (more than once, believe me, I stopped counting)


Same with the items I made and/or the things that were supposed to fill the shelves


Here are the flip flops I made for my shop, you can see them in the green shelf in the picture above


This is one of the first versions, but you'll see that everything has been changed again once you'll look at the pictures of the finished project


This is a little sign I made with the name of the shop "DeeDee's Beach Shop
The palm tree and the dolphin are made from a simple punch


I found a website who sells real lifesize gardening items, but lucky for me, they also had a few miniature items, like these buckets, made of wood and some metal for the hinge
I just had to paint them, added a few flower decals and now I can sell them as beach buckets in my shop


Of course, I needed swimming caps too .... some of the older ladies don't like to get their hair all wet


I made wind brakers too, nicely displayed in a basket in front of the shop
I also made a few beach mats and since I had no basket to fit them in, I simply made one




I decided I'd offer a glass of champagne to all the customers on the day of the grand opening, so I made another champagne cooler


These flatable beach mattresses are simply made with straws 
Easy Peasy