My pincushion doll .

Once upon a  time I saw photos of  antique and vinatage  pincushion dolls and  I just fell in love with them and  knew I had to have one.  Sadly they were way beyond my budget so I started looking for a pattern to make one myself.. I was not very succesful but I did realise that I could perhaps do one in crochet .  And when I think crochet it is usually mini crochet.

I am still pretty pleased with the pattern I designed and the way it turned out. She really looks well standing on the table next to the sewing basket., does not she ?

American Miniaturist did publish my pattern for this little darling in issue 81. So if you want to make one yourself  try contacting them for a back issue.  She is done in tatting thread and I used a 0,60 cm crochet hook.

In this photo she is standing next to my crochet hook and the  ball of thread I used.

Yes I did make the tiny pins with the colored heads too.

 And here she is at work !

More about mini cards

 There are a lot more ways of making mini greetings cards so today I am sharing a few more tips with you.

Cupcake cards are very popular now and they are such fun to make.  Look for some nice paper with a cupcake design on it. The best kind is paper with lots of different cakes that are small enough to fit on your cards. That way you can make tons of different cards  using the same ingredients.

There are lots of ways to make these cards.

  The easiest version is just cutting the whole card out of the printed paper. I did that for the second one from the bottom.


If you feel a bit more like fiddling cut out one of the cakes and glue them to the front of a card.  If you use colors that go will together this will look awesome.  The third card from the bottom was done this way.

But you can take it one step further and cut out your cake motive two times. So you have two cakes that are the same. If you use a tiny piece of double sided foam tape you can actually make a 3D cake on your card. If you happen to have some Mod Podge  Dimensional or some clear nail polish you can paint some parts of your cake like the fruit and make it stand out even more.


The cake at the bottom of the card holder and the chocolate heart card were done this way.

How I made the mini cards

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For the cardmakers room I needed lots of cards. Because  I love  card making I did not want to use the cut out printies you often find in magazines  or on line.  You can use them for they are really nice but I wanted   real handmade  cards.

It is actually easier to do than you might think. I made the square cards 1 cm by 1 cm because that was esay to cut. But size it does not really matter much  for cards come in all shapes and sizes. 

The paper you use is important. I found printer paper was too thin and the paper I use for full scale cards was too thick. The solution ?

The envelopes that come with the card blanks you buy are perfect.  If you are not a card maker , recycle old envelopes.  An added bonus is that the envelopes often have a different color on the inside. So you can add more interest to the cards by using that effect and you have two kinds of paper for the price of one . Love a bargain like that !

In the top  photo you will see different techniques I used : Decoupage, nail art stickers, 3 d decoupage, and fabric decoupage.

Nail art is a geat way to begin making mini greetings cards. You can find all kinds of tiny stickers at dollar stores and drug stores.  I really like the tiny white flowers. They look like embossed paper on the cards. Handle them carefully because they tend to break when you lift them off the sticker paper but other than that it is really easy.

There are also flat stickers, little jewels and many other things that will work for your cards.

The next thing I tried was paper decoupage. You will need to find tiny pictures for this. I ended up scanning a sheet of  3 D decoupage pictures  I had and printing them  in the smallest size my printer would do.  All I had to do  then was  cut out the pictures.  At first I used the whole image on the cards. Then   I started adding the little bows and things.  The next step was cutting out parts of the pictures and decoupaging them to the cards. I used Mod Podge and it really worked well.

Different decoupage  cards ready for sale.

My card makers workroom

I had been planning to show this here for a long time. But I just felt too sad  whenever  I saw the photos. I made this a few years back  as an homage to one of my none mini hobbies : Making Greetings Cards.

When the scene which is  inside a book was finished,  I donated it to a Charity so they could sell it at their Christmas Fair. I do not know what happened but the scene disappeared just before the sale. I was told it was stolen . I still feel sad about it going missing. I hope it has not just been thrown out and that whoever has it now is enjoying it.

Anyway I still got some photos of it. I am planning to share the techniques I used to make the mini cards  here. So watch this space !

Found some old photos

 Found some old photos of a project I did years ago. I was pleased to see it again and to be able to share it . The name of the scene was "  Sister  outing  "  I wanted to show an Edwardian girl taking her little sister out for a little outing.

I designed the pattern for the girls dress and hat. It is   done in crochet. I used vintage lace for the decoration. Sadly I do not have a photo that shows the whole dress.

The baby gown and bonnet are also my own design.  They are knitted in DMC tatting thread.  I have lost  the pattern . Must try to do something similar some time soon.

I also desigend and knitted the little blanket for the pram. The pram is a Heidi Ott pram that I covered in hat straw because I prefered the look of wicker and the inside has silk  and vintage lace.

Having fun with things from my stash

I am sure everyone has a stash of mini treasures. Things you recieved as gifts , bought or made yourself but that never really got used in any of your projects.  I love to go over my stash every now and then collect items that fit into  a theme and do a little project with them.



This time I used a hutch that a friend painted for me years ago and it  I put all kinds of things that said kitchen to me.  I am pretty pleased with the result.



I did glue all the items into the hutch because I want to be able to take it with me and show it to some friends. But I used photo glue so I can remove everyhting if I should ever want to do so.


Friends suggested I should offer the hutch for sale. So I am going to give it a try. If you are interested please contact me.

My granddaughter made a dollshouse

I just have to share this with all of you .

Using just a box and some very basic tools , paper and paint my granddaughter Vanessa made this lovely dollshouse with a tiny bit of help from Nana.

It is her very first dollshouse and Nana is very proud of her.  Is it  not it just lovely ?
Now of course we need to get her a real dollshouse   so she can show off more of her talents.