Have bot been able to use my left hand for 5 weeks now. I did manage to find some things I could do with one hand.
One of them was sort out all my boxes of small bits and pieces . I dug up some old hutches and started altering some things and then filling new hutches with stuff I found. I had fun with it and I like to show the results of my one handed crafting just in case there are others who need some inspiration .
Marianne's Miniverse
Welcome to the Miniverse, the little place where I would love to share my love for all things miniature. I hope I can provide some inspiration by sharing my work and telling you how to make minis so you can have your own Miniverse.
Sunday, March 18, 2018
Monday, January 8, 2018
Kitchen renovation
Here is my new kitchen for the kitchen
I turned a simple kitchen into a vignette
Before and after
This is what a friend brought me after a visit to a flea market. A little wooden kitchen.
I had big trouble painting it because the marker dots and strips in the wood kept showing up. In the end I used spray paint. The frame came with it and it was very uneven and no amount of sanding would help.
I covered it with crumpled tissue paper and painted it white.
I wanted it to look like a messy kitchen where there is a lot going on.
The oven is just a picture decoupaged on but with the metal handle and the cloth it looks pretty good.
To get the idea of a sink I glued a small tray filled with dirty dishes where the sink would have been.
I had to have a broken coffee cup for that is a regular thing in my kitchen. I cut up a plastic cup and the coffee is glass paint.
Work in progress trying out different things.
Added crochet potholders and a handmade notice board and lot of stuff from my boxes of mini stuff. I also made some mini bread and veggies.
All finished . It now resides in the kitchen.
Saturday, December 16, 2017
Making a Christmas market stall .
I made this Christmas market stall this week as a donation for the local Hobby Center's Christmas fair. I 'd like to share some tips about how I made this.
I started with this kit from the dollar store, It is basically a MDF kit with decoupage paper to decorate it with. I chose not to use the paper for my stall.
So this is what I started with.
Painted the inside white so it would not be too dark inside .
I did not add the base yet for it would be easier to get into the shop through the bottom to fill it up. I added the shelves and filled them with snowmen and Santa's. Some bought, some that I made myself and some gifts etc.
The snow is powered snow from a bag, glued on the roof and base. The icicles are made from a clear plastic fork. You cut off the tips of the prongs and glue them to the roof. Then apply some clear glue to make them look a little bit irregular like the real thing and you can add some micro glitter as well.
Here it is with everything in place. The base was not included in the kit .But I felt it added a little something.
Hope it will sell at a good price today.
Monday, November 20, 2017
Some pics of new creations in my Etsy shop
Xmas cake : Croque em bouche.
Teddies Christmas
Pink cake on stand.
Ugly sweater bear.
Cold outside : Hibernating bear.
Christmas morning.
Christmas in a jar in different sizes.
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Lovely Christmas scene made by a friend
My friend Phyllis surprised me with this lovely birthday gift. It was the very first time I received a mini scene that was handmade specially for me so it is really special to me.
The pretty box frame is about 8 by 9 1/2 inches so you can imagine how tiny all the items are. Phyllis loves to work in the smaller scales and I am always in awe about her patience.
The wooden items like the planters filled with holiday items are made from incredibly tiny kits by Liz West. The same goes for the reindeer, shelves , penguins and signs . You have to paint all the tiny items yourself !
https://www.taffyandme.com is the link to Liz's website. She has lost the pics of some of her items but she will be happy to share PDF 's if your are interested while she is working on the site.
This photo shows the parts of the planter kits and the wreath.
Some of the decorations on the back wall have been made using shrink plastic. For those who have never tried that : It is a kind of plastic sheet that you can draw on with permanent markers ( some types you can use in a printer too) and color with markers or pencils. The fun thing is, you cut out your drawing and put it in the oven where it shrinks down to a mini version.
https://www.somewhatsimple.com/how-to-print-on-shrink-film/ Is where you will find info on how to print on the shrink film.
https://www.thespruce.com/make-shrink-plastic-crafts-1250705 Is where you will find all you need to know about having fun with shrink plastic.
I think the little scene is a perfect gift for someone who does not have a lot of room for Christmas decorations , perhaps an elderly relative or friend. You can of course make it in any scale you like. A 12 th scale or 24 th scale version would be lovely too or perhaps a micro scale version in a tiny tin .
Hope this will inspire you to make something fun.
And once again: Thank you so much, Phyllis.
Friday, September 15, 2017
Hints
and tips for making potion bottles.
I
love making potion bottles in miniature. Over the years I have tried different
things and will share some hoping to inspire you.
Bottles
You can use any kind of bottle that is small enough. There are ways
to alter the look of your bottles that
you have to deal with before filling the
bottles
. To make your bottles look old try using some sandpaper on them. Be patient and you will see the glass become sort of mat. You can paint over this to add colour
. A frozen bottle can be made using Mod Podge and ultra fine white glitter. Cover the bottle in Mod Podge , sprinkle on the glitter and leave to dry. Different colors of glitter give different effect.
Crumpled tissue paper glued to the bottles with Mod Podge is brilliant too. When the Mod Podge has dried , paint over the wrinkled paper to add some colour and finish with Mod Podge again. If you want to paint on your glass bottles Mod Podge makes a great primer.
On the left the bottle treated with sandpaper on the right one covered with tissue paper and Modpodge.
. To make your bottles look old try using some sandpaper on them. Be patient and you will see the glass become sort of mat. You can paint over this to add colour
. A frozen bottle can be made using Mod Podge and ultra fine white glitter. Cover the bottle in Mod Podge , sprinkle on the glitter and leave to dry. Different colors of glitter give different effect.
Crumpled tissue paper glued to the bottles with Mod Podge is brilliant too. When the Mod Podge has dried , paint over the wrinkled paper to add some colour and finish with Mod Podge again. If you want to paint on your glass bottles Mod Podge makes a great primer.
Filling
the bottle.
Most
potions require some kind of liquid and I have tried different things. Resin
works well but it is too expensive and way too smelly for me to work with. I
read about using clear glue instead to I tried that first.
Must
say the results looked brilliant with the glue adding a lovely shine to my
bottles and showing things like dead bugs,
chopped off heads and other stuff like mosses brilliantly.
But
I dug up the ones I made last year and found there has been magic happening to
my bottles when I was not looking. The glue did dry out in some bottles and
totally changed the way my stuff looked.
Some things like my dried lavender totally changed colour , it is now a bright purple, and there are big bubbles inside the bottle rather than liquid.
Some things like my dried lavender totally changed colour , it is now a bright purple, and there are big bubbles inside the bottle rather than liquid.
It
looks pretty awesome but still it was a surprise. The bubbles happened a lot and did add to the
spooky effect. Some stuff dried out and did look very different but still quite
good, I have taken some pictures to show what they look like.
Some still do like pretty much like they did last year. I have no idea why some changed, some stayed the same and some got really awful So if you want some magic to happen to your bottles I recommend trying the clear glue and leaving them for a while.
I
also tried water which was not a success because even with a glued on cork it
did just disappear.
I
started looking for other recipes and found
that now instead of the clear glue two other products are being used :
liquid soap and hair gel. It is said that these do not dry up and do not change
their appearance.
I
did try a few things but my new bottles are just a few weeks old so I do not
know yet if there will be any magic
happening to them.
I
find the gel is nice to work with because you can make layers of different
colors that will not mix and glitter will
keep floating in it.
There also
are some nice little bubbles that look very good I tried some bits of dried wood and herbs and the gel did get brown within a day so I
guess it will discolor more if you keep it l longer so I think they are not a good choice.
The cleanup of the gel is not fun...........lots of hot water to get rid of it. You can mix the gel with food coloring or paint to get different colour It will not dry out but I think it does shrink a little bit.
The cleanup of the gel is not fun...........lots of hot water to get rid of it. You can mix the gel with food coloring or paint to get different colour It will not dry out but I think it does shrink a little bit.
The
soap looks really nice but glitter and stuff sinks to the bottom right away and
it does also change colour when you put natural materials like dried moss. Of
course this means that you can mix paint
or food colouring into the soap to get fun colours. The paint did not discolour
since I did them , the ones with natural ingredients did become a murky brown.
If
you want to try dried stuff like moss or spices from your cupboard or other
natural items I think it is best not to
put them in any liquid at all. All the things I tried made them get soggy and
nasty looking, the liquid changed colour so much you could not see what was in
the bottles anymore Some looked very gross. Of
course you can go for it if you like that look but I think they look
better as ingredients in bottles so you can see what they look like .
Plastic
ingredients like mini leaves , chopped off heads or limbs, skeletons etc do not
do well in the glue. They sort of start
to dissolve after a while .But they look pretty cool in the gel or soap.
So
now we are ready to make some bottles.
My
magic glue bottles were done with clear all purpose glue. Best to put all the
ingredients in first and then fill the bottle slowly with glue. You can use a
skewer or a pin to rearrange them if needed.
For the swamp water I used some moss from the garden and some little
stones. The rest is magic.
.. The ocean potion was done with the same moss, some tiny shells and a little bit of light blue paint mixed into the glue. One dried out and looks magical the other one did not change at all so I have two different versions of the ocean one. The one on the left is the one I made this year with liquid soap.
.. The ocean potion was done with the same moss, some tiny shells and a little bit of light blue paint mixed into the glue. One dried out and looks magical the other one did not change at all so I have two different versions of the ocean one. The one on the left is the one I made this year with liquid soap.
Lavender
and dried herbs from the kitchen were added to other bottles once again some
changed colour and got big bubbles inside. Some just changed colour . So the
result will be a surprise.
The
witch hazel bottle is filled with hair gel. I added some very fine
branches from a bunch of dried flowers
and plastic leaves. Just push them into the gel and they will stay in place
which is awesome. I made one with soap and the branches were fine but the
leaves did sink to the bottom.
Hair
raising potion was done with hair gel again. I put the head in first and then
filled the bottle with gel. The hair is doll hair ( you can use any type of
nylon hair) that I pushed into the gel. I glued some to the top of the bottle
before I put the cork in.
I
am just giving some basic ideas here for I am sure you will come up with lots
of stuff yourself.
Decorating
the bottles is great fun too. There are tons of great labels to be found on
Pinterest. I did not add them too all the bottles for I wanted you to
be able to see the contends . Twine,
beads etc are great decorations as well as little bits of the stuff you used
inside the bottle . Like some little leaves or a bit of hair etc.
Hope you will have lots of fun making these.
Hope you will have lots of fun making these.
Monday, August 21, 2017
My holiday in a tin.
No trip for me this year so I had to find something else to get some of that holiday feeling. I saw a beach scene in a tin and that inspired me. Just a beach is not enough for me so I added a bit of landscape as well. Here is how I did it.
This is the tin I used, It was the only kind I could find around here. There were tiny sweets in it. The size is very nice to work with 6 cm by 3 cm. But the tin is really very shallow : just 1 cm deep. That leaves very little room for the stuff to go inside. I actually broke the hinge trying some things for size. So if you can find a deeper tin go for it.
Here is step 1 : trying out the clay that will become the beach base. You can use any type of clay . I used air drying clay because I happened to have some but you can use Fimo and bake the whole thing.
Step 2 .When the clay was dry I painted it a very pale sand colour and sprinkled some sand on it. ( use craft sand or bird cage sand). I painted the see area in acrylic paints. Used blue and white. the sea is lighter in color near the beach so that will give the best look. Paint the sea with Mod Podge or varnish for a nice shine.
Step 3 . I added some white mini pebbles to the right hand top corner and some plants to the open space at the left. I used bits of plastic plants, and model rail road moss.
Step 4 . Added a little hint of pink paint to the pebbles and added some tiny bits of the green stuff to them to make them look more interesting.
Now for the landscape in the lid. I printed 4 copies of the photo I found on line ( Passport photo size) . One copy was cut to fit inside the lid and glued in place with Mod Podge.
I cut out the pergola with the flowers twice and also the chairs and table in the front. I know the chairs are not very visible but they do add some depth to the whole thing. I added double sided foam tape to the back of the pergola cuttings and layered them on top of the pergola in the lid.
I used one of the set of chairs and table to do the same thing. From the second part I only used the backs of the chairs so they would stand out more.
Added some green moss like stuff ( in the bag on the right of the photo available at Minikitz .com) add some details to the landscape. I also used flower foam to make the flowers stand out more. I just glued it on top of the flowers in the picture.
Finishing touch were some bits of flower foam in various colors to give the idea of flowers and some gravel to create a little path to the beach.
Had a lot of fun creating this little holiday for me. Hope it will inspire you too.
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