A little shop that sells Sea shells

I wanted a  place where I could show off some of the tiny sea shells from my collection but it had to be small  and take up now room whatshowever. That is how  She Sellls Sea Shells was born.

It is a wall hanging shop that is only about 3 inches deep.

I bought a cheap picture frame ( thrift shop)  with the glass  and a wooden back to get started with.

I had seen the idea ( I cannot remember where, sorry) of making a shopfront by gluying the wood parts to a piece of glass so I would not have to add glass behind the door and window  and I would not have to do any real building.

I took the frame apart so I could use the wood for my shop.  

This shows the idea of gluing the wood part to the glass. I used a ready made door frame and window frame and some odd  pieces of wood and strips from the picture frame for mine but this gives the idea.

While the glue was drying I made a frame to add behind the front to create a little bit of depth for the shop. This was going to be finished with  the wooden  back of the window frame later.

To give the idea of there really being a shop I added some glass shelves behind the window. I also put wallpaper on the wood for the back of the shop and I painted the inside of the wooden frame to make sure it would look nice when you looked through the windows.

I painted the outside of the shop in a soft colour that would match the shells. For the stone parts I started with gluing on crumpled tissue paper.  The woodwork was painted with a brush  while the brick was sponge painted with white and the pink color.

 You have to fill the shop before adding the back which feels a bit odd.  I learned that it is very important to glue everything down  very well and check a few times before you add the back !

For sale  are little shell pictures that I made myself. Some paintings made from printies I found on the net.  The two boats came from broken ships in bottles that I got for free at the thrift shop.  The lovely shell decorations outside and   behind the door where vintage brooches  that I found at a fleamarket.

 There are lose shells and the little mermaid was once a Barbie pencil topper.  Her tail is stiffened fabric  painted and decorated  and she also got a bit of a make over.

I left the whole thing for a few days to see if I liked it and then I took the final steps.

   I glued the shop front to the frame and the back behind the frame and I felt very pleased when it all fitted and looked good.

 When all the glue had dried , I added the pavement  as well just to make it feel like the shop was not floating but standing.

Make a lovely dress from vintage lace by adding a bit of crochet.

What you need :

 A doll for  or dress form to fit the dress on. You can make the dress to go on the doll but I wanted mine to go on a hanger. I used a girl doll but you can use a baby or even a lady doll you will just have to adjust the sizes.

A piece of lace that will be long enough to make the skirt and wide enough to fit around the waist of your doll twice.

Thin crochet thread in a color to match your lace. I used DMC fil dentelles and a 60 mm crochet hook for mne,

Sewing needles, pins, tacky glue .

Measure the waist of the doll and make a strip of crochet to fit round it.  Chain enough stitches to fit round the doll and work in single crochet till it is high enough for your doll.  Mine just reaches the arm pits but you can make it higher if you like . I cannot give exact stitches here for it all depends on your model.

Gather your lace using tiny stitches till it fits the bottom of your crochet bodice.

 Sew the lace skirt to the bottom of the bodice.

Close the back seam of the bodic and skirt. I did sew first and then finished the edges of the lace with some tacky glue.

 Ask your model to help you find where the sleeves are going to fit.  Mark the spots where  you want the sleeves. I used thread.

 Attach crochet thread to one of the stitches marked on the front of the bodice.
Chain enough stitches for the sleeve opening and attach the last chain to the corresponding marked stitch at the back of the bodice forming a loop that will fit found the top of the arms of your doll.

Chain 3 and turn work, work 2 double crochet in every stich to create the puff sleeves.
Work a few more rows working 1 dc in every stitch, from now on you can word in the round  till the sleeves are long enough . Leave a long tail  of thread so you can use that to gather and finish the sleeves later.

For the front panel you will have to cut a small piece of lace that will fit  between the sleeves. Look at the photo for reference. Glue in place  with tacky glue. It is a good idea to put a little piece of paper inside the dress so you do not glue front and back together.

 If you like you can do the same thing for the back of the dress as well.

Gather the sleeves and add little bows. Glue a little silk flower to the lace pannel at the front and decorate the skit with silk ribbon bows if you like.

Some more candle making. tips

A while ago  I shared my tips for making candles using erasers. Here is a link to that tutorial.

http://herminiverse.blogspot.nl/2014/12/the-easiest-way-to-make-mini-candles.html

When I bought some new pens today I noticed that the protective caps fit my little candles perfectly. So tons of  new ways to use my candles. I used a pink cap for this photo because it shows up better. But you can use any color you like, clear ones look brilliant too. I added a bow and some  ittle flowers to make it into a little arrangement to go on a table.

On the bottom shelf ( right) you will see a similar cap with a little picture decoupaged  on it . It looks a bit religious now. I added a similar picture to a candle as well.

Then I played with some candles and plates. Glued the candles to the plates and decorated around them with some sand and tiny shells.

I wanted to try and fill a shell with some wax as well and turn it into a candle. Instead of the wax I used tacky glue. Much easier and less risk of burns .

The cups ar done in the same way. Here is how it works :

Select a cup ( any kind you like )  or whatever other container you feel like using. You will also need a cotton thread for the wick.

Glue the wick to the bottom of your cup at the center. Leaving a long tail. Leave to dry for a while and then fill up the cup with Tacky glue

Leave to dry at least overnight. Glue will shrink quite a bit so you may have to top it up with glue  one more time. Check that the wick is upright !!

The dried glue will become clear so you will see the color of your cup. If you want to have colored wax just paint the top with some glass paint or nailpolish. Cut the wick to the right size.

A souffle that will not flop.

Soufflé that will hold its  shape.

 This is a very easy  recipe using foam board and amber colour glass paint  as  basic ingredients.  For the soufflé use the thickest foam board you can find. The thicker the foam the higher your soufflé will be.

You will also need :

A soufflé dish.

Please note that it is very important that you use the soufflé dish  to make the circle with when you cut the round shape out of the foam board or your soufflé may not fit.

 Oil pastels or chalk in a pastry color. You can use watercolors but I prefer the more subtle shades of the chalks or pastels

Take your souffle dish , hold it upside down and press it gently into the foam board   making  sure  to flatten the foam  as little as possible for with  a soufflé it is the higher the better ! 

Use a knife to remove the round shape for your souffle from the foam board.

Colour your soufflé with the oil pastels . Just rub the pastels or chalk into the foam board. If you like you can use water colors as well . It may help to use a moist brush to apply the pastels or chalk, 

When you add the colouring  use a just a little bit of colour or your soufflé will look burned. 

When the soufflé is dry after colouring, you can glue it into the dish. Leave alone till the glue has dried.

  Then paint the top of your soufflé with a really thin layer of glass paint, it should not be too shiny.  When the paint has dried, you can cut the top ( just a small cut) with your craft knife and slightly open up the cut area to give it that cracked  center  that soufflés often have.   Give the now exposed foam a hint of colour with your oil pastels.

Tip : for an even more  impressive soufflé you can glue two layers of foam board together. But please note that it can take a long time ( like 12 hours) for the glue to dry between the foam board layers.

Icing sugar will   look very good on a soufflé. Use a very  thin layer of  Mod Podge  and sprinkle some   talcum powder over the soufflé. Leave to dry and blow off excess.

An other tip is to cut the top of your soufflé  with a knife in several places  and slightly opening up the cuts.  Use your chalks or pastels to create a little bit of color on the now exposed areas. This will make your soufflé  look a bit more rustic.

I am sure your soufflé with look  awesome and there is no risk at all of it collapsing before you serve it.

Miniature Elsa ( Frozen) cake.

A little friend of mine wanted an Elsa cake for her Birthday and  her mum was quite able to handle that part of the party but when the little girl asked for an Elsa cake for her dollhouse she asked me for help.  So this is what I came up with.

She gave me permission to share the recipe with  you.

Here is what you will need :
A basic cake shape. You can use a piece of dowel or a slice of cork or a foam bead as long as it is round and has  flat  smooth top. I was happy to use the eraser my little friend suggested because it already had a nice blue outside rim that looked like icing.

If you need to paint the blue icing on yours you will need some paint and a brush.

A printed picture of Elsa. I found mine on Pinterest when I looked for bottle top crafts.

Mod Podge and a brush.

Snow paint or caulking or  puff paint.

 Straight pins.

These are the erasers and the pictures I used .

If you need to add the blue icing to the side of the cake I suggest you do that first.

 Use Mod Podge to decoupage the picture on top of the eraser or whatever you are using.
Leave to dry and cut around the edge of the eraser.
Apply a coat of Mod Podge to the top of the picture and leave to dry.

Paint  Elsa's hair  with the snow paint or  your product of choice . Use a straight pin to model the hair a bit. Keep a photo of Elsa handy for reference. Use the pin to make  a pleated pattern where the hair is pleated .  If it does not work right away you can wipe it off because the Mod Podge will protect the picture and try again.  Leave to set.

I had three erasers so we ended up with three cakes. They all turned out slightly different, because the pictures I used where slightly different too.

I finished my cake by adding a few stick on crystals to the top of the cake and some star shaped sequins to the side but that is optional.

Damn spell went wrong .......

At Halloween she did use a shrinking spell just to shrink  herself a little so she would fit into her party dress. But the damn spell went wrong and now  she is  a drop dead gorgeous miniature of herself stuck in her store room trying to un-shrink herself.

She did  try swamp water, ocean juice, Elixer and moonbeams, spells  and many other things but so far no luck. If only she  could get to the spider juice on the top shelve......

The scene is once again set in a book for I do have very little room for minis.  This is a wooden book box that I found at the dollar store. Hope they will have them in stock again real soon.

I used decoupage to decorate the box. Old catalogue pages for the inside and old looking paper for the door and then I added some basic shelves.

For the potion bottles  I used little glass bottles that held nail art stuff. They are very cheap but they come with a plastic stopper instead of a cork so you will have to hide those. I painted some, and replaced some by beads .

For the potions  I will have to give a big thanks to all those people who have wonderful video's on Youtube about making  bottles of potions . They inspired me to use clear glue to fill the bottles with and add things  to that. Paint or food coloring for color and different types of objects etc.

 The witch punch has dried herbs from the kitchen, the skeleton flowers are dried seedpods from the garden ocean juice has food coloring, shells and moss added. Just to give you some idea.

The lovely bottle on the right is actually an earring. The bottle stopper is also the thingy that keeps the earring in place. I added a  plastic ring so it could stand on it's own.

I found  them at a store called Action ( the closest thing we have to a dollar store ) and they were very cheap and available with different colors of glittery stuff inside. 

The witch is a plastic doll I found in a box of plastic toys someone gave me to play with. Come to think of it she might well be Snow White's stepmother..........oh well then I guess this serves her right.

Yummy no bake chocolate cakes

Yummy no bake chocolate cakes.

Ingredients :

Foam beads

Acrylic paints in chocolate colors

Miniature gravel

Tacky glue

Also needed :

Piece of glass and a straight blade.

Optional decorations :

Nail art orange slices
Micro beads




The main ingredients for these cakes are foam beads and acrylic paints.  For those who are not familiar with foam beads : they are biggish beads made out of foam  for kids to play with. I buy mine at the dollar store. If you cannot find the beads try pieces of dowel or corks instead.

When you buy the beads it is a good idea to check for different sizes and shapes. The holes will be covered with the decorations .


For the chocolate I used acrylic paints. A dark brown will be fine. For white chocolate you can use a cream color and if you want milk chocolate you can use a mid brown color.




The first step is to paint your foam beads a chocolate color. The good news is that the foam is really easy to paint. 
Now we have our plain chocolate cake we can have fun decorating.







 The first  two cakes have a thin layer of chocolate wrapped around them  and they also have chocolate shavings and curls.  They may look complicated but they are really easy to make.

You will need : acrylic paints, a piece of glass or a small mirror and a straight blade. 




Apply a thickish  coat of paint to  your glass. Do not make it too neat, some wrinkles will just look awesome. Leave to dry and forget about the whole thing for a few hours.

Use the straight blade to gently scrape the chocolate layer off the glass.  No need to panic if you get some small bits too , they are the perfect chocolate shavings. If you make some  long  narrow  strips  you can use them to make chocolate curls later.

Take a large  piece of chocolate , wrap around your cake and glue in place. If you do not have one piece that is big enough do not worry, no one will notice when  you patch smaller bits together. If you prefer you can even do just small bits around the whole cake. 

I like it when the chocolate wrinkles and tears a little here and there , somehow it looks more realistic that way.






You can buy very fine gravel for dolls house gardens. I often use this stuff in my cake decorating. Cover the top of the cake in glue and spread on the gravel.

The photo below shows  the same cake decorated with different materials:
Ribbon and micro beads, pink mini berries, chocolate curls and orange slices from a nail art cane.

I  made a variation on this cake and tied a ribbon round it. And I replaced the orange slices with micro beads.









The rose cake 

Ingredients:
Painted foam bead
Chocolate colored paint
Chocolate curls  
A ready made flower. I used a  cold porcelain rose that I bought.




This is the basic chocolate covered bead again but this time I did add an extra layer of chocolate icing. I used a palette knife to apply a nice layer of brown acrylic paint for that.

I had saved some long strips of the chocolate we made on the glas and I used some of those to make some nice chocolate curls for the top of this cake. Just fold and shape the long strips into nice curls and glue them on top of he cake 
The finishing touch is the rose or any other flower of your choice.

From left to right : Heartshaped cake, variation on cake one, rose cake.

The heart shaped cake.

This cake is made in the same way . I also added the chocolate curls but the rose got replaced by some gold micro beads I found with the nail art stuff at the dollar store.



The Chocolate mousse cake .

Ingredients :
Foam bead,  iced as before in the color of your choice.
Chocolate shavings like we made before.
Plastic sheet (mica)
Acrylic paint your choice of color
Hair elastics ( tiny rubber bands)
Tacky glue
Plastic flower





I wanted  chocolate to wrap around this cake that could be glued on really neat and tidy and would not break or crackle like the one we did before.

A sheet of thin plastic (myca) painted with chocolate colored paint  works really well.




When the paint has dried you can cut the plastic into strips that fit around your cake.  A nice extra is that you can use both sides of the strip.  The side that you painted will be look  more like chocolate icing while the other side will be like a smooth chocolate with a nice shine to it.

Apply tacky glue to can and wrap your chocolate round the cake.  One or two hair elastics will keep it in place till the glue has dried.

Decorate your cake with the chocolate shavings. I also added a small plastic flower that  I painted a nice chocolate color.

Cakes on my desk waiting for the photo. I did add some (talcum powder) icing sugar to some of them.




Tip :
If you have some paper punches you can punch shapes out of the chocolate covered plastic sheet for cute chocolate decorations for your cakes !