Accessories: books

You can buy miniature book kits online which provide fillers and thinly cut leather. Some of the books are made from paper with opening pages, some from wood. They look very effective when gold or black ink is added to the cover and spine.

Bedroom: clown soft toy

A lady from the dolls house club gave me a kit to make a miniature clown. Very fiddly to make but he is really lovely.

Dolls' House Club: stool and some great buys

We each made a stool at dolls' house club this week, using wood, cocktail sticks and some dyed aida. It looks great in the kitchen but I took the picture in the bathroom as the lighting is better.

I picked up some bargains from the 'sale' table: a set of screens for the bedroom and a copper water urn. I also bought (not pictured) three empty plant pots which will come in very useful for the plants I plan to make soon.

Shop: packaging

Some bits of brown tissue paper, cut and folded sharply, then glued, make great little bags to hang off the counter using a short loop of thread. The printed bag was a cut-out from a dolls' house magazine. I added some pink tissue paper and some gold handles using wrapping bits that I've kept from Christmas.

Flowers: red roses

I made the roses from a kit from Ladies Mile Miniatures. Clear instructions helped and everything seems to be in the pack that's needed, apart from the usual tweezers, scissors, pins and other tools. You also need a mousemat type of fabric to help push a shape through the leaves to give them a rounded appearance. The kits are about £5 each and there are 12 roses in this one, with ribbon and leaves, though I've made only six so far.

The kit:

Instructions:

 

Mid-creation:

More Christmas decorations

A lovely Christmas dinner with fellow miniaturists ended with the exchange of gifts.

From the bran tub, I received some lovely baubles, which now adorn the front of the shop, along with a box of decorations and a set of three Santa tins.

I'm going to fill one of the tins with biscuits, or sweets, and paper, leaving it slightly open give the impression that the other tins are also full of goodies.

Christmas comes early

At the dolls' house session this week we made a poinsettia plant, which is very cute, and was very fiddly to make.

I've dressed the living room with the tree, some presents, swags and a stocking.

The tree, which lights up, was a bargain at £2. The presents are made from packaging foam that I save, covered in mini wrapping paper that I print from the internet. The swags are two sparkly pipe cleaners, costing pennies, with some red ribbon bows and plastic berries in the middle that I spotted at Durham market.

Finally the stocking is felt (stiff felt, not craft felt) with florist wire and cotton wool. Oh, and some left over leaves from the poinsettia.