The Tray

 

I woke up with a start at half past midnight and thought, Kuki. Not as in cookies and milk for a midnight snack. And I knew just where to find it.

Seven years ago, I put down a tray of unfinished teddy bears for a few minutes. Where did the time go? I must not have had it back then either, because the teddies in the tray need only small things still to be finished. When I woke up in the night with thoughts of Kuki, I immediately realized that I must find that tray. Not that I could have told you about one thing that was in there. When I unpacked it, I rediscovered many teddies that I would never have recalled if they didn't whisper to my subconscious mind while I slept. 

I designed the Kuki Needle Keeper teddy bear in 2007 in honour of a bear maker and quilter, Kitty, who is a friend. At a time when I needed an extra pair of hands, she was a tremendous help in my studio. Kitty is practical and organized, serene and funny, and I think Kuki portrays those qualities beautifully.

During the next three years, I used the Kuki pattern to teach teddy bear making at a craft fair and over 600 students became the proud owners of their own teddy needle keepers. Kuki was so popular that I decided to publish the pattern so that bear makers all over the world could make their own.

As you can imagine, my original pattern sample soon started looking a bit worse for wear with all the passing from hand to hand in workshops. I started making a new one but like most things, once the novelty of figuring out the process is over, I become bored with it and I'm ready to move on to a new challenge. Kuki was consigned to 'The Tray' in this condition.

She only needed a pair of eyes and her insides. Once I dusted her off and took out my pattern templates to cut the missing pieces, I felt inspired to create and I made her a collar, not part of the original design.

Soon she was assembled and ready to lead a long, useful life.

Magnets in her hands can hold your scissors, and keep the needle book closed when not in use.

She opens up to reveal that at heart, she's a sharp cookie, ha ha.

 Here's the new Kuki, together with the original.

While I was at it, I revamped the pattern sheets, rewrote the instructions, and added some fresh images. The pattern is available to download in my Etsy store, and on my new website.

Now that I've rediscovered The Tray, I might dive in there and finish a few more teddies.

Sweet Dreams are Made of This

If it weren't for the worldwide predicament, I could invite you for a sleepover.

We certainly have enough beds. Instead, here is a little dollhouse mattress making tutorial.

My project for January was to construct 1:12 scale dollhouse beds. They are made entirely of scrap materials I had in my stash. I loosely followed the YouTube tutorial by Julie Warren. Some of the beds will go to Dawn @livecreatively365 for decorating and dressing, and the rest I will paint and furnish with mattresses so that people can add their own finishing touches.

These are the colours I have in mind. The beds still need some sanding and several coats of paint, but I couldn't wait to get started with the mattresses so let's jump right to that.

I had a large piece of old stripy curtain in my stash. You can see in the selvage that it was originally blue with a charcoal stipe but now it's a gentle, faded grey. Perfect!

 

My first attempt was the mattress on the left, following Ara's tutorial at Bentley House. Hers is a tutorial for a no-sew mattress using foam core board so if you are averse to sewing, head straight over there. Ara's tutorials are inspirational. I spent hours trying to glue the sides of the mattress neatly. I don't really like using glue on fabric. I believe that if it can be sewn, it should be sewn. Eventually, I gave up and sewed the mattress by hand, but it still didn't look great. Then I invented my own method. Ta da, mattress on the right. I can make three of those in an hour.

The core of my dollhouse mattress consists of three layers - a piece of cereal box measured to fit the base of the bed, a layer of 14mm foam, and a layer of blue craft felt. This is what I had in my stash. When I make more mattresses, I will use slightly thicker foam and possibly quilt batting instead of felt but the materials I had on hand actually worked better than I expected. Glue the layers together.

Mark out a 15mm block grid on the card, then use an awl to poke a hole at each intersection. You can see that I snipped a small triangle off the corners of the card. This is because I want the mattress corners to be rounded.

I used a piece of card the same size as the mattress as a template and added a 10mm seam allowance all around. Cut the fabric with the stripes running lengthwise. Next, I cut a 30mm-wide strip of fabric long enough to go around the mattress. This time the stripes run across. Sew the strip around the mattress cover. Here you can see how it looks on the wrong side and turned right side out.

When making miniatures with fabric, ironing the seams is very important. Compare left and right, smooth seams make all the difference.

The mattresses inside their covers. You can see the wrong side and the right side. It should be a snug fit.

Fold the raw edges over the card and glue down. Start with the long sides, then glue the short ends.

Now comes the fun part. Using a long needle and strong thread, start from the back and sew a little tuft in each of the grid holes you made. It is important to stick the needle straight through the mattress. Make a 2mm stitch on the top side of the mattress, then poke the needle straight through to the back and out the same hole. Move on to the next hole and tuft the entire mattress. You can pull the stitches tight as you go. Because you're using a continuous strand of thread, it's possible to pull on the thread at the back to tighten or release the tufts until they are equal.

Back and front of the finished mattress.

I tidied up the back by gluing a piece of grey felt over the threads.

I love my dollhouse beds so far.

This little bed is mine. I'm ready to crawl under the blankets and read a book.

Triple Celebration!

Hooray!  The Pretty Little Birdhouse tutorial is finished, and it's in my Etsy shop now.  And there's a HUGE discount specially for you.

But that's not all my news. 
When I started this blog, about 30 people read it every week, I thought that was fantastic.  Wow, someone visits my blog every day!  Over time the number of readers have slowly increased and by now a lot of people read my blog regularly.
I noticed that the little graph of lifetime visitors was slowly climbing to the 200K mark, and I was going to make a celebration of it.  Then, last Friday while I was very busy getting ready for the weekend's market and workshop, there was a whopping 950 page views on my blog in one day! 

That's a new record.   We jumped right over that 200K hurdle, and landed by a thousand on the other side.
Statistics is a dry subject, but when one runs a business it's important to keep an eye on the numbers.  More than that, I work very much in isolation, and often don't see other people for a week or more.  Looking at my little visitor graph and knowing that you looked in on me gives me a warm feeling of companionship.  I am grateful to all of you.

So, to celebrate these three things - completion of the Little Birdhouse tutorial, reaching the two hundred thousand visitor mark, and having 950 page views in a single day -  I'm offering the tutorial for $3 in my Etsy shop.  Next week, it will go up to its regular price of $12.  Click anywhere on this page where you see a Pretty Little Birdhouse, to be taken directly to the listing.

Can I ask a favour?  If you buy the tutorial on Etsy this weekend, would you leave a rating for it?  Endorsements do so much to get the ball rolling when one puts a new design out there.

Thank you, thank you!

How to make a Fairy Basket from an Acorn Cup

This tutorial was originally posted exactly five years ago.  How time flies!  I'm in miniature making mood, and I still love making these little baskets at Eastertime. I thought I would reshare it, in case you feel like joining me.

I’m slouched behind my computer, supposed to be concentrating on  work.  But somehow my mind only wants to wander today…  It is autumn in the Southern hemisphere, and staring through my studio window, I see that the trees are loaded with acorns.  Which makes me think of squirrels and hoarding things for winter.  Which makes me wonder what the fairies are harvesting right now?  And what are they using to bring the harvest home in?  Which brings me back to acorns.  Acorn cups specifically.  Wouldn’t an acorn cup make just the perfect gathering basket for a fairy?  So, let’s drop what we are doing and go help the fairies make some baskets to bring in the harvest!

Here is what you will need:
Acorn cups, duh, can’t do anything without those.
Something to make a handle with.  Materials that would work well—a platted pine needle, a pliable twig, a snip of wire, a sprig of grass, a scrap of ribbon or string.
If you want your basket to stand, you will need to sand the bottom flat, or glue a small button, metal washer or a flattened ball of polymer clay to the base.
Line the basket to cushion a fragile load.  Use materials that a fairy would typically choose—moss, tiny feathers, a scrap of lace or fabric, cat hair. Huh?  Just checking to see if you are still paying attention :-)

Constructing the basket:
Start by making the base of the acorn cap flat so that it can stand.  You can do this by rubbing the base over sandpaper, or by gluing a small button, metal washer or flattened ball of baked polymer clay to the base.

If you prefer a more finished and durable look, varnish your acorn cup.
Glue the handle to the sides of the acorn cup.  My handles are made from wire, platted pine needles, twisted polymer clay, ribbon and rope.  If you are using wire or rope, you could drill two small holes to put the ends of the handle through the acorn cup instead of gluing it.  I made a polymer clay grip for the wire handle.

Advice when platting pine needles:
These make the most natural looking basket handles, but they require a bit of patience to assemble.  I like to use dry pine needles, because of the natural brown colour.  Soak the pine needles in water for a few hours before starting, this will make them pliable and less prone to breaking.
Tape the end of the pine needle to your work surface with masking tape, and put a pin through it to stop it from pulling out.  Carefully and tightly plat the pine needle.  Rub over the platted length after every few twists to make sure that it is lying flat.  When you get to the end, tape the needles down with a second piece of masking tape, and leave in position to dry. 
I find it easier to glue one end of the basket handle to the acorn cup and let it dry, then cut to length and glue the other end.

Line the basket:
I used a variety of linings—moss in the wire handle basket, feathers in the baskets with pine needle handles, lace with the ribbon handle, and knitting wool fluff to resemble raffia and moss in the basket with rope handle and basket with polymer clay handle.
As you can see, some baskets have a more naturalistic look, and others are more colourful. 

Tip for lining material:
Some wool shops have an amazing variety of chenille and boucle knitting wool.  It can be unravelled or snipped into tiny pieces to make moss and raffia to line your acorn baskets.  Chenille sticks (pipe cleaner) also come in a variety of colours.  Use small sharp scissors to cut off the fluff and use it to line your baskets.

Fill the baskets with goodies and drop off at the Fairy Depot.  Here are some ideas to get you started.

Terracotta Floor for the Del Prado Dollhouse

I couldn't post about the kitchen floor earlier, because I couldn't find the Cat.  It's heard that I'm looking for something starting with C.

I Cornered it at last.  I decided on terracotta, with slate accent tiles, to finish the floor of the kitchen. 

Here's a close-up look.
This part of the dollhouse happened effortlessly, and I'm very pleased with the result.

There were a few ideas for things I knew that I wanted in the kitchen, and had saved on my Pinterest Board. 

This is Marion's kitchen.  In her build of the Del Prado house, she added a false wall and turned the stove at an angle.  This makes the kitchen so much more interesting.  I simply had to have that too!

I wanted my stove to stand at a slightly raised level.  This was often done in old houses.  You can see where I marked the space for the stove, and glued a piece of card stock to the floor to raise the level.
If I was going to go to all the trouble of making individual tiles, I wanted an interesting layout on the floor, with accent tiles.  To help with the layout, I drew a grid on the floor.

Then I went ahead and made lots and lots and lots of little terracotta tiles, using polymer clay.  I started with a block of basic SculpeyIII terracotta colour, and rolled the softened clay to a thickness of about 1.5mm with a pasta machine. I happened to have a little 11mm square cutter in my stash, an impulse buy at a cake decorating shop.  I was very glad when I found it. 
I pressed out the tiles directly on to a ceramic tile, then lifted away the waste clay, and baked the little tiles directly on the ceramic tile.  That way they stayed nice and flat. 
Every time I rolled out a new sheet of clay, I added a little bit of scrap clay, either light brown, or black, so that the colour of the terracotta tiles would have slight variation, just like real tiles.  Whenever the clay rolled out unevenly, or there was a fold line in the clay, I left it like that.  It all adds texture and realism.

I didn't have a cutter for the slate tiles, I just cut those by hand.  I mixed black and white clay to make a really dark grey, then added silver glitter eyeshadow to give it a bit of sparkle.  It shows up as white spots in the photo, but in real life it looks beautiful.  In this close-up view you can see that the tiles are quite uneven in size.  Real life slate tiles would be cut by hand, and would have slightly uneven sides too.

I decided that I would have a round of terracotta tiles, followed by a round of slate, as a border around the room.  Then I would fill the inside with tiles laid diagonally across the floor.

I started gluing the tiles in an L shape, and used a scrap of card to align them before the glue set.  With each new row of tiles, I added an L inside the previous one.  This helped me to keep the spaces even. 

Completed floor.  Where the stove is going to be, I used slate tiles, and made a herringbone pattern. 

If you are curious about what needs to sit on that square of raised black slate, this is what I have.  I constructed the kitchen range and its surround years ago during my first attempt at the house.  Now that I've seen Studio E's incredible recently completed stove and hood, I realize that I have a huge challenge ahead of me to make this look better!

I let the glue set for a day before I started grouting.  The grout was an accidental discovery.  A while ago I bought what I thought was pre-mixed crack filler in a plastic bucket to fix up some spots in the studio wall where I took a shelf down.  I must have been looking for the cheapest bucket, and not paying attention to the labels.  When I opened it, I discovered that the contents was slippery and runny.  The bucket says it is plaster skim.  I have no idea what one would use it for, but it makes lovely dollhouse grout.  None of the grittiness of crack filler, and it has a slightly gluey texture which helps it to adhere. 

 I mixed black acrylic paint into the mixture to make grey.

Rubbed it into the tiles with my finger and let it set for a few minutes.

Then rub away the excess grout with a damp rag, using small circular movements, so as not to remove the grout from between the tiles.

When the grout had completely set, I used a dry cotton rag to put a gloss on the floor.  Polymer clay buffs to a lovely shine without the need to apply any kind of varnish or sealer.

So there's another floor finished.  I'm tempted to try using polymer clay to create old fashioned patterned linoleum to use in the attic rooms.

Happily, I've also figured out the perfect colour scheme for the interior.  I'm nearly finished with the master bedroom walls, and the colours make my heart sing.  But I will keep you in suspense over my choices, and how I came to them, for a little while!

Del Prado Dollhouse - Versailles Parquet for the hall

During the days of Twixmas, between over eating, and laying around reading books, I worked a little on the Del Prado house, and completed the hallway floor.
Following Elga's recommendation, I was a little bit more adventurous this time, and tried parquet instead of just wooden planks.   (Mini tutorial for plank floor HERE).

 This time, I did not glue the wood directly on to the floor.  Because the pattern was going to be on a diagonal, there would be lots of planks that needed to be cut at an angle.  'Angle' and 'mitre' are swear words around here, so I devised a work-around.  First, I covered the area to be tiled with cling wrap.  I folded it over the back of the board, and taped it tightly.

Then I cut a piece of tulle (net) fabric, and taped that over the cling wrap.   The purpose of the cling wrap is to prevent anything from sticking to the board, and the tulle fabric will become the base for my parquet flooring.  If you've ever bought small tiles from a ceramic shop, you will know where I got the idea ;-)

I drew guide lines on the tulle with a permanent marker, and tested the layout of my parquet pieces.  This is a traditional pattern of interlocking T's with a small square tile filling the gap.  It's called Versailles parquet.  If you look closely, you will see that it also resembles basket weave.

Thereafter, it was a simple matter of cutting and gluing tiny pieces of wood for several hours.  The guide lines didn't prevent me from going skew, but I just forged ahead and enjoyed myself. I made the floor a few centimeters bigger than it needed to be all around.

When I was finished, I peeled the tulle away from the cling wrap, and let the completed piece of floor lie upside down until the glue was completely dry.

It was a simple matter of measuring the floor for exact dimensions, and zipping it through the table saw to straighten the edges.  No pesky measuring and cutting of all those angles!  I'm very pleased with the result.

When I glued the floor to the base board, I glued straight planks around the edges to finish it off neatly.  I wasn't going to confess to the next step, but I might as well, because it might save you doing something stupid...

I didn't measure my wood super accurately when cutting, and was way too relaxed when gluing the pieces down.  As a result, some little gaps developed between the planks.  Not to mention the gaps left by the mitred corners in the straight plank edging.  I decided that the gaps bothered me enough that I wanted to do something about it.  I filled them in with wood filler, much like grouting a tile floor.  Once the filler was completely dry, I sanded it off by hand, till I thought my arms would drop off.  Here and there spots remained between planks that were not level, I just could not get in there with sandpaper.  When I decided to give up on sanding, and hope that no one would notice them too much, I wiped the floor with a damp cloth to get rid of the dust before varnishing.  With the first swipe of the damp cloth, those remaining spots of wood filler dissolved and wiped away.  Duh, try wiping with a damp cloth next time, before you sand for an hour!  The floor really benefited from all the sanding though, it came out beautifully level and smooth.

After that, all that remained to be done was staining and varnishing, same as with the plank floor in a previous post.

Next time, tiling the kitchen floor.