Miniatures Curiosities

 Hello Mini Friends!  Thanks for stopping by today!  

Lately, I've been having some fun in my mini making craft room but sadly I have not been taking many pictures for tutorials.  At any rate I thought I would miniature show and tell!

I've been digging through tiny seashells I found in Florida a few years ago, dissecting an owl pellet for the tiny bones inside, and even framed my kitten Spooky's baby tooth that he lost.

I made the two cabinets below from chip board, balsa wood, Etsy bought wooden spindles, along with clear plastic from packaging

The tiny frame with Sppoky's tooth in it measures 3/4 inch by 3/4 inch square.  

The feathers are from my hen Aunt Bea.  

These shells are very small but the ones I picked to use are even smaller.

Here are some of the ones I used for my curio shelf.

I guess I did make a few pictures of making the curio shelves using balsa wood.

They both measure 2 1/4 inch long by 1 1/2 inch tall.  

This sort of gives you an idea on how small the shells are in this miniature glass jar.

I also made a gothic looking curio cabinet for my mermaid skull.  I added some hair and tiny shells for a headdress to a Halloween skeleton garland skull.  The cabinet measures one inch wide on all sides and six inches tall.  I added lace and a beaded finial on top.  The skull was just about too big to fit inside the case, but I made it work. 

Here is the owl pellet and all of the bones that came out of it.  I found the owl pellets in my father-in-law's barn where an owl roosts often.  I actually have had these for several years but now want to go find more. 

Here is another miniature glass jar that I filled with some of the tiny bones.

I think it looks spectacular!

This is the display cabinet I made for two of the tiny mouse skulls from the owl pellet.  

It measures two inches tall by 2 inches wide and one inch in depth.  The top doesn't open but appears like it does.  

Well folks, that is what I have been working on lately!  After I made the Apothecary Cabinet my mind went in more of a curiosities direction.  So much fun!

What tiny things have you been making lately??

Thanks for stopping by friends!

Happy mini making!

XOXO ~Laurie

Miniature Quick Artwork Frames

 Well, this one is just fun!  Jumping right to it...  I needed a few (but turned out with many!) framed pieces for my apothecary.  I hopped on my pc and looked up some beautiful artwork.  I copied and pasted several beautiful pictures and medical advertisements and printed them out.  Next, I always spray my prints with a clear coat to keep the colors from bleeding.  

Next, I cut out two pieces of chip board, or cardboard, or cereal boxes, leaving enough room around the picture to create a decorative frame.  I glued the two pieces together then plugged in my glue gun.  I traced the picture on the top of the chip board to let me know where to use the hot glue.  Then I got to work dabbing hot glue while also using beads and such on a few.  This is the fun part.

After this fun, it's time to put on a basecoat of paint.  And once that is dry, I love to use my metallic paints as a topcoat.  Sometimes being a tad sparse in areas allowing the bottom color to show through.  When I finished painting, and the paint was dry I used Mod Podge to glue down the pictures.

And for the finishing touch, I use Mod Podge Dimensional Magic on top of the picture.  This creates an almost glass like finish.  I think it's beautiful!

These are almost too fun!  So easy and fun and quite realistic.  

I've blogged about these frames before.  You can find that post HERE

Thank you so much for stopping by!  

XoXo ~Laurie

Miniature Apothecary Cabinet

 Hi Mini Friends!  Today I am sharing an apothecary cabinet that I made from two pieces of Dollar Tree dollhouse furniture that I've had for a while.  In fact, I'm not even sure if the store sells these items anymore.  I've been told that they don't.  I found these two pieces in my stash and decided to put them together.  

I started by popping the tall dresser into the microwave for a few second to warm the glue.  This allows me to gently take the piece apart.  I also did this to the shorter piece to take the knobs off of the drawers.  I removed the bottom and front pieces from the tall dresser and saved the front part of the bottom for the top.  That sounded confusing :)  Let me just show you...

First, I'm showing the finished product.  Isn't she lovely??!!

Now, here are the two pieces.

I added two shelves to the inside of the cabinet using scrap balsa wood.  Also, here is where I added the bottom front decorative piece to the top to give it a little detail.

Below is the bottom of the cabinet minus the drawer knobs.

I cut pieces of wood to look like little drawer fronts and used my Dremel to give the depth.

This was my first time using this tool with miniatures and I found that it was pretty fun but also really easy.  I normally use a fingernail file for everything.  This tool made it really quick too.

Here are the pieces glued together with the new drawer fronts.

Then I painted it all black.  After this was dry, I gave it a little buffing of the edges with a fingernail file to knock off a little paint and give it a worn, used and aged look.

I found some vintage apothecary drawer labels online.  I shrunk them on my computer and printed them out.  I also used gold beads and glued a black rhinestone on the front of each bead to hide the hole in the bead.

I added a little "moss" in a few areas on the cabinet.  My moss is just sawdust tinted with a little paint.

And waalaa!  She is finished!

I hope you enjoyed this cabinet!  Thanks for stopping by!

XoXo ~Laurie