Dolly's closet

Kate's closet.

Greeting friends,

      Recently  I moved from California to Texas , and everybody knows moving involves so many boxes, even though I threw away few boxes  I kept some small boxes for the sake of making some things for my dolls. 

Recently I knitted poly and Kate and thought I should make a closet for them. Kate is all excited about her closet .

This is a fun project for both adults and kids. When parents craft along with their kids I guess the bond between them might become even stronger. Also parents and children can have lot of fun together. So here's the tutorial. 

Materials: 

Cardboard box ( mine is 16 *14 inches ) 

Scrapbook paper,

Glue,

Two kitchen towel rolls 

Tape

Self adhesive Velcro

Two ear buds

A piece of rectangular cardboard and aluminum foil to fit this piece for the mirror or a real mirror

A black permanent marker.

Method : 

 1 keep the cardboard box in such a way that the opening of the box is facing you and the closed part becomes the back of the closet. 

2 . Cut the short flaps at the top and the bottom and the long flaps are the doors of the closet.

3. Now take the two kitchen towel rolls and  join them together and make the width of the rolls equal to the width of the closet . You can tape them together, in case if it tares it's okay , we will be covering it with the scrapbook paper.

4. Now glue the scrapbook paper of your choice all over the closet and for the rod.

5 . Once you are done apply some glue on either sides of the rod and place the rod inside the closet. ( if you want you can use the two short flaps which we cut to make the shelves inside the closet ) 

6. Take the ear buds and mark the top and the bottom black with a marker and stick them on the doors for the handles. 

7. Attach a self adhesive Velcro on top and bottom of both the doors. 

8. For the mirror either you can stick a real mirror or take a piece of rectangle that is appropriate to your closet door and cover this piece with the aluminum foil and then stick the piece on to one of the doors. 

9. Then arrange the closet as you wish.

10. For the hangers I had two small plastic hangers, I just broke  a little on both the sides of the hangers in order to get the appropriate  size to fit this closet.

11. If you wish to make the shopping bags, you can view the  tutorial here.     http://revathiakshay.blogspot.com/2013/10/dolly-shopping-bags.html.   The  purses were purchased at Walgreens .

You are all done now. 

Happy crafting !

Dolly's shopping bags ....

Greeting friends,

I just finished the tutorial for the closet and this the tutorial for the shopping bags.

Materials,

A small cardboard box

Scrapbook paper

Glue

Ribbons for the handle

A knitting needle or some sharp object to pierce the holes

Black permanent marker

A darning needle .

Instructions :

1 . take a small cardboard box and cut the box to a desired length that you want. Make sure that you don't cut the sides of the box.

2. Now glue the scrapbook paper of your choice all around the box.

3. Pierce two holes at the front and the back to fix the handles.

4. Cut a length of a ribbon and draw through the holes on one side of the bag with the help of a darning needle, if the holes are big enough you might not need a needle. Frame the handles in a 'u' shape and make sure that both the edges of the ribbon are inside the box. Now knot both the ends so that the ribbon does not come out of the holes. Repeat the same thing on the other side of the bag. 

 

5. Now use a permanent marker to write the name of the shop or what ever you want  .

I hope these tutorials were helpful.

Happy crafting ! 

Grandpa and grandma Humpty Dumpty .

Greeting friends,

Well everybody in this world might have dreamt of growing old with their loved ones. Actually this thought never passed across my mind so seriously until I saw this beautiful couple on jeangreenhowe's website. That very moment I decided to buy this book  'The toy collection ' and knit this gorgeous couple and dedicate these dolls for our old age , and for our togetherness. I saw this couple and thought how wonderful it will be grow old like this together . This is the first time I realized how even just dolls can give us such beautiful thoughts . Anyway these dolls are again Jeangreenhowe's creation. I surely admire and appreciate her. I don't know who would have thought of knitting something like this.

   

 

Every time I knit a doll from her book I learn something new. I loved the way grandpa's and grandma's  spectacles are made. I also love grandma's cherry hat and her knitting needles. I love the way their scarfs are made. I can not forget to mention about grandpa's mustache . It gives a wonderful look to grandpa's face. 

Since the time I have made these dolls I cannot take my eyes of them. 

I also tried to create some background for this picture. The house is a portable cardboard doll house that I bought from the dollar tree. As I said dollar tree can surprise me with some amazing things that they have for just a dollar. Inside the house has some nice colorful pictures. This is defiantly worth buying. I bought this house long time back and wanted to use this to create a background and I finally got a chance to use it. This is how it looks from inside.

I just cut some branches from the tree to give a garden effect. I also picked some stones from outside and I dropped some dried leaves and twigs here and there on the floor. The wooden floor is just a thick decorative paper. The chair behind grandpa was purchased from a thrift store in Davis. The potted plant next to the house and the watering can and the shovel is crocheted. I try to give a feeling that the house is quite far from the garden so that even though the house is looking smaller than the Grandpa and Grandma it will still make sense , since from far the objects look smaller than their original size. 

Just like this background that I have created I want this scene to happen in my life when my husband and I are old. A small beautiful cottage, beautiful garden where I can knit and my husband can do some gardening or both of us can do some gardening , read a novel in our garden or sit together in front of a fire place in our living room , oh ! Just writing these words itself is making me quite happy. 

Overall I had a lot of fun making these dolls. Everybody is not lucky to grow old together but these two are quite lucky :) 

Country kitchen.

Country cooking range.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Well I just had a reason to make this statement. Recently I was feeling like making something out of polymer clay ,but unfortunately i did not have any at home. There are no  craft stores near by where I live. When I was in Davis we had couple of stores in the downtown where I could shop my craft items . So when I started thinking I suddenly realized that I can make some things out of salt dough. Since salt and flour are always at home I didn't have to worry about the ingredients. 

Long ago I had purchased a country dough craft book by Linda Rogers in Davis from a used book store called 'Logos' . This book has nice country crafts which will surely look beautiful in anybody's home. Even though I bought this book  long ago , I did not somehow try anything from this book. Finally the day came to Try one of these from the book. 

  

Dough craft is easy and very inexpensive to make. All it requires is salt , flour and water which are at home all the time. Additional things which are required are colors to paint . One good thing about this is any kind of paint can be used from water color ,acrylic to spray paint etc. any kind of wood varnish to glaze after it is baked. 

Like polymer clay even this is baked in your house oven at a very low temperature ( 200 degree F ) . But the difference is polymer clay will be ready in 15 mins where has baking the salt dough is a long process. I can say to bake this cooking range it has taken me around 10 hours at least. Then it must cool down completely before we paint. At least two coats of paints are required and there should be at least 6 hours gap before we apply the second coat. Varnish is also applied in two or three coats. I have used water color which I had purchased 5 years back from paint chip . Luckily colors had not dried up :) .

This is the cooking range in the book which is  perfect. 

  

This is what I have made, shapes are irregular , the flooring is just okay and the basket on the floor is not looking exactly like a basket I suppose. I did not even make the boots since I could not shape it so well.

  

 I just created a  background to take a picture and I used these three cute porcelain dolls that I had purchased from a thrift store in Davis. 

The basket of tomatoes and the jam, honey and the salt containers are my own creation which is not there in the book. After I made the cooking range some dough was left and I had stored in the fridge. Salt dough when kept for a long time will become very soft and it will be hard to shape but I did not want to waste the dough so tried these it was hard to shape these but I made some thing anyway . 

   

Containers have irregular shape and the handles for the basket is not perfect either. 

    

Over all it was a good experience , very time consuming but I can pop the things in the oven and I can forget about them for long long hours. As long as the temperature is in minimum the dough will not burn.  I hope the next dough craft I try will turn out better than this :) 

 Have fun ! 

Miniature beaded wine bottle and wineglass..

Greeting friends,

Once upon a time I was quite interested in making jewelry and I use to bead  a lot. I am interested even now but it gets too expensive when it comes to beading ,moreover making dolls has given me immense joy more than any other hobby that I have cultivated. I still have so  many left over beads and other materials that I had purchased long time back . So I was thinking of making use of these beads not by making jewelry but something else. I was thinking a lot and got an idea to make this wine bottle and the wine glass. I had made two glasses but unfortunately one of them broke before I cloud  take a picture :( 

 

   

I am not so happy with the wine glass. I have to make some improvements and changes and then I am planning to make a tutorial on this. 

The brass tray is not handmade. I purchased this tray along with a crystal cake in an estate sale. This tray is the perfect size for this wine bottle and the wine glass . It is also a perfect size for the doll house. 

Have fun every one ! 

Miniature storybooks.

Miniature story books  tutorial .

Few days back I had been to dollar market ,which is similar to dollar tree where every thing is a dollar ,but the deference is this shop is owned by an individual and this is not a chain.  

Some pretty greeting cards caught my attention. They had some beautiful animal cartons on them. I always get fascinated  when animals have human characters .when I was a kid there was a greeting card store near my house in India and my best friend and I use to visit that store regularly and use to buy many miniature sized cartoon greeting cards. I had collected many greeting cards but unfortunately I lost all of them. I hope at least my friend is having hers  still.  I was meaning to make a few miniature books for my doll house, also my dolls need different things for the background while I am taking their pictures. So creative juices started flowing in my brains as soon as I saw these cards. 

These books are quite simple to make and nothing hi-fi . I was in a mood to make a tutorial and I hope this tutorial will be helpful for those of you who wants to make some books for your dolls. This is how they look :) 

Lets get started with the tutorial . 

Materials:

Greeting cards with cartoons 

Folder or thick papers or cardboard pieces.

Glue

Scissors 

Pencil and a ruler .

Instructions :

1 . Select the  greeting cards and cut them to the size that you want. If the picture on the card is horizontal the book will be wide , if the picture on the card is vertical the book will be long. Make sure that the picture is in the middle and there is at least three fourth inch margin on all four sides. Also make sure that you cut the greeting card holding the front and back of the card together , it should open like a book. The pages that we put inside the book should be slightly shorter in length and breadth compare to the wrapper on the outside. So while cutting the folder  make sure the pages are slightly smaller than the outside wrapper. 

2. Now take folder and mark folder to the size of the greeting card. Cut the folder also with front and back together , the folder should also open like a book. If you are using thick papers or cardboard piece fold them in to half.  Cut three pieces of folders. Open up the first folder and apply some glue in the middle of the folder put second folder on top of the first and apply some glue to this folder and glue the third piece .  Make two more bundles like this. If you need a thicker book you can add as many bundles as you want. 

3 . Open the greeting card and apply a thick layer of glue in the middle and stick the folder bundles that you have made. Make sure that the pages inside are slightly shorter than the wrapper.  

4 . Fold the book and keep a heavy weight on the book till the pages inside stick well. You can also use  some printed papers inside instead of just plain pages. 

 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial ... Have fun :)