Missing Willow Farm

When your daughter asks you to make something special for her the answer is always yes. That’s an empty replacement housing for a 3DS accessorized with a Marshal mini fig (her favorite character) and some greenery, pebbles and resin flowers. She provided a screenshot image from her game to personalize it. Pretty cute!

Spooky season is upon us. Yay! I have a little haunted aviary for Alpha Stamps to share with you today. An owlery if you will. I used a Large Haunted House Shape and some of the new Halloween papers from Carta Bella and Echo Park.

I fell in love with this orange on orange swirl Spooky Night paper from Echo Park, and decided to use it for both the front and the back of the house. I used the chipboard as a template and carefully traced around the house shape. The paper edges were inked with Vintage Photo Distress Ink before gluing them down with tacky glue.

Since the roofs were going to get contrasting papers, I made templates with cardstock cut to size. I had a scrap of small scale brick paper in my stash and used that for the chimney.

The papers I used as accents for this piece all came from Carta Bella’s’ Hocus Pocus line. The trims were cut from a Black Dresden Border Sampler Set. It was great having so many to choose from with lots left over for another project or two.

The fence is made from a Chipboard Gothic Border Trim cut to fit the space and painted with black acrylic paint.

Here it is set in place, along with the roof details. The Hocus Pocus paper set comes with a black and white stripe that fit the little stair step outline perfectly!

The windows for this project all came from the Windows For Tall Houses set. I’ve not worked with these before but you can bet I will again, they are darling. The owls came from one of my favorite collage sheets that Alpha Stamps carries; Into The Woods. I resized the individual owls down a bit and glued them in place using the windows as a guide for placement They were glued onto this orange and black bat paper that looks like spooky wallpaper perfect for a miniature room.

I used one of the new 18×13 Gothic Frames for Oval Cabochons for this project. They come in two sizes, this is the smaller of the two. Check out the awesome skull detail in the filigree, isn’t it darling? The other one that’s included in this set has a bat detail.

I glued a Glass Haunted House Cabochon on top of it for one of the roof details. The other one is made from another of the Windows For Tall Houses painted ivory with an Eyeball Cabs in Settings – Silver glued on top. I accented the sides of the cab with black brads I had on hand.

The front door is made from shutters that come in the Dollhouse Windows With Shutters 1:24 set. The background was painted black and the overlays were painted orange.

The door was screaming for a seasonal wreath. I made one of those fuzzy/fluffy ones from a bit of black pipe cleaner/chenille stem and a ribbon rose. So simple.

I knew I wanted a planter box underneath the windows for a few of the individual blooms from a Queen Anne’s Lace floral stem. It was super easliy fashioned by cutting a length of square dowel and painting it black.

Love how it came out.

Here’s a close-up of the finished roof line. I added yet another owl in one of the windows from the set and also included the new Black Acrylic Bat that’s included in the Hocus Pocus kit.

The new Jack-o-Lantern Cabochon rests at the bottom of the stairs. I had a miniature dollhouse doorknob in my stash and added it as a finishing detail.

The house needed something for contrast so I added one of the 8 Inch Creepy Trees behind it.

It was painted black and glued to the rear of the house.

I love how this came out and can’t wait to display it on the mantle of our new house. You can find all the supplies I used right HERE. Thanks for stopping by!

I am happy to share another project for Alpha Stamps today. They have a new Room Box with a Curved Facade at the top which is a really nice size for setting a scene. At 8 by 10 inches it’s the perfect dimension to design a space using 1:12 furniture. I had tons of ideas of what to use it for an settled on a parlor with a fireplace focal point. The pink and white color scheme was determined when I saw the the gorgeous new Antique Roses 12×12 paper pack.

I got started on this project with the Narrow Victorian Fireplace. Once it was assembled using tacky glue, I added a stone facade using the Small Stone Wall Stencil. These stencils are made of mylar which makes them both easy to both use and clean.

I made a fancy embellishment for the front of the fireplace using the French Flourishes Silicone Mold and white polymer clay. I love using these molds because they can be popped right inside the oven to bake the clay off. Texture paste was used for the stones and the fluorish embellishment was set into the wet paste while it dried overnight.

I papered the interior of the fireplace with a dark gray paper and used a wooden craft stick cut to size for the mantle. The entire thing got a coating of white acrylic paint to bring the look together. I love the idea of a grouping of candles inside a fireplace, let me show you how those were made.

The candles themselves are cylinders of white polymer clay that were cut to different heights and indented using a ball stylus sculpting tool. The wicks were simply made from thread that was stiffened with white glue and cut to length. I used a straight pin to make a holes inside the candles where the wicks were inserted.

The wax drips are white Liquid Sculpey that was carefully painted down the sides of the candles.

All ready for baking. I bake my polymer clay on porcelain tiles in a toaster oven I use only for crafting.

I’ve had a white resin deer head sitting in my stash forever. I was waiting for a project to showcase it in and this was it. I decided the mount needed a fancy floral wreath and made one by twisting floral wire to the diameter I needed then attaching Pink Tiny Paper Roses and Light Pink Tiny Mulberry Blossoms. Easy peasy!

The wreath and the deer were attached to a white wooden disk. I kind of want a full sized version of this in my own house.

The Candlestick Table Kit couldn’t be easier to assemble. Just 3 pieces to glue together.

To get this little table any color you want all it takes is a coat of primer then a few coats of acrylic paint. That fancy white miniature porcelain pumpkin is a Pumpkin Pod that was enameled with white nail polish.

White porcelain plates were decorated with pink floral water slide nail decals and displayed on a 1:12 Shelf painted white.

The interior walls are painted with a pale pink acrylic. I cut some of those gorgeous flowers from the antique roses paper to add a bold floral wall mural look to the room.

After assembling the room box with tacky glue I chose a pale wooden plank paper for the floor and added a few additional artsy embellishments for the walls: a Mini Tudor Rose Single on the left side of the fireplace and a painting on the right made from one of the Mini Frames Set painted white framing a Victorian lamb image. The mirror on the right is made from metallic silver cardstock inset into another of the Mini Frames.

Keeping with the floral theme, I chose a Henna Floral Flourish for the curved facade. It was painted pale pink and one of the roses cut from the paper set was centered beneath it.

To the left of the fireplace is an Unfinished Side Table painted white. On top of it sits a topiary made from a 1 Inch Styrofoam Ball covered with Green Turf Grass. The topiary sits inside one of the Set of Miscellaneous Flower Pots primed and painted white. I think I have used one of those flower pots in my last 5 projects! Beneath the table is a Micro Mini White Kitten.

To the right of the fireplace is the candlestick table & pumpkin plus a vase of Pink & Cream Variegated Mini Rose Buds.

I made a cozy resting spot in front of the fireplace that includes a Mini Cup of Coffee with Spoon, a book of ghost stories made from a Miniature Book and a cover from the Little Library Collage Sheet. The rug is a bit of faux fur I found at a fabric store. I always wander through the trim and notions section to see if anything grabs my attention.

The Antique Roses paper is just full of shabby chic vintage goodness! You can find all of the supplies I used in this project HERE.

It’s cherry time around here, which means a busy day. We drove the 90 minutes with construction traffic to the orchard and came home with a lovely haul of bing and sour cherries.

The sour cherries were turned into Luxardo cocktail cherries plus a pint of sour cherry juice and the bing cherries went into a pie. Yay, pie!

Manhattan or Hemingway Daiquiri, anyone?

Alpha Stamps is decorating for Easter and I helped! This sweet little egg dyeing and Easter basket filling display uses the new Beauty in Bloom Custom 12×12 Paper Set and their 12×12 Elements Sheet and a lot of pretty little springtime items set inside a 7×7 Corner Room Box.

After assembling the room box using tacky glue, I painted the edges and corners with a white acrylic paint. Painting the corners helps camouflage any slight misalignments I might have when the paper gets glued on.

I used a Small Trinket Shelf Stand to display the finished baskets. It comes with a drawer that fits at the bottom. I chose to leave it out in order to give myself more room to display everything. Before assembling it, I used the rear wall as a template for the paper on the top shelf.

These Beauty in Bloom papers just scream springtime. The white wooden floor was a paper from my stash. The baseboards and chair railing are painted craft sticks.

I added two of the 1:12 Shelves on the wall framed a few sweet bunny prints using the Mini Frames Set and images cut from the Peter Rabbit and Bigger Bunnies collage sheets.

The wreath was made from a length of Woven Sea Grass that I secured with a thin wire.

Tiny Paper Roses and Tiny Mulberry Blossoms were glued on. The final detail was the addition of a Cardinal Brad.

The top shelf holds some charming bunny plates nestled between decorative pink flowers which are just plastic buttons with the shanks cut off. I added a Fancy Candy Jar with Candies and some demitasse cups made from White Plastic Cups & Saucers decorated with floral nail art decals.

Those sweet plates are made from Tiny Easter Bunny Stickers (so many cute ones to choose from!) and a Set of Plain White Plates.

The bottom shelf has chocolate eggs I made from polymer clay and decorated with Bright Flowers and Minty Cool polymer clay slices. There is a Tiny Glass Bottle full of polymer clay jelly beans, a Tiny Bird House and a Tiny Bird Box.

I fell in love with the Bluejay Wooden Button except for, you know, the fact that it’s a button. I filled the holes with a piece of round toothpick painted blue and love how it came out.

Filling the baskets was the most fun part of this project. Here’s one in process to show you the individual components. This is a Round Basket with Handle that holds a layer of Mini Easter Basket Grass, poly clay eggs, the brand new Mini Chocolate Bunny (how cute is this??), a decorated sugar cookie, a peep and a bag of jelly beans.

To make the eggs I started with rolling clay colors into ropes then slicing making equal sized slices that eventually got rolled into egg shapes in the palm of my hand. I used this same technique to make the jelly beans but on a much smaller scale!

Once the jelly beans got baked off, they were added to bags I fashioned from cellophane and double sided tape.

The sugar cookies are made from polymer clay. Left to right you can see the steps I took.

1. Egg shapes were cut from light brown clay
2. A toothbrush was used to texture the cookie surface and brown pastel chalk was added before baking 10 minutes.
3. Once baked, I added a coating of liquid polymer clay and baked it again, this time for 5 minutes.
4. Dots of liquid polymer clay colored with pastel chalk shavings were added with a toothpick and baked an additional 5 minutes.

The ones that didn’t end up in Easter baskets are displayed on a Tiny Tray with Handles.

To make the marshmallow peeps I took a close look at photos of real peeps and realized I could mimic their shapes with two small slices of yellow polymer clay molded as shown in the photo then squished together. After baking I added two tiny brown paint dots for eyes.

Here are all the filled baskets!

The Small Trinket Shelf Stand is crammed full of Springtime goodies.

I used the same fill-in-the-button-hole technique on this Black and Yellow Finch Wooden Button as I used on the BlueJay. I picked up that sweet little porcelain Hagen Renaker duckling on my very first trip to Disney World about a million years ago.

The pastoral bell jar scene is made from an HO scale sheep and tree set inside a Tall Glass Cloche with Cork Base.

The second shelf holds the new Ceramic Tea Set with Blue Pattern and some eggs ready for dyeing inside a Ceramic Grape Basket.

A pair of Silly Pink Bunny Rabbits flank the baskets on this shelf.

Besides that tray of cookies, the bottom shelf holds a bunny figurine which is just a porcelain bead glued onto a metal base and some Tiny Wrapped Gumballs in one of the White Plastic Mini Serving Dishes.

The main action in this little scene takes place on an Unfinished Console Table I painted white. The egg dyeing happens on some Miniature Newspapers. I made the egg holder from a bit of thin black wire. All of the dishes used here are also from the White Plastic Mini Serving Dish Set.

The egg dye is made from Glossy Accents that was colored with resin dye.

Below the table are a few floral displays. There is a Plant with Pink and Fuchsia Flowers tucked into a Square Wooden Planter decorated with Rabbit Brads. The Tiny Yellow Mulberry Blossoms sit inside one of the Miscellaneous Flower Pots painted with white nail polish. Finally is that gorgeous Aqua Ceramic Jug filled with Mini White Rose Buds.

My hope is that actual Easter egg dyeing could be this cute some day in real life! If you’d like to make your own you’ll find the supplies I used HERE.

Thanks for stopping by!

I have the sweetest project for Alpha Stamps to share today, a storage spot for a fairy godmother’s most important possessions made from the new Large Wardrobe with 1 Shelf and featuring Mintay’s Written Memories 12×12 Paper Set. This fairy godmother is a lover of nature, brandy and all things beautiful and is, of course, an expert seamstress and mender of torn things.

The cabinet is really easy to assemble using tacky glue. Before gluing the piece together I used the exterior rear wall as a template for cutting the cabinet’s curves in this beautiful paper.

I painted the cabinet’s doors and feet with a light ivory acrylic paint.

Look how gorgeous this paper is!

The front surface of the cabinet is where the doors get attached. I glued the paper on, let it dry, then used an x-Acto knife to carefully cut the front opening.

Once the doors were installed, I glued on Mini Antique Brass Square Hinges and added Mixed Gold & Silver Tiny Round Studs to emulate nail heads. How cool is that? The door pulls I used are Narrow Cabinet Door Handles.

I added some decorative floral embellishments to the top of the cabinet. A large pink paper rose from my stash was accentuated it with 1/2 Inch Medium Pink Paper Roses, Light Pink Tiny Mulberry Blossoms and these fabulous new Mini 3D Resin Butterflies.

This fairy godmother is very tuned into nature, which you can tell from her assortment of flowery crowns tucked inside a White Wall Shelf with Hooks. She also stores her extra sets of wings here, which are cut from a Just Wings Collage Sheet transparency and accessorized with Tiny Hollow Silver Star Charms (she’s very fashionable). Also hanging here are a Set of 3 Tiny Keys on a Ring which I am certain open magical doors.

To make the crowns, I bent thick wire around a marker for the base and glued on images from the Nature’s Crowns Collage Sheet.

They were then decorated with flat back pearls, brads and more of the new 3D Resin Butterflies.

The storage case for her various magical fairy dusts, charms and enchantments was made from the base of a Suitcase-1 5/8 Inch that was covered in pretty floral paper and wrapped with a scrap of lace. I used some small bottles I had in my stash as well as some Tiny Glass Bottles filled with glitter and sparkly nail art decorations. The tops were decorated with Red Mushroom and Bright Flowers polymer clay slices. I just love working with poly clay canes and slices, they’re so versatile in miniature crafting!

Such a pretty little storage box!

She keeps her postcards and correspondence in a Mini Cigar Box. The letters were made from a Little Letters Collage Sheet and the cigar box was covered in Cigar Label Banners and Turquoise Mini Cigar Boxes Collage Sheets.

She loves a sip of brandy every now and then. The Miniature Red Wine Bottle gets a cherry brandy label from a Cafe Bottles Half Sheet and sits inside a Half Scale Chipboard Crate along side one of the Set of 4 Champagne Glasses.

I made a few wax seals for some of her letters using a tiny bit of polymer clay with a flower impression from a small metal bead.

As a fashionable woman, she changes wands as often as her crowns and wings. They are made from flat toothpicks painted gold and topped with the new Fairy Wand Acrylic Stars with Pearl Finish. So simple and delightful!

I made her a little scrapbook of friends and memories with the help of a Matchbox Fairies Collage Sheet.

She’s an expert seamstress, of course. Here’s a brand new Rectangular Sewing Tin with Accessories, which comes with all of these marvelous tiny items included. I am swooning over that little tape measure!

I packed everything inside and also included a Miniature Vintage Sewing Machine and a mending basket made from a Mini Oval Resin Basket with 1 Handle that holds Tiny Thread Spools, Scissors, a Miniature Tomato Pin Cushion (the cuteness!) and some button cards cut from a Mini Button Cards Half Sheet.

Here’s everything tucked inside. She has some artwork that celebrates the natural world decorating the doors of her wardrobe. The images are cut from Bees, Birds and Bees, Cabinet of Curiosities, Eggs and Easter and Fairy Godmother’s Cupboard Collage Sheets.

Sitting on top of her crown storage cubby are Miniature Reading Glasses, Miniature Red Knitting, and a photograph of her mentor inside a 1:12 Brass Picture Frame.

Besides her mending kit, scrapbook, correspondence and brandy storage sits a teapot and cup from the new Ceramic Tea Set with Blue Pattern and a polymer clay pumpkin.

And finally her fairy dust storage box and the extra sewing supplies.

This was an extremely fun project to make. Thanks for stopping by and I send all the best fairy wishes and magic your way. You’ll find all of the supplies to make one of your own HERE

Today I am happy to share with you a project for Alpha Stamps that is seriously one of the most fun I’ve ever made. As someone who works a lot with miniatures, I love it when I have a lot of horizontal space to fill in and the 1:12 Market Stall certainly fits the bill. My vision for the piece was to fill the shelves with as many decorated sugar cookie houses as possible while leaving a spot to also offer hot chocolate with all the mix-ins I could think of. The Sweetest Christmas 12×12 Paper Set was the perfect starting point for this sugared holiday design.

Before decorating and gluing the market shelves in place, I cut the paper for the back wall of the stand. I had a lot of great choices for the paper to use for this focal area and settled on featuring a holiday banner at the top and a great retro pink tile for behind the counter.

The market was assembled using tacky glue. The only paper in this project not from the Sweetest Christmas collection is the brown reptile paper I used to cover the front counter. The stand is a blank canvas screaming fill me up! Those adorable hanging mugs are made by gluing reindeers from the Retro Santa & Penguin Tiny Christmas Stickers onto White Coffee Mugs. They were hung from from Mini Brass Coat Hooks.

I made decorated sugar cookie houses from 1:12 Gingerbread Houses. After assembling them, I painted them inside and out with pastel colors of acrylic paint.

The houses come with tiny windows. I very carefully separated them from each other with sharp scissors and gave them all a coat of white paint. All of the houses got a few layers of Tiny Scalloped Shingles in a contrasting color.

The side of each roof got 3 rows of overlapping shingles.

Once the glue dried, I added a row of polymer clay slices at the roof line. There are so many fun ones to choose from!

A few of the poly clay slices I used in this project were sugar coated. They were lightly coated in tacky glue then dropped into a container of extra fine glitter where they hung out until the glue dried.

I seriously felt like Willy Wonka decorating those little treasures, so much fun!

I took the time to make a couple of tiny snowmen for a few of the houses from poly clay. Pretty houses all in a row.

Now for some tips on a few of the other decorations. I love using ceramic beads in my projects. I always take the time to fill in the beading hole with a dot of matching paint as I did here with the Tiny Ceramic Gingerbread House Beads.

White and dark chocolate covered spoons? Yes please! I dipped spoons from a Miniature Silverware Set in acrylic paint and held them with craft clips until they dried.

Here are the pieces I painted for this project. The Santa Head Mug and Xmas Tree Candy Dish are both cast metal, the candy cane dish is from a great little Set of Miscellaneous Flower Pots that got filled with Mini Candy Canes. All three pieces were washed with soap and water then painted with a few coats of acrylic paint.

Some adult mix-ins are needed for grown up hot cocoa. How cute is that Bailey’s bottle? I made the Frangelico from a Tall Amber Resin Syrup Bottle, some printed label images and a bit of embroidery thread. The rum is made by adding a label from the Rum Bottles, Labels & Posters Collage Sheet to a plain wine bottle.

Here are some close ups of the finished shelves. Along with the cookie houses, I filled a few of the Even Tinier Bottles with a combination of cane slices, Multicolored Striped Candy Sticks & Tiny Polymer Clay Candy Canes. The houses sit on Tiny White Doilies. Scattered 5mm White Snowflakes complete the snowy sugary scene.

The hot chocolate shelf features those gingerbread house beads, pink and white candy balls in a Large Glass Apothecary Jar and some tiny resin lollipops in a Tiny Cube Glass Bottle. A White Ceramic Pitcher is filled with hot chocolate made from polymer clay. Those Peppermint Cane slices are sitting on a Scalloped Metal Plate that was painted white.

The front counter features one of the cookie houses, rock candy sticks made from finely chopped polymer clay baked onto flat toothpicks, poly clay marshmallow snowmen mug toppers, the chocolate dipped spoons, microbead candy inside Mini Mason Jars, poly clay cinnamon sticks and a snowman snowglobe made from poly clay and crystal glitter inside a glass dome.

To finish the scene I added a sign that I would personally find hard to pass up using a 1:12 Scale Sandwich Board.

Thanks for stopping by my sweet holiday shop! You’ll find all the supplies I used HERE.