Dollhouse Miniatures: A World of Minis


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Other Sources for Unique Dollhouse Miniatures

Miniature Topics Main Page

  1. Special Paper Crafts
  2. Polymer Clay Items
  3. Unique Pewter Styles
  4. Sculptures of Assorted Clays
  5. Dollhouse Woodcrafts
  6. Casting Resin for Minis
  7. Porcelain Creations
  8. Embroidery Designs in Mini
  9. Persian Miniatures

Dollhouse Miniatures give Tiny Structures that Touch of Real

Mini Projects at your Fingertips. Shrinking your world into dollhouse minis would be a captivating project to say the least. Tiny items take a lot of patience but the prize is worth it.

Painting Tiny Treasures

Ever wonder how anyone could have the patience and talent to paint on a pinhead? Those amazing microscopic paintings are mind boggling. Fortunately designing in miniature isn't so complicated. Nor as stressful.

Book Featured: #1. Painting Tiny Treasures Cindi Gordon 2000-08-02

Look in the special product box below about any book featured on this page to inquire concerning that item. Due to books being placed on the out-of-print shelf rather quickly these days some items may not be currently available.

Materials List for Dollhouse Miniatures

Miniature Design Material include These Types:

  • paper,
  • polymer clay,
  • pewter,
  • sculpture,
  • wood,
  • cast,
  • porcelain,
  • embroidery

.. and of course we all know this list could go on and on. It is just the tip of the iceberg, sotospeak ..

Paper Crafts

Miniature Books

* Paper Crafts for your Doll House - This category includes items such as: books, magazines, art posters, photos, current and antique novels, greeting cards, newspapers, calendars, various items of furniture, crafts, toys, money, passports, holiday items, and the list we are sure could be close to infinite. It's only limit would be your imagination.

Book Featured: #2. Miniature Books: 4,000 Years of Tiny Treasures

Paper dollhouse miniatures are objects you assemble from paper, there are a wide variety of these available commercially and on the web.... Printables and paper minis are the property of the designer and may only be used for personal use unless you have the designer’s permission. From About.com (More Dollhouse Paper Miniatures Info)

Open "Show More" window immediately below and Go directly to Project Featured Here.

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Intriguing Paper Miniatures

The Tiny Details...

We find dollhouse paper miniatures intriguing with their oh so tiny details.

Dolls House Magazine in Miniature

What do you have around you at this very moment? Do any of those things inspire you to shrink them?

Not literally, like the movie "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" or something. But just to attempt to shrink them by scanning, photo, or making a model.

Now to us an actual three-dimensional model-type such as: computer, toaster or whatever, does entail an extreme bit of calculating. So this, because of time restraints, is somewhat out.

We can however see shrinking our checkbook, passport or some other document though. Without too much trouble where that kind of project is concerned.

We have long admired the site where "Jim's Doll's House Pages full of Dollhouse Paper Miniatures" reside. We found them early on in our own quest to online life. Jim has the most amazing printable minis.

What fun to sit and create those tiny items for our doll's house.

The Turn Around...

These Pluses are on Your Side

....But, on second thought, considering the creation of paper material minis, and the thought of Jim's site.... and our earlier mentioned items of computers, etc., we realize that Jim has done all the work for us!

He already possesses those items in calculated measure for a wide array of doll house sizes. Awesome.

And because of that, we realize it would take us no time in creating whatever we wanted. Awesome again.

Just the thought of creating items in this size, just gets our creative juices flowing. We would love to start right now.

The beauty of owning a Doll's House site ourselves is: that we can do any project in miniature we set our minds to on any given day.

So hence the lead into our Dollhouse Paper Miniatures Project of the day....

Project: The Doll's House Magazine, December 09 Edition

Making a replica of none other than The Doll's House Magazine, December 09 Edition, in our most favorite scale. Barbie Scale. Play Scale.

Your Supplies

Supplies You will need for this Dollhouse Paper Miniatures Project:

  • Ruler
  • Pencil
  • White glue
  • Scissors
  • Stationery clips
  • Stationery Trimmer
  • Computer scanner
  • 1 Sheet of semi-gloss (semi-gloss is flexible)
  • 1 Piece of regular letter size 8.5" x 11" (inches)
  • Web page program or editor of your choice (we used FrontPage 2003)
  • Photo editor program (we used PhotoStudio 2000)
Miniature Magazine Project Supplies - Scissors etc
Miniature Magazine Project Supplies - Paper
Miniature Magazine Project Supplies - Paper Trimmer

Your Project Steps

Dolls House Magazine small
Dolls House Magazine Back small
  1. The first step is to scan each side of your magazine. Front and Back.
     
  2. Next use Jim's calculator found here to estimate the size of your finished dollhouse paper miniatures project. Special Note about scale: 100 pixels= 1 inch. We found this useful. As well check this page from Jim's site about scale.
     
  3. Next shrink both of your scans to approximately 200 pixels in height. We left the check-mark beside "keep aspect ratio" and let our program figure out the width. Make sure you crop and fine tune your minis in a photo editor. PLUS make sure each picture is exactly the same in size. Even if you have to uncheck "keep aspect ratio" for one, it will not make any difference. But for the very first photo do use "keep aspect ratio". Let that one set the pace.
     
  4. Save each picture in mini on your zip drive. (Because of computers going down we no longer save anything to our computer.)
     
  5. Now enter your pictures into your FrontPage program, or the like, side by side. No spaces.
     
  6. View it as if on a web page and print. Print 2 out. One on semi-gloss. One on plain letter size. The one on plain letter size is a pattern for cutting out a couple (2) pages for your magazine. The one on semi-gloss will become the cover of your mag.
     
  7. Cut out your tiny magazine.
     
  8. Using your plain letter copy, cut out more pages. We made 4. 2 pages, each folded, making your total of 4.
     
  9. Next we folded our cover and glued the blank pages in place.

The Finished Product

Dolls House Magazine small
Dolls House Magazine Back small

Now that you see how a magazine is made, you have the information needed to do additional projects of similar nature. Hope to see what you've all made in the future.

Miniature Magazine Project - Cutting out the cover
Miniature Magazine Project - Making additional mini pages
Miniature Magazine Project - Cutting out the cover 2
Mini Magazine - Finished Product

Return to Beginning Paper Crafts

Polymer Clay

Making Miniature Food

* Polymer Clay - Used for many miniature objects such as: Dolls, food, small appliances like clocks, kettles etc., brickwork, cookware, stoves, tiles, baskets, and candle-holders, to name only a few.

Book Featured: #3. Making Miniature Food and Market Stalls

"Polymer Clay is an oven baked modeling compound, widely used to sculpt tiny dolls house objects and food, scale dolls and figures, and scale models." - From About.com

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Polymer Clay Miniatures 

Teach Yourself Doll Creation and Save

We enjoy Books on Dolls, Dollhouses, Minis..

Making Miniature Dolls with Polymer Clay

Yes we do enjoy books on Dolls, Dollhouses, Minis, Clothing and everything in between.

They provide so much information that otherwise without these books we would not have near the added knowledge that we want to have about each individual topic.

We also simply love books in general anyway. So it should not be a surprise that we are an Amazon affiliate.

From time to time on this site we will include a review of a special text of interest to everyone who views our pages.

And today that is exactly what we intend to do.

Today's review is of a book by Sue Heaser a qualified Art Polymer Clay Miniatures Senior Instructor, entitled, "Making Miniature Dolls with Clay: How to Create and Dress Period Dolls in 1/12 Scale"

Follow us as we Review:

Sue Heaser - Author and Artist
  1. the contents of her creatively intriguing text from "Sculpting Materials to "Sculpting the Dolls" to "Making Wigs" to everything in between. Making your own Polymer Clay Miniatures can be easier than you think,
     
  2. then study a specific project from her fascinating book, titled - "Sculpting a Woman Doll",
     
  3. and conclude with us as we all participate in the creation of our own doll's house people of our choice. Taking the lessons from her text and trying our hand at a tiny person we'll name at the end. (lol, depending on what this doll looks like, since it's our first time for miniature creation like this.)

Our Review Starts Here. Part 1 of 3.

This is a Great Book on Polymer Clay Miniatures.

"Making Miniature Figures with Clay"

Introducing a most Charming Masterpiece

Just What does Sculpting a Dollhouse Miniatures Tiny Person Involve?

Fimo the magic of your dollhouse techniques

It would seem that sculpting a doll involves, first off, getting your creative juices fired up to start with. And Sue Heaser does that even in her introduction.

Sue Heaser's book, "Making Miniature Figures with Clay" is a clean, easy to read instructional manual with a down-to-earth appeal.

Which is what we as crafters prefer. And we "dollhouse" artists and collectors are crafters.

We don't know about you but when we look for a new dollhouse text, we look for a certain type. That said, even the font style plays a role in the book we often choose. Yes it definitely has to be appealing to the eye, as this volume is.

Really when you think of it. How often have you handled a book with an odd looking display and put it back on the shelf?

But too, this is where individual preference comes into play. Each person as they say, is different.

And the Contents are..

Sue's introduction makes us want to start the work. NOW! She makes it sound as if we CAN do this. Let's hope she's right. Part of our review will include us actually trying what she talks about.

The copyright year is 1999. An older volume now but definitely worth a look if you wish to purchase it and begin your education in tiny people creation.

"Making Miniature Figures with Clay" contains information on: Sculpting and Sewing Materials and Equipment; Sculpting Techniques; Sculpting the Dolls; Assembling; Painting; Dressing them in: Tudor, Regency, Victorian and Edwardian Costume; Making Wigs, plus references for suppliers and further reading.

Another good thing it has is an index. Yes so you can find that dollhouse miniatures subject you are remembering is in this text, again. We love a good index.

The Materials and Equipment:

This subject is covered very well. From the smoothing ability, translucency, strength, and quantities of the modeling compound.

Then the particular Brands are discussed. Brands listed Include:

  • Fimo,
  • Formello,
  • Polyform Products,
  • Creall-therm,
  • Du-kit,
  • Cernit,
  • and Modelene.
Fimo can help you create your dollhouse

They are examined briefly under each brand of modeling compound listed.

She also recommends that we not mix different brands because it may effect long-term durability of our polymer clay miniatures. And we can not have that!

We mean, if you have painstakingly worked on your tiny person you will want it to last. It may make a valuable heirloom to pass on to that adorable grandchild of yours some day.

So don't mix the clays even if you are tempted. By all means, though, mix within the brand names to make dollhouse miniatures just do not cross mix. For example, DO MIX Fimo products with Fimo products. But DO NOT MIX Fimo products with Sculpey products.

In the Sewing Sections:

....which encompass the various costumes such as Tudor, Regency, Victorian and Edwardian she is again detailed in her layout. Explaining the fabric choices, trimmings, and everything else needed for each of her Polymer Clay Miniature designs.

What we found interesting in these sections was the creation of ones own buttons with this modeling compound. So that basicly does away with any excuse we may have had of not being able to find a tiny enough button to put on a tiny outfit.

As well where a person tells you how to create such things as buttons, can you see the possibilities of taking the knowledge we gain here and expanding it to, say, a Barbie costume. Want a very unique look? Try that. Design your own buttons!

For sure no one else has them on their miniature figures.

Also worth noting is that any costume featured has a very well done pattern to use.

We recommend that you copy any patterns you wish to use onto another source so you don't ruin your volume, using tracing paper or just simply photocopying it onto regular paper. We value all our craft books, as we are sure you do, so that will preserve your copy of this excellent manual.

**And whatever you do, do not sell the material from this volume. All of it belongs to the writer, as it should. ALWAYS and ONLY use your copies for your own personal polymer clay miniatures use.**

The Sculpting of the Figures:

....is another area of excellence. From the techniques to the actual sculpting to assembling to painting to wig making, she once again encourages us just by reading to get started, NOW.

We credit this creative desire though, not only to this volume but to the season we are currently in. In the spring we always feel like creating dollhouse miniatures. Imagine that lol!

But we will cover more details about Sue's book in Part 2 of our review. Sculpting an Amazing Doll !!

* * Wish to obtain her COMPLETE BOOK and follow us in this awesome review/project? You may purchase this polymer clay miniatures book online HERE.

* * and so ends Part 1 of this review on Polymer Clay Miniatures check by soon for Part 2....

Return to Beginning Polymer Clay

Pewter

How to Cast

* Pewter - Any art form seems to be the order with these. Say you were wanting to place small items in your Doll House to create an artsy look.

Book Featured: #4. How to Cast Small Metal and Rubber Parts

"For instance with small ornaments, wall decorations, or different accent pieces. These would do. Plus for a castle creation, there are medieval items to consider such as Knights, swords, warriors, and various period display items."

Clay Sculptures

Creating Lifelike Figures

* Clay Sculptures - Mainly used for constructing figures. Some of the sculpting compounds used include Sculpey and Super Sculpey, Fimo, Magic Sculpt, Milliput - Silver Grey, Milliput - Terracotta and last but not least Green Putty. Sculpting has its rewards, especially if you are wanting to design your own original period figures.

Book Featured: #5. Creating Lifelike Figures in Polymer Clay: Tools and Techniques for Sculpting Realistic Figures

"Sculpting is probably the finest art in the Games Workshop hobby. Unlike painting, you start with nothing in your hands but two strips of blue and yellow stuff, and if you have patience you will watch your minis grow steadily, from the very beginning of knitting the Green Stuff together and to the final touches."

Chief Architect Home Designer Architectural

Featured Design Program of Our Choice: 
Chief Architect Home Designer Architectural

Never be at a loss again for how to design certain aspect of your dollhouse. For the outside as well as in the inside. Use all the information available at your fingertips to help you become the best you can be at design. Have the most fun designing your own miniature structures.

Woodcrafts

* Woodcraft - In this category we find anything from balls, blocks, books, boxes, buckets, rolling pins, wheels, school bells, to food items, etc.

Watch the video, below, on creating a wooden miniature:

Resin Casting

Mold Making

* Resin Casting - Used to make figures for your Doll House or any object you would like to cast in miniature.

Book Featured: #6. A Beginner's Guide to Mold Making and Resin Casting For the Hobbyist

Some compounds for casting include: AquaResin, Azbro Wax, Bondo, Castilene, duoMatrix, Epoxy, Foams, Forton MG, Gypsum, HydroShrink, HydroSpan, Latex, Magic-Sculpt, Magic-Smooth, Masterworks, Polyurethane, Polyester, Silicone, Vatican Stone, Winterstone. 

  • Casting Your Miniature Doll Molds Tutorial

  • Porcelain

    * Porcelain - In this category you will find items like vases, dinnerware, pitchers, dolls, cups, shoes, fine china....

    Watch this fascinating video of intricate artwork in porcelain:

    Embroidery Designs

    Miniature Embroidery

    * Embroidery Designs in Miniature - "Dollhouse Miniatures are fun, and anyone can do them, according to expert miniaturist Elizabeth R Anderson. Her enthusiasm and understanding of the subject have resulted in a wonderful, easy-to-follow book....

    Book Featured: #7. Beginner's Guide to Miniature Embroidery

    She guides the reader through an exquisite selection of samplers, flowers, fruit, birds, butterflies, figures, animals and silhouettes in a series of clear, practical projects, which are suitable for all levels of embroiderers."

    Persian Minis

    Persian Minis

    * Also worth mentioning are Persian Minis. Tiny pictures of Persian origins are awe inspiring mainly because of the attention to detail of these mini paintings. Think of replicating one of those to include in your Dollhouse Miniatures Collection!

    Book Featured: #8. Mostly Miniatures: An Introduction to Persian Painting

    "A Persian miniature is a small painting, whether a book illustration or a separate work of art intended to be kept in an album of such works.... The origin of the Persian miniature is difficult to trace. The art form reached its peak mainly during the Mongol and Timurid periods (13th-16th century), and was heavily influenced by Chinese paintings as the Mongol rulers of Persia brought with them numerous Chinese artists to the court." - Persian Miniature History

    Not that we are aspiring to be like the ancient art forms but it is possible to obtain a professional quality with the right knowledge, skills, and tools in any form you pursue. Especially where creating your imaginative dollhouse miniatures are concerned.

    So work on your special skills to create your world in miniature choosing whatever form is comfortable and rewarding for you. We are sure your success is just around the corner with your own unique, personal miniature creations.

    Purchase you own tiny objects from our Toy Shoppe online!

    Miniatures Featured Book by Number Below ...



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