Miniature Tardis Decoration

After making a few miniature wooden houses I decided to try making some iconic buildings. Starting with...the Tardis!

I made the Tardis from a base of balsa wood with the details built up with cardboard.
I drew out the design first and worked out the different layers, which I then cut out of card and stuck together using PVA glue.

I painted the whole thing using several layers of acrylic paint.

I cheated a little bit with the signs and just printed them off the computer. My tiny writing skills aren't that good!

For the light on the top I used a little bead with a flat piece of card on top.

Winnie the Pooh Hairbands

My friend recently asked me if I'd make some photo props for her sister's baby shower. Her sister is pregnant with twins!

Having seen my unicorn hairband she asked if I could make something similar but with Winnie the Pooh characters, as this was the theme of the shower.

We decided on making the ears of Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore. I found a pack of hairbands that included yellow, pink, orange and blue which was perfect.

I made paper patterns of the ears and cut them out of felt. I made them so the piece of felt would fold over the hairband.

The ears are pretty simple shapes, with only one or two elements to them. Plus a tuft of Eeyore's hair of course.

If the hairbands were for regular use I'd probably sew the felt together, but since they're for a one off event I decided to just glue them, which worked perfectly well.

Here's a photo of the selfie station my friend set up at the baby shower. Love that hashtag! #twinniethepooh

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Shrink Plastic

I didn't grow up with Shrinky Dinks so the idea of shrink plastic is very new and exciting. I'd seen a lot of tutorials on youtube of people using it to make pins and wanted to have a go.

I purchased this shrink plastic which is suitable to print on with an inkjet printer.

For my first experiment I printed two of my dogs in flower crown designs. I followed the instructions and printed them approximately three times bigger than I wanted the end product to be. I'd also read that the image appears darker once shrunk, so I lightened the images before printing them.

Cutting out the images was fairly easy, although the little leaves were a bit tricky, but I wondered how much these imperfections would show up once shrunk (spoiler: they didn't show up).

Then it was time for the oven, and the realisation that I need to clean my oven door as I didn't have a clear view of what was going on inside.

The shrinking process happens quite quickly. In the youtube videos I'd watched it looks like the footage is sped up but it really is that fast. The plastic folds up and then shrinks as it flattens down. It's really exciting!

I was really pleased with how they turned out. They aren't completely flat but for a first try I think they're great.

I decided to make one of the designs into a keyring which I did by drilling a hole through the plastic and attaching the ring. A hole can be made before shrinking with a hole punch, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them before I shrunk them.

I think the unicorn pug design would look great as a pin so I'm going to look into getting some little pin backs to stick on.

Have you ever used shrink plastic? What did you make with it?

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New Painting: Aberdeen

My latest painting is from a trip to Aberdeen a couple of years ago. My friend Daisy and I went to visit my cousin Miriam who was at university there. We did lots of exploring including hitting up three castles in two days.

For this painting I used a short video I'd taken as a referance. I just paused it on a good shot and took a screen shot.

The canvas is 40x50cm and painting using oils.

Illustrations - Weekend Uniform

I'm getting really into gouache paint at the moment. I think it's really great for small illustrations, so I wanted to do more of those.

I started with a fun little self portrait of me in, what I like to call, my weekend unform; an oversized t-shirt and a pair of leggings. If I don't plan on leaving the house, this is probably what I'll be wearing.

I then thought it would be nice to document my over sized t-shirt collection. I think it all started with the Sunnydale High shirt which I got at a sci-fi convention when I was 15. They didn't have one small enough but I really wanted it so I just went with the bigger one.

Most of the other ones were gifts. One of my sisters gave me the CSI: Stotfold one which was custom made from Ebay (it's my hometown), my other sister gave me the 'I'm kind of a big deal on my blog' shirt, and my parents gave me the Eminem t-shirt after I pointed it out in the men's section of Peacocks. 

Novelty Hairbands

It will come as no surprise to you when I say that unicorns are very on trend right now. I've seen a lot of unicorn hairbands complete with horn and ears and always think that it would be fun to make my own, so I did.

Usually this is the sort of thing I would make completely out of felt but since the unicorn horn is special I had to dig through my regular fabric stash until I found this gold and sparkly fabric which, with enough stuffing, stands up on it's own.

I made one as a test and put it on my craft stall a couple of months ago and it was one of the first things to sell! So I bought a pack of hairbands to mass produce ready for Christmas craft fair season.

I also wanted to try some other styles, starting with this cute felt crown. I'm already thinking of different colour combinations.

And a little party hat! I think this could easily be modified especially for Christmas. Red with a white pom pom and trim? Or red and green complete with felt elf ears on the side?

Miniature House Ornaments

Do you remember the miniature pink beach house I made? After I posted it on my Instagram I was contacted by my favourite Etsy customer with a commission to make two miniatures houses; one of her previous apartment building and one of the house she lives in now.

Having spent most of my time at university making miniature models I always get excited at the opportunity to make something tiny. I like drawing out the plans, scaling everything down and seeing how much detail I can include.

Google street view was my best friend when working on this commission. The customer gave me the addresses of the two buildings so I was able to find them online and see them from different angles. Being able to view images from previous years on Google maps meant that if there was a blossoming tree obscuring my view one year, I could check to see if there was a photo taken in winter when this wasn't a problem.

I also find it really interesting looking at houses from other places. These buildings are in America and they look nothing like the houses I live around here in England.

I added ribbon loops to the backs of the models so that they can be hung on my customer's Christmas tree. She already has a felt dog ornament and another custom ornament so I'm slowly taking over her tree!