Tutorial: Cutting boards and knives

Making miniature dollhouse cutting boards and knives (scale 1:12)

As I said in my other post today, I'll be posting a fair amount of tutorials in January to kickstart 2013. You're probably looking at your calender right now, aren't you? thinking; "it's the 31st of December!"... No! I hereby declare this day January the 0st... ehem, so let's get started, shall we? :)

Cutting boards are very easy to make but I have gotten questions about where I get them/how I make them in the past, so I'll be pairing it up with a short tutorial for making knives and hopefully you'll find it useful :)

 Materials needed:
-Wood (explanation below)
-Glue
-Metal sheet (explanation below)
-Saw, metal shears or small lopping shears
-Sandpaper or file
-Acrylic paint if you want :)


If you're interested in my tutorial for making miniature plates click here

1) + 2) - For the cutting boards you'll need some wood. You can use a really thin sheet of wood and cut it out in the size you want, or you can use things like wodden stirring sticks for paint, wide popsicle sticks (at least that's what I call them.. got them from a local craft store) - matchsticks can make some cool looking cutting boards as well. Saw or cut out the boards in the size/shape you want and smooth the edges using some sandpaper or a file.

3) - If you want to add a little extra detail you can use your blade or knife to cut some lines in the surface of the wood. This will make the cutting board look like it's actually been used.

4) - To make the lines stand out, make the cutting board look more worn and just to add a prettier color, I thinned out some dark brown acrylic paint with water and applied it to the wood. As you can see I made a areas darker than the rest - not for any particular reason, I just like that look.

You now have your miniature dollhouse cuttingboard.

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5) - For the knife you'll need some sheets of metal. You can find this at hardware stores OR you can use what you probably already have - cans. Try to use cans where the metal isn't too soft (to avoid curly and bent looking knives).

Don't worry if your can has a golden color on one side and silver on the other - if you're going to glue this down to a plate, cutting board or miniature scene this won't matter :)

6) - for the handle you can use polymer clay or wood - I chose wood. For this knife I used a matchstick (toothpicks make great handles as well). You can also use larger wooden sticks to create handles with more detail and curves. I used a file to make the matchstick thinner/more flat, smoother and rounded at one end, then used my clay blade to make a small cut at the other end, where the blade of the knife will be attached.

7) - Cut out a blade for your knife. If you notice, the cutting side of my miniature knife has a 'wavy' look, almost like a bread cutting knife - this is the pattern that my metal cutting shears leave, great for miniature knives! I cut the rest of the knife with a regular pair of scissors (not recommended if you want to be good to your scissors) to get a straight edge.

Glue the handle in place, let dry and paint it if you want. You can add more details, this is just a quick basic knife that'll look cool on your small cooking scenes.

Review: 'Olba Hobbybox' - paper punch set

Review of Olba 25 piece paper punch set

This blog has its main focus on polymer clay, but today I'll be reviewing a tool for a different category - paper, though still within the theme of miniatures (You can use it for other paper crafts as well).

Let me know if any of you are interested in miniature flower making and I'll make sure to have a post up this weekend, going through the materials and tools I use.. (And a couple of flower tutorials at some point).

I bought this set back in April when I was attending a miniature fair here in Denmark. One of my "neighbours" at the fair had a bunch of paper punches (and other things), and when I saw this set I just had to have it. The manufacturer is a dutch company, click to visit their website.

On the website this set costs 86,75€ not including shipping. It's a lot of money, and if I hadn't had a stall at the fair (thereby some extra cash for new materials), I probably wouldn't have allowed myself to purchase it without further consideration. BUT, you can buy the pliers by themself (+ 2 punches), and you can buy the  rest of the punches in smaller sets. Unfortunately you're not able to pick out the punches individually as far as I'm aware - which is a downside if you only want a few of the patterns.

If it isn't already obvious, I got this set for 1:12 scale miniature flower making, paper punches are not an absolute must, but I very much recommend them, if this is something you want to make (You can buy cheap, awesome punches in various stores, so you don't need this particular set to start out with).
I've only made a few flowers, so I don't have a huge collection of punches - which is one of the reasons why I decided to buy this set. I thought it was really convenient to a lot of the tools needed, gathered in 1 practical plastic case, and at the same time get a nice variety of punches.

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Here's a closer look at the tools included;

you get the pliers (thumbs up for the mm measuring part) and 21 different punches. You get a sharp exacto-ish knife with extra blades and you get a very fine pointed pair of tweezers and scissors.

And as you might be able to see in the first picture (first picture in this post) there are actually built in ball tools on the pliers at the end of the handles. I still use my regular dotting/embossing tools but I think it's a cool detail.

I don't feel like saying a whole lot of things about this set because it is what it is - paper punches. You can definitely find just as great tools by other brands, which are most likely cheaper and can be bought seperately. This is the kind of thing you have to consider whether or not it'll be worth it for you to buy. However, I'm very happy about this purchase and I'm sure this set will last me a long time. I have used it for a couple of flower projects and I like it a lot. I think it's a good quality product and if you ask me, it's worth the money.

Cleaning,... my work area and a small haul

Cleaning,. my work area & a haul

I've spent the last couple of days cleaning my work area - it had been needing a good clean up for a long time! I'm very messy when it comes to crafting, and I can easily make my desk look like a warzone after only sitting there for a few hours. Usually I just put the stuff back into the different drawers, even if it doesn't really belong there, but this time there were no mercy! I've been going through all the drawers and every corner, throwing away a bunch of scrap clay/materials and some unfinished projects. As much as it hurts throwing so much stuff away, it feels really, really good! You suddenly feel a lot more creative and ready to make new things, when you have a clean desk with everything in its place - And it's so much easier to sit down, relax and immerse yourself in new projects, when your tools are not spread all over the place. 

I'll do my very best to keep everything nice and organized from now on, maybe have a weekly day for cleaning? One thing is for sure; I won't allow it becoming as bad ever again!

So here's my little corner where I do all my crafting. *Cough*, when I'm not sitting on the couch or at the dining table.. Nothing special really, but I like it. Of course I want to one day be able to have an etire room dedicated to crafts. But for now, this is what I have.

On my desk I keep my blades, knives, brushes and other often used tools + my box of scrap clay, pasta machine and a few random items. The 2 black units with many drawers are where I keep my polymer clay and miscellaneous bits and pieces. On top of the unit to the left of my desk I keep all my glazes, glues and liquid cays etc. The small units with 3 drawers in each hold all my ceramic plates, trays, cups and so forth.

Now, for the drawers in the larger storage units, I try to keep it as organized as I can - eg. there's 1 drawer for jewelry supplies, 1 for doll making supplies, 1 for doll hair, 1 for paint, 1 for ribbon, one for sof pastels and some for fabrics - you get  the picture, right? :)
The toolbox below the desk holds most of my paper and cardstock and the pink box on top of the toolbox holds my flower making supplies.

The three larger storage units I have (with drawers) are all from the same supermarket, but I bet many office supply stores carry them. Most of my smaller storage units are from the supermarket I work at, and the small containers are from a bunch of different stores, websites and ebay. I'm always on the hunt for new storage units because I never seem to have enough, and not buying new materials is not an option I'd consider.

It's ironic how the hobby "miniatures" can take up this much space..

I've also received a couple of packages; As you can tell by some of my previous posts I'm really loving the Efcolor enamel, and I decided to buy the Efcolor "oven/stove" set - again from metalclay.co.uk. It comes with the stove, 3 tea lights and a variety of stands/tools. I bought it for a few reasons; 1 - I can enamel anywhere at any time, 2 - I won't have to walk back and forth from my craft area to the kitchen oven, 3 - it's cheaper since the oven is powered by the tea lights.
I'll do some more experimenting before reviewing it :)

I also bought some more fabric - from a different website (though still danish). This time I mainly ordered fabric for miniature shoes and purses, but I also found some cute kids patterns and a few striped and checkered ones.
I love the 2 in the top right corner - it's a snake skin looking pattern (black and dark purple), of course it won't look exactly like snake skin in miniature but I'm sure the pattern will look awesome for a handbag!