Tag: art and Craft

Ten Things I Love – Minis Edition

Posted on by Dianne Sylvan

This time on TTIL I wanted to show off some of my favorite things I’ve made for my dollhouse project, which has been going on for nearly a year now.   I thought I’d show you some of my favorite individual tiny things, most of which I made myself.

1 – The Memory Box

The house belongs to a character named Willow, a Witch who inherited the tiny little place from her now-deceased grandmother (also a Witch).  It’s a mix of new things Willow brought and the somewhat weathered stuff her grandma left behind.  This particular box will be either under the bed or in the clothes armoire; it’s a collection of pictures, articles, and other things the grandmother was saving, a box of memories.  I had a BLAST making this – finding pictures and newspaper pages to shrink, making the box itself.  I’m so happy with how it turned out.

The box is just chipboard (think cereal box) with a woodgrain patterned paper. It looks a little janky in this picture but it’s fairly realistic in real life.
Newspaper clippings, letters, photos, a Valentine, postcards, Grandma’s astrology chart, and a fan from some event or another…making these tiny items and aging them was so fun. A few things were probably saved by the Grandma’s mom, like the headline of the Titanic Sinking. I ended up saving out a couple of pictures to frame for the bedroom walls

2 – The Wind Chime

There are a lot of cool things on the patio, but probably my favorite is the wind chime I built out of toothpicks, string, and wood.  The dragonfly image (a charm) repeats throughout the house.  The chime even makes a tiny little tinkling noise when you disturb it (granted so do I if you scare me badly enough).

3 – The Bird Feeder & Birdhouse

I ordered the hummingbird feeder from one of the many mini shops I love on Etsy but then I thought hey, I could absolutely make one of these for other birds.  The feeder is a clear tube glued into bead caps, filled with a variety of spices and such that looked like bird food.  The birdhouse I built out of popsicle sticks and wood coffee stirrers.

Birds in this neighborhood will be fed a mix of nigella seeds, caraway, and some poppy seeds. Actual millet was way too big.
Just…too cute. I painted it to match the kitchen furniture to bring the color throughout the first floor. I like how it’s weathered and aged looking like it was there long before Willow arrived

4 – The Lavender Plants

This was so fun.  I found a video tutorial on making miniature lavender and decided to give it a go – I love the result!  You shake up poppy seeds in ground up chalk pastel, then dip a floral wire in glue, stick it in the seeds, and swirl it around.  

The little terra cotta pot was purchased, but I made the silver bucket out of a condiment cup. The greenery is just reindeer moss – it’s not exactly like lavender leaves but it was the closest I could manage.

5 – Tiny Vegetables

I made a LOT of food for the kitchen, which I’ll show later, but I think the veggies came out best, as well as the bread. All were made with Super Sculpey. I especially love those tiny baby carrots. I’m amazed at how perfectly the color came out! There’s also the basket that goes on the cart’s shelf; I made that too out of hemp cord wrapped around a wood base, another thing I learned from a video (from one of my favorite YouTube miniaturists by the way). There are several of those baskets in the kitchen. I should make some more, it’s really fun.

These were all made from polymer clay and shaded with ground up chalk pastel.

6 – The Kitchen Island

This was one of the earliest pieces in the project after some other kitchen furnishings. The rooms I made ended up way smaller than I thought they’d be, so there was a lack of counter space in the kitchen. To combat that I made this little cart with a butcher-block-esque top. I carved the knife block by hand, and made the box of recipe cards out of some basswood (I think? Either that or balsa, I can’t remember which I had at the time). The cards were a printable and they all come out of the box. I had to mount the cart on some flat boards stained to match the kitchen floor because the whole thing kept tumping over forwards. It blends in well enough with the floor.

The knives themselves were purchased but everything else is handmade. I love how the knife block came out.

7 – The Journal and Other Desk Things

I made the desk of course (so far there’s only I think two pieces of furniture I didn’t build myself) but a lot of the accessories I ordered, like the TINY POST IT NOTES OMG and the Macbook. But I did make the journal and the pen with it; it’s supposed to be Willow’s notes (she’s a writer too, so she can live out in the woods in this cottage and still earn a living).  

The journal is just paper, with a coating on the cover to give it a sort-of pleather appearance. I made the pen from a toothpick.
Most of the desk accessories were premade, but I did make the ruler and the candle. Technically I bought the chair, but I did cover it to match the curtains in the room.

8 – The Coffee Table Tableau

I thought the coffee table should look like it was in the middle of some kind of activity and a Tarot reading would be cool.  The candle is a white crayon, believe it or not, in another bead cap.  I bought the iPhone and the awesome little mug (it’s a uterus flipping you off).   I also built the table itself.

I used a printable file to make the tiny Tarot, and I purchased the mug and phone. The mat under the cards is just paper.

9 – The Cat Tree (and cats!)

Willow has three cats – I actually haven’t named them yet, but two were painted to look like real cats I’ve known.  The tuxie boy is in honor of my beloved Owen who is no longer with me, but the awkwardly-striped kitty is meant to look something like the Honorable Fitzwilliam Q. Darcy III, the youngest member of the feline horde here at Scorpio Manor.  The tree took a couple of tries but I love how it turned out.  Note the tiny little catnip mouse – I made that too.  It required tweezers. The two painted cats themselves are 3D printed, ordered from another Etsy shop, and the white sleeping cat is ceramic and came from, you guessed it, Etsy.

Wow, that white cat looks huge and pink in this image for some reason. Weird. Felt, wood, a ton of PVA glue. I keep meaning to try and fix the Darcy cat’s face but I’m worried I’d make him look MORE cracked out.

10 – My Own Books

I could keep going – this whole project has been so fun and I’ve learned so many new skills and tools – but the final tour will likely be several posts with lots of detail, so, I stopped at ten today.  

When you make all the books for a 1:12 scale shelf you can make them whatever you want.  I decided to include my own!  I printed the covers super tiny and glued them around bits of either wood or paper.  The paperbacks in front are about 5/8″ tall. They didn’t turn out as nicely as I wanted them too but they’re still pretty nifty, I say.

A few of the books I made, like The Stand and the Sandman, are openable and have actual pages. Most are just covers glued onto wood or cardboard.

Oh, and I should say the runner up is the Hitachi Magic Wand, but I already posted a pic of it in my March Update post. Even a 1:12 scale gal has needs.

Project Post – Apothecary Style Jewelry Cabinet

Posted on by Dianne Sylvan

I’ve decided to start doing more posts on my various art and craft projects – honestly I don’t know why I haven’t been.

As I’ve mentioned, I’m building a dollhouse, but this post is not about that exactly. The thing is, once it’s finished it has to go somewhere, and the only place I could think of was on top of the armoire in my bedroom. (It’s not tall.) Unfortunately right now that armoire is home to my jewelry. Idea: Replace the jewelry boxes I made during quarantine with what I’ve always wanted, something apothecary-style, and put it on a shelf by the door where there is about a foot of spare real estate.

I shopped around on the internet but to get the exact thing I wanted would have cost around $120, which I didn’t really want to spend. But my roommate mentioned seeing a little drawer thingie in unfinished wood at Michael’s, so I went to their website and checked it out. Bingo!

Pictured to the left – I ordered two of these for less than $10 apiece. I removed the silly ball handles and feet, and glued the two pieces together.

Meanwhile I ordered some fancy teal wood stain: SamaN brand interior water-based finish in turquoise. It was kinda pricey but sooooo gorgeous.

I stained the outside of the wee units and drawers, then used regular teal paint on the inside of the drawers. I lined those with some scrapbook paper I already had and they look so cool!

I also ordered some lovely little drawer pulls to replace the silly balls. They’re smaller than a lot of the other ones on the market, which was important since I didn’t want the pulls to cover the entire drawer fronts. The whole unit is maybe 9″ tall so I didn’t have a whole lot of space.

I did go over the whole thing with some sandpaper to distress it a little; it was looking all shiny and new and that would never do. I faded out the edges of the drawers and the corners so they’d look a little worn. I loved the effect!

Last, I made little labels to go in the label holders, and now my new jewelry situation is ready to receive. I just have to move all my jewelry over – I may still hang something on the wall to hold necklaces, it just depends on how much I have. Some things I never wear can go in the bottom larger drawers – or I can declutter them! What a thought!

I love it. LOVE IT.

My Book of Shadows, v. 25 (or so)

Posted on by Dianne Sylvan

Part 3 in my series about the spiritual toys and tools that have remained a part of my practice (or are part of it again, or have become important to me since I’ve started getting my groove back).

One of the things that I always loved about Wicca and its relatives was the idea of a Book of Shadows.

For those unaware, a BoS can be a lot of things to a lot of people. In some traditions the material in it is handed down upon initiation, and is either passed down verbatim or added to by the practitioner. In some traditions the whole thing is your own to create or curate. Some people use it as a journal of rituals, magical work, and divination; others use it strictly as a “cookbook” where they write down spells and rituals, both of their own composition and those copied from books or online. Some people keep two books, one a cookbook and one a journal.

A lot of people use some sort of handmade or beautiful bound book; some use a computer file. I’ve seen some that are sort of both nowadays that you can keep on your tablet but make look like a book using Goodnotes or another notes app. You young’uns and your technomancy!

There’s no right or wrong when it comes to a BoS (which some call a grimoire, others using one term for a journal and one for a spellbook) I’ve had several over the course of my magical career and the only kind I never could really warm up to was the digital variety. Keeping a BoS appeals to my love of pretty notebooks and journaling supplies. My last one was a gorgeous thin book of handmade paper I got at a local bookshop; I wrote in it all by hand, did all the borders and doodles, and nearly filled it up before it became obsolete for my practice.

Okay, there’s ONE “wrong” in a BoS, and that is not crediting your sources. Add where you got a ritual or poem somewhere on the page, both because it’s the ethical thing to do, and so that you can find it again if something happens to your book!

Last year I started a new one. I dubbed it my Book of Moonlight and Shadows, as the duality of shadow and light are very important to my practice, and have combined illustrations, poetry, prayers, and records of Tarot readings so far. I’m absolutely in love with the overall style I have going, so I wanted to show off a few pages here. Notice that you can see the new knob I got for my altar drawer to replace the boring wood one it came with.

Supplies used will be linked at the bottom if you wish to check them out.

An A5 dot grid journal from Archer and Olive; note all the fuzzies on the cover. Their notebooks are gorgeous and super high quality (the pages are 160gsm) but the fabric on the covers attracts dust and hair like you wouldn’t believe. I have cleaned it with a wad of tape and gotten most of the hair off, but living with four cats, it’s kind of a doomed enterprise. Oh, and the edges of the pages are silver-gilded! It’s soooo lovely.
The cover page. The color in these pics is weird, even after white balancing, but note that the paper in A&O notebooks is bright white. The drawing is in ink and colored pencil.
I am primarily posting the Index page to show that I screwed it up and had to patch over it. Any time I get a nice notebook I remove one of the pages to use for patching, as it’s way less distracting than correction tape (especially if your pages aren’t bright white). Also I love the berry bramble border.
A sort of dedication page, featuring a Rumi poem I love that I first heard at church last year. We sing it as a round. I get it stuck in my head all the time!
Even though I don’t celebrate most of the NeoPagan Sabbats (see my post on Beltaine), I love having a Wheel of the Year image in my BoS, and I’m extra proud of how this one came out. I intend to add to the page, filling in the blank spaces with notes on the seasons and adding holidays I *do* celebrate.
Another spread I’m really proud of. These are prayers that I use often, either as a whole or one section at a time, often with my beads. The left side are prayers to Theia, my Goddess of Starlight and Moonlight; and the right is to Persephone, Goddess of Shadow .
The left-hand page is a draft, really, of the verses that would end up in the blog post about breathing prayers; the right is the Seven Principles of Unitarian Universalism, with the logo of my church in the bottom corner. (I just realized I didn’t write the origin of the Principles on the page – look at me violating my own rule! I will fix that immediately.)
Lastly, one of the more utilitarian page spreads – Moon phase lore on one side and number lore (for Tarot cards mostly) on the other.

Not pictured are images of Tarot readings, as those are extra personal. Those pages utilize a lot more washi tape and glued-in images. I’m considering moving my divinatory records to my bullet journal and making my planner much Witchier, in the same vein as Jessica Starr does in this video:

If you’re interested in any of the supplies I used, here are some links. They are not affiliate links and I receive no compensation, I just wanted to share things I enjoy using.