Here’s a cute and clever idea — create a snowglobe ornament out of dollar store plastic party goblets and miniatures. I made a set of these over at the Live.Craft.Love. I love how they turned out! This craft would also be a ton of fun to make with kids. Find the instructions here: [how to make snowglobe ornaments]

Project Materials:

• Plastic wine glasses
• Mini Christmas figurines
• Mini sisal trees
• Stiff felt sheets
• Aleene’s Glitter Snow
• White glitter
• Tinsel stems
• Coordinating ribbon
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks
• Paint brush or palette knife

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You know we love tiny things around here.  (Case in point: our large collection of dollhouse DIYs.)  So it’s no surprise that we are a little bit giddy for this tiny straw hat by Onel at Onelmon!  As well as being a cute addition to a dollhouse, this itty-bitty hat would also make a great pendant necklace, keychain, or an embellishment for any number of other projects.  For uses where it will see a bit of abuse, such as a keychain, you could also paint over the whole thing with a couple coats of Mod Podge to make it more durable.  [how to make a miniature straw hat]

Project estimate:

• Cardboard, on hand
• Twine, on hand or $1
• Glue, on hand
• Ribbon (optional), on hand or $1

Total:  Free or $1

The post Make a Miniature Straw Hat appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Okay, between last week’s mini chalkboard magnet tutorial and today’s mini frame pin cushion, it’s probably fair to say that I am crazy about miniatures.  I mean, they’re just so cute and tiny!  When I saw these itty bitty frames in the dollar bins at Michael’s last week I had to grab a few.  They come in fun colors, the shape is gorgeous, and you can do so much with them.  Did  I mention that they’re only ONE dollar?  Read on to learn how I turned a miniature frame into a fun pin cushion.

Project estimate:

• Mini frame, $1
• Cork board, on hand or $1 and up
• Fabric Scrap, on hand
• Glue, on hand

Total:  $1 and up

How to make your own framed pin cushion:

Step 1:  Cut a piece of cork board to fit in the front of the frame.  I had cork left from another project, but you could recycle it from the back of old coasters or dollar store coasters, since you only need a 2 inch square.

Step 2:  Cut a fabric scrap slightly larger than the cork.  Use a hot glue gun to glue the corners down first, then fold the edges over and hot glue  to finish.

Step 3:  Glue the fabric covered cork into the frame.

My fun little framed pin cushion is such a happy addition to my crafting desk!  It’s pretty and functional.  I like that it lays down flat when I’m using it, and when I’m done I can stand it up so it takes less space. Heck, I might even use it as a tiny pin board for instagram pictures!  Why not?

The post Tutorial: DIY Framed Pin Cushion appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

One day a while back I was scrubbing some lime scale off of my kitchen faucet (exciting, right?) when I looked down at the sponge in my hand it made me think of cake.  A little weird, I know.  (Alright, so maybe I was a little PMS-y that day too.  Chances are at that point almost anything would have reminded me of a dessert.)  When I found thin sponge cloths at Dollar Tree a few days later, the dollhouse-obsessed side of my crafty personality got a little excited.  This tiny cake isn’t any more edible than the sponge that inspired it, but it sure does look a lot yummier!

Project estimate:

• Sponge cloths, $1
• Wooden disc, on hand or $1 and up
• Button, on hand
• Paint, on hand
• Craft knife, on hand
• Mod Podge, on hand
• Glue, on hand

Total:  $1 and up

My sponge cloths came in three colors: orange, blue, and yellow.  You could make a crazy colorful cake, but I used the yellow sponge for my cake so it would look more traditional.  Cut three one-inch circles out of the sponge.  Seal each circle of sponge with Mod Podge, which will prevent your paint “frosting” from soaking into the sponge.

Mix equal parts Mod Podge and craft paint in the color you want your frosting to be.  Paint a thick layer onto the top of each circle.

Stack the three circles together to form your cake.  (To make a cake with more layers, just keep adding circles until it reaches the height you want!)

Paint more of the mixture around the outside of the stack so that your cake is completely frosted.  Let it dry overnight.

Cut a wedge-shaped slice out of the cake with a craft knife.  (It’s easiest to cut the cake if you flip it upside-down and work from the bottom.)  Brush a layer of Mod Modge over the exposed sponge to protect it.

To make a serving tray for the cake and a plate for the slice, you need a 1 1/2 inch wooden circle and a button.

Paint both pieces if desired.  I painted both of mine white because I was feeling all matchy-matchy.

Glue the cake and slice to the pieces you just painted with some strong glue.  (I used Amazing Goop.)  That’s it!  It was a piece of cake, right?

The post Make a Miniature Dollhouse Layer Cake appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Are you a fan of Mad Men?  The long-awaited new season is finally dropping, and to celebrate, Mad in Crafts is hosting a two-week-long Mad for Mad Men crafting extravaganza!  I am a Mad Men fan as well, so I am tickled that I got to participate.  My favorite thing about watching the show is the design.  Mid Century Modern has always had a very special place in my design heart, so I decided to scale down a classic design element of the era, the starburst mirror, to dollhouse proportions.  At the rate I’ve been going, I’ll have a fully-furnished dollhouse in no time!  [how to make a dollhouse starburst mirror]

Project estimate:

• 1-inch round mirror, $1 and up
• 1-inch plastic ring, $1 and up
• Toothpicks, on hand or $1
• Spray paint, on hand or $1 and up
• Cardboard, on hand
• Beads, on hand or $1 and up
• Glue, on hand

Total:  $2 and up

This post is part of the Mad for Mad Men series at Mad in Crafts.

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A fully-furnished dollhouse contains more than just tiny couches and chairs; it has all of the trapping of day-to-day life.  Keep track of which specific day that is with a dollhouse-sized calendar!  While the pages on this calendar design don’t turn, its Mod Podge coating makes it far more durable than paper alone, and its construction gives it a very realistic appearance.  You can even reduce your own photos to print out and use for this project if you want!

Project estimate:

• Calendar, on hand
• Copy machine, on hand or about $0.10 per copy
• Mod Podge, on hand
• Magazine page, on hand
• Straight pin, on hand
• Glue, on hand

Total:  Free and up

I happened to have some little one-inch-square stickers with calendar months on them, but you probably don’t just have those laying about willy-nilly.  If that is the case, use a photocopier to reduce an actual calendar page down to one inch wide.

Cut four or five pieces of paper that are one inch wide and twice as tall as the height of your reduced calendar page.  (Since my calendar page is one inch square, my pieces of paper are one inch by two inches.)  Fold all but one of the pieces in half.

Use Mod Podge to glue all of the folded pieces stacked inside of each other.  Glue the stack of folded paper onto one end of the last piece of paper, attaching them with the folded edges running along the center of the project and the raw edges lining up with the outside edges.

Cut out your calendar image as well as an appropriately-sized image for the picture portion of the calendar.  The pictures I used for my calendars came from my trusty collection of pretty magazine pages.  Attach these images to the paper, with the stacked end facing toward the bottom.  Seal the entire thing with several coats of Mod Podge.

To make it look like it is nailed or thumb tacked to the wall, carefully cut the head off of a straight pin and use a tiny dab of glue to attach it centered and toward the top of the calendar.  (Tip:  Most jewelry pliers have built-in wire cutters.)

Once the Mod Podge cures completely and the glue is dry, hang it in your dollhouse by gluing it to the wall.  If you want to be able to move the calendar around, stick it to the wall with poster putty instead.

The post Make a Miniature Dollhouse Calendar appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

One of my favorite things about working on my dollhouse projects is finding ways to replicate mundane, everyday things in a tiny scale.  And what is more everyday than the newspaper? Keep your dollhouse residents up-to-date on local and world events by fashioning your own itty-bitty periodicals.  If you have a printer and some Mod Podge, you have everything you need to make this project, and it’s so very easy!

Project estimate:

• Newspaper image, free
• Paper, on hand
• Mod Podge, on hand

Total:  Free!

First you need to find a picture of the front page of a newspaper.  I found mine via a Google image search; try searching for the name of the paper you want plus the words “front page,” such as “USA Today front page” or “New York Times front page.”  Save the image file to your computer and resize it to be 1 1/2 inches wide, then print it out.  Make sure you print it far enough into the page so that there is at least a 1 1/2 inch margin to the left of the image.

When you cut out the image, cut a the paper twice as wide as the picture (3 inches) so that there is a blank space to the left of the image.  Fold the paper in half and crease well.

Cut a second piece of paper the same size as the piece with the newspaper image.  Crease this piece of paper as well.  You will use this piece as interior pages for the paper, giving it a little more bulk and making it look more realistic.

Slip the blank piece of paper inside the printed piece, then fold both in half together and crease.  It should be starting to look like a newspaper!  You can leave it folded like this, or you can fold it in half again before you seal it.

Seal the paper with Mod Podge.  Pinch the newspaper shut so that all of the pages lay flat, then brush a coat of Mod Podge around the edges to hold everything in place.  Continue to add coats of Mod Podge over the entire newspaper until you are satisfied with the coverage.  (I usually Mod Podge my paper miniatures until then sound like they are made of plastic if you drop them on the table!)

Once the Mod Podge cures completely, you may want to seal it with some clear acrylic spray to prevent it from becoming tacky in high humidity.  The dolls will never be out-of-the-loop again!

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I’ve been playing house again recently – dollhouse, that is!  I came into a stack of cigar boxes (one of my favorite things to recycle) and decided that I needed to make a few miniature scenes inside of them, so I’m back on a roll with teeny-tiny projects.  First up is something that is important in any room: lighting!  I had the idea of making a hanging lamp swagged on a chain, so I dug through my collection of little odds and ends and came up with a wee, retro-chic fixture.

Project estimate:

• Coin machine capsules, on hand or $0.25 and up
• Beads, on hand
• Primer, on hand or about $1.50 and up
• Paint, on hand or $1 and up
• Mod Podge, on hand
• Chain, on hand or $1
• Embroidery floss, on hand or $1 and up
• Glue, on hand
• Tiny eye screw, about $0.50 and up

Total:  about $0.50 and up

For this project, I used parts from two different kinds of coin machine capsules.  One is the bottom off of a more traditional coin machine capsule (which will become the plate that attaches to the ceiling), and the other half of a newer, sphere-shaped capsule (which will be the shade portion of the light).

Prime and paint the capsule parts.  I left the ceiling plate in the white of the primer to make it match the ceiling in my little room; I left the inside of the shade portion white as well, and chose to paint the outside of the shade in a retro-inspired green.  To give it a shiny finish, I gave the shade a couple of coats of gloss Mod Podge.

Glue a bead to the inside of the shade to represent a light bulb.

Glue a small bead centered at the top of the shade, making a place to attach the chain for hanging.

Cut a piece of chain about 6 inches long and a piece of golden brown embroidery floss that is a couple of inches longer.  Attach one end of each to the center of the ceiling plate.  (I used a hot needle to make a hole in the center of the ceiling plate piece, then strung through my embroidery floss and secured it by knotting the end on the inside of the piece.  Then I used glue to attach the end of the chain.)

Weave the embroidery floss through the chain, as you would the power cord on a real hanging lamp.  Glue the loose end of the chain to the end of the embroidery floss to secure them together, trimming the floss to make them both the same length.  Then glue them to the bead on the top of the lamp shade.

To hang the lamp, first find the point on the chain where it will attach to the ceiling and attach a tiny eye screw to the chain.  Screw it into the ceiling at the point where the light will hang.  Then glue the ceiling plate to the ceiling in the appropriate place.

The post Make a Miniature Hanging Light Fixture appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Raise your hand if you think miniatures are awesome. (*Raises hand*)  Okay, I can’t see all of you, but I am assuming that was pretty much unanimous, right?  This time of year I always admire all of the little Christmas village whatnots, giggling over tiny trees and shrunk-to-scale buildings.  Amber from Salt Tree was shopping for just such miniatures when she had an idea that I love: the waterless snow globe!  She picked up a tiny street lamp and wanted to do something snow-globe-like with it, however she knew that electricity + water = bad.  But if you’ve ever worked with glitter, you know that it sticks to everything; adding a bit of it to the inside of a mason jar and giving it a shake gives a very similar effect to a traditional snow globe, but sans H2O to keep things safe.  [how to make a waterless street lamp snow globe]

Project estimate:

• Mason jar or other glass jar, on hand
• Mini street light, $1 and up
• Faux snow, on hand or $1
• Glitter, on hand
• Glue, on hand

Total:  $1 and up

The post Make a Waterless Street Lamp Snow Globe appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

You already know that I’m nutty about itty-bitty things.  (Exhibit A; exhibit B; exhibit C.)  So as you can imagine, I was absolutely delighted when I received a copy of Microcrafts: Tiny Treasures to Make and Share, a book complied by Margaret McGuire, Alicia Kachmar, Katie Hatz, and their talented friends.  It is a collection of 25 tutorials, all for teeny little things.

I was impressed with the variety of projects in the book.  It covers many disciplines (including paper crafts, polymer clay, and sewing) across many skill levels, creating finish products ranging from dollhouse accessories to jewelry to adorable gifts and tchotchkes.  With so many ideas and techniques used on the projects in this book, it was a very interesting and informative read!

I found a couple of projects in particular that really caught my eye and have made it onto my ever-growing to-do list.  I live in an area where hunting for deer is an annual tradition observed by so many that many local schools close on the opening day of the season, so I love the tiny mounted deer heads.  These would be such a hit around here!

My other favorite project in the book is a little birdfeeder that’s made from some unexpected materials.  Doesn’t it look like a real birdfeeder?

The ideas and techniques throughout the book have also left me with dozens more potential projects floating around in my head. I am thinking about making some mini treasures to incorporate into my gift bows at Christmas!

Disclosure: review copy provided

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