More Miniatures

My sister was bemoaning the lack of magnets on her refrigerator recently.  I decided to leverage my new-found love of miniatures to make some cute (and functional) magnets.

The first completed magnet is The Cake from Portal:

My version isn’t quite the same (missing one whipped cream/cherry, whipped cream is bigger on mine, and I want to find a better solution for the candle in the future), but I’m pretty pleased with the final result!

		Portal Cake Magnet VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Just to prove it’s really a magnet, here it is sticking to my pasta machine:

I didn’t take pictures of the process, but basically what I did was use some crummy old clay for the base of the cake.  The ‘frosting’ is brown clay thinned with TLS, with black ‘craft sand’ mixed in for texture.  (This part took the longest to ponder over, but finally decided on the craft sand.  I wasn’t sure it was going to work, but it turned out quite nicely!)  The cherries are teeny red balls shaped with a pin and ball tool.  The whipped cream is plain white clay that I pressed into Floree mold and lightly pressed into the wet ‘frosting’.

Before I baked the cake, I assembled all the pieces, and poked a hole for the ‘candle’ (which is actually a toothpick painted white).  Oh, btw, I used a cork with a piece of wire on it to anchor the cake while I worked with it…my fingers were getting so messy, I took a que from cake decorating

After the cake baked and cooled, I dabbed glue on the bottom of the painted toothpick and jammed it into the hold in the center.

I ought to have made a hole at the bottom for the magnet to rest in, but after some quality time with a razor blade, I had a little round cavity for the magnet to rest in. 

I cut a circle out of matting board, and used a leather punch to make the divots around the edge (next time, I’ll measure them out, instead of ‘eyeballing’ it!), and painted the board a light tan color.

After the board dried, I just glued it all together with a strong white glue (hopefully is strong enough!), and I’m letting it sit before it goes to live on the fridge!

Campi Flowers

I more or less used this tutorial, with a few exceptions:  I didn’t have green wire on hand, so for now they’re on white wire, which I will paint later.  I also used thinner tissue paper, and dusted with pink chalk, rather than paint. 

I think they turned out quite dainty and pretty indeed. 

 

p.s.  I’m having an awful time trying to get my camera to focus on such tiny objects – any suggestions?

Campi Baskets

I’ve had a very productive day today making all kinds of miniatures for my Campi scene, some more successful than others.

I’m still struggling with getting colors the way that I want them, but I’ve finally resigned myself to the fact that I need to just let it go and do the colors the way I want them.

One of my favorite pieces so far is this grape bucket.  It turned out so very much darker than I had intended, but I really love all the aging!  (Which is actually not at all like the portrait, but oh well…..)

Here’s my bucket, waiting for its grapes:

I’m more or less pleased with this basket, although I may paint my handle, as the colors don’t blend as well as I was hoping.  It’s very ‘plasticky’ looking.

And the wooden box.  Again, much more textured and aged than the picture, but I like it; it has character!  (I was going to fill in the corner, but I like the ‘broken’ look….I’m starting to get farther and farther away from the portrait….)

I’ve already blogged about the square baskets…..but I’ve made another one since then.

Just a reminder, here’s ‘The Fruit Seller’:

And here’s as far as I have gotten on the scene:

I ought to start think about how I am going to display my little scene.  Hmmmm.  Any opinions?