Stuff We Made---Again!

  Recently I did several posts on the miniature souvenirs I made for the kids' dolls' vacations. There were loads more things we made that weren't connected with the doll vacations,that were just 'because'. I came across a lot of them in redoing Ivy's room, and when Fuzz moved back home recently he cleared up some of his doll stuff too, and I photographed some of that. I thought today I'd show you some of those things.
  First up is this tiny puzzle that belongs to Ivy's doll Blue.

You can see from the penny how small it is. I know I cut it out, but I think it had to have been a picture of a puzzle because it had the lines for the pieces already on it. I don't know where I found it.
  In the posts on the souvenirs I showed you some tiny magnets I made. I made these Wizard of Oz magnets for Blue too.

I think they were things I cut out of an old catalog too,and glued to very thin magnet material.
  Ivy has a collection of millefiori paper weights. I made this mini butterfly paperweight for Blue. I got the idea when I found the small,clear half circle,which is actually a rubber foot for something. I put the butterfly picture on the bottom. I thought it worked quite well as a miniature paperweight. You can buy the clear rubber 'feet' by the pack I think.

 

Ivy has a mug that was sold by the company that sold the school photos. They were available with the school photo printed on them, and Ivy had to have a mug of herself. I used the tiny photos used as examples on the school photo sheets and made some Ivy mugs for Blue.

The mugs were sold at lots of places,including a local Hallmark store. They came blank, or with a name printed on them,and were sold for charm bracelets. I had forgotten, but apparently I also made a couple of Fuzzy mugs for Fuzzy the Doll.

The kids made a lot of things too. The array of goodies below belongs to Blue,and were made by Emma mostly. I did make the donut I think, as well as the pink and blue lollipop,(which is missing it's stick),and the pink cake. It has lost it's red bead cherry. It was very easy and quick to make,because it's made of one of those wooden plugs that cover the screw holes in put-it-together-yourself furniture! I just had to paint it!

Fuzzy also has some donuts. I'm not sure which of us made these. They even have a little paper bag to hold them all. The bag would have been home made too. I saved bags from gift stores for things like this because they are thin and make more realistic looking small bags.

I also came across Fuzzy the Doll's New Year's hat.

It was made from a used Christmas cracker,with some Christmas garland around the bottom. (That huge thing coming out from it is the very old rubber band chin strap. It's seen better days.) You had to have a New Year's hat because the dolls had to celebrate New Year's with us.
  Fuzz had one of Emma's cakes too,and what appears to be cheese on a bun.

All of this stuff was made from polymer clay.
  I made Emma a TV for her Emma the Doll. Sometime I'll try to show you that one. This one is Ivy's TV for Blue.

I painted Emma's black, but Ivy's was left white. I put the three black bead controls on it, but I think Ivy is the one who wrote 'Sony' on it. We must have had a Sony TV at the time.
  The TVs were made from tiny boxes. I cut the front out for the screen area,replaced it with a piece of clear plastic from a doll package,and taped in a piece of cardboard to fit behind the 'screen' hole so the pictures I made into TV screens would stand up to the clear plastic. I cut out a lot of 'movies' from store ads,and even wrapping paper.(All those Rankin and Bass shows,like Rudolph,and The Year Without a Santa Claus, etc.,and the Christmas Story ones are from wrapping paper.)

I even found pictures from some of Ivy's favourite movies that aren't very well known,like the little known Disney movie "Child of Glass",second from the bottom, far right. The black and white pictures were from old movie catalogs I saved from school! They were the catalogs the school used to order movies. In my post on Topo Gigio I mentioned how the movie "The Magic World of Topo Gigio" is considered a lost movie now. No one knows where to find a copy of it. But apparently it was still available in the 70's, because there it is, center far left, straight from the school's catalog.

  Most of these 'movies' I 'laminated' by covering them with wide clear tape. 

More Topo Gigio. Ivy loved him.

  Fuzz had some things that were cut out of ads and catalogs,like a pizza,a notebook, a fan,a mask, and a 'Franklin' book rack,cut from a cardstock book ad from a magazine. They're missing, but there were tiny Franklin books that fit inside.

I even made Fuzzy the Doll a birthday card from a scan of the real Fuzzy's birthday party invitation.

I made the kids a movie one year,starring their dolls. Emma was inspired to make movies too. She made a sequel to my "Emma and Fuzzy Take a Road Trip" called "Emma and Fuzzy Take a Time Trip". We held a premier,and invited Emma's friends and their dolls. The starring dolls got to walk down the red carpet amid the flashes of the paparazzi, (We used small strobe lights!),and put their hands and signatures in 'cement'. (It was wet self dry clay. We still have their signatures and hand prints in the 'cement'.)  They even handed out autographed photos of themselves to their fans.

These pictures of Blue and Emma the Doll are from Blue's collection.

  I have more things to show you. The next time we'll look at some three dimensional creations.

Making Mini Souvenirs in 1/6 Scale, Part One

  First, I have gone back and added some pictures to the post that mentions the Halloween costumes, (More Stuff We Made),from a couple of days ago,as well as a picture of the stocking treats. Also, I went back and added pictures to several other posts on Ivy's dolls. I found the accessories to some things after I did the posts on them. The updated posts include Day 313,322, 326,332,342,and 344.
  We continue to talk about 'making stuff' today. Today we're going to talk about 'making stuff' to use  as souvenirs for the dolls' vacations.
  Some of you may have read my post on doll vacations HERE. If not,let me explain this to you. When the kids were little their dolls 'went on vacation'. It all started when Emma got the idea to send Fuzzy's dolls to the North Pole to meet Santa Claus. Once she did that,Ken and I helped her with things for Fuzzy the Doll to bring back. I think that may be where the little Rudolph record I showed you yesterday came from. I'm sure that must be where this tiny postcard, from The North Pole, that I found in Fuzzy's doll stuff, must have come from.
 

  I can't remember how long after that the dolls started taking regular trips. The kids would pick a country, and their dolls would 'travel' to the doll version of that country. (They only went to 'Doll England' for example,instead of regular England,because the kids worried about doll kids being so far away alone. I told them that dolls could travel to other doll countries without worrying about not being escorted,because they were always safe, unlike real kids,who had to travel with an adult.) If you want to read the details about how the dolls were 'transported' to the countries,and hidden while they were supposed to be on their trip,please go to the previous post using the link above. If not,stay with me.
  I am going to steal from my previous post to explain the next bit.
  "The dolls would send emails home, with pictures of their adventures..."

Like this one of Fuzzy the Doll on a rope bridge in the Himalayas. I'm sure we could do better pictures now with modern computer programs.

The whole thing, like the kids' dolls themselves, started out normally. But the dolls developed distinct personalities as we played. Emma the Doll became confident and conceited,oblivious to the fact that her decal face (of Emma's real face) had worn down,and all her badly rooted, (by me) hair, had fallen out. 

This picture is from a very early vacation where Emma the Doll got her Harry Potter book signed by J.K. Rowling the Doll.

She was left with two threads that dangled to one side. That became her hair. 

You may have seen this 'behind the scenes' picture of Tammy World and Emma the Doll at the World's Halloween party. You can see the whole photostory HERE.

  While I am responsible,at least to a great extent, for Emma the Doll's transformation from sweet little girl to loud mouthed weirdo,(I 'made her talk' quite often,and somehow it went that way. It was funny!),Fuzzy the Doll was entirely Fuzzy's creation. Fuzzy the Doll,who Fuzzy got for his second birthday,became absolutely crazy. His suitcases for his trips were always full of weaponry and piles of cash. (An early version of the TSA removed his weapons before he was allowed to board the plane.) I tried to make the emails funny. (Of course, I have a weird sense of humour.My kids were used to it though. My jokes often made them laugh, and their friends stare at me blankly.) I followed Fuzzy the Doll's personality for what he did and said on his trips. When he went to a museum there were emails sent home describing how the statues looked with mustaches. Emma the Doll sent an email with a picture of Fuzzy the Doll atop Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. (Ivy's doll Blue stayed a sweet little girl. Of course, this made the other two kids think Ivy's doll was 'boring'.)
   I also liked for them to learn something about the country they had chosen. As I said in the other post,  "When Fuzzy the Doll went to Africa, he not only visited the pyramids, but a real mining town, which I had to research to find", because Fuzzy wanted him to search for gold. "I used pictures of the real places. When Fuzzy the Doll went to the Himalayas to search for Yeti... there pictures of the dolls in the village below the mountains..."---which included the rope bridge picture above.
  But something the kids loved almost as much as the dolls' emails home,were the souvenirs they brought back when they came home. I made a lot of tiny things. That is, after I thought up what someone would bring home from a trip to that particular place. The dolls went to Paris, London, Liverpool, Italy, Africa, China, the Himalayas, Disney World, Hollywood,and other places. Sometimes it was easy to think up things for them to bring back,and easy to get the things. When they went to London the first time, Fuzzy the Doll brought back a teddy bear with a British flag on it's chest. (A regular tiny bear we put an iron on flag on, which we printed on the computer.) They all brought back English soap at some point. (They went to  England more than once. With the kids being half English, they wanted to go there.)

This is Ivy's. I located the box,which was included in a dollhouse magazine,but I could only find one bar of soap. I made it from polymer clay. If I did it now I'd carve it out of real soap.

Fuzzy still had one bar of soap left,as well as these other England souvenirs. At the top is a postcard. In the middle is a tin of candy. The tin came from a bag of them I bought online. The picture on top is cut out of a catalog. The candy is polymer clay. At the bottom is a sticker,and the bar of polymer clay soap.

I made a really nice wooden box with tiny excelsior in it and little lavender coloured soaps, for Emma.It's in her doll stuff somewhere. Her things have been packed up for a while,but someday I'll dig her souvenirs out.
  Ivy has a tin of candy too.

What else is England known for? Once Ivy's doll Blue brought home a tiny package of tea. I used real tea,and the picture on the package was of a real tea package from a catalog. I have been told that child Ivy ATE the tea eventually! Blue also brought home some rose scented powder.

I made the container, and it still has powder in it.
  Some of the other things Ivy's doll Blue brought back are a Titanic print 'signed' by survivor Millvina Dean(the Doll,of course! By the way, when Ivy was little, she was obsessed with the Titanic,like I am.), and some English money,(They always brought back money.) We printed the tiny money on the computer. (Can we get arrested for Doll Counterfeiting?) The two necklaces are a jade one, from 'China', and the other one may be from 'Egypt'.

As I said, they always brought back money. Early on it was always black and white,but eventually we did colour.

Some of Fuzzy's various money.

Some of Blue's English money and souvenirs. 

Emma and Fuzzy both got mini boxes of toffee. I made the box from some gold cardboard I had. The toffee was made of polymer clay, and twisted up in cellophane of red or yellow. The one below is Fuzzy's.

 

Of course, nobody can travel without a passport. Apparently Blue even has TWO.(Isn't that illegal?)

This one I made. Blue lives in 'Playtown'. The kids all gave their doll towns names. Emma's was 'Dolltown'. Fuzzy's was 'Garagetown',because Fuzzy the Doll lived in the Playskool garage with the upstairs room. When Ivy was still very tiny Emma asked for her doll town name,and she came up with 'Playtown' all by herself. There is that earless bunny again,as well as one of the mini books I made for Blue,and a polymer clay doll Ivy made for Blue when she was little.

Blue's London tube map,and passport.

This one came from Michael's miniature section,which unfortunately,they don't have any more.

Her passport stamps.

  Those are some of the simpler things made for the doll's souvenirs. Tomorrow we'll look at some more complicated ones.

More 1/6 scale Miniature Foods,Toys, and Books

  The last couple of days have been all about 'making stuff'. One of the things we made a lot of  'stuff' for was an idea of Emma's called The Doll Mall. After the huge doll fair we did,and the annual Doll Christmas Shop,there was also one Christmas where Emma invited her friends over one at a time for a different doll Christmas shop. It was heavy on Harry Potter items we had made,and the kids ended up fighting over the homemade fake toy boxes. I had to say, 'Hey, guys, they're empty you know. They're not real. We made them. We can make more.'
  That was just a small shop though. Emma got the idea to make a whole Doll Mall. One year she and I spent a lot of the summer at the dining room table making miniatures for the mall. We cut pictures out of catalogs and ads for the fronts of the boxes. 
 

This catalog picture of a box of Christmas crackers worked out really well. This is from Fuzzy's things.

Like this one of Fuzzy's.

We used boxes we had saved from the fourth of July's sparklers,(cut down), and poppers,and also made tiny boxes. By gluing the pictures of toy boxes from the ads to the boxes we made to fit them, we made miniature toy packages for the mall.

 

Some of this stuff of Fuzzy's may not be from the mall. The package top left is Peanuts stickers,next to that a Toy Story CD set,more 'stickers',and on the end is a Rudolph record. I'll explain about that in a day or so. I know the Neopets cereal came later. It was made from a picture on a cereal box. As you can see we also used the boxes from the individual size boxes of Nerds. Below you'll see the backs of the boxes. The sparklers boxes are obvious!

  Some of the best sources for ready made minis you don't have to print out are food packages. A  lot of the time they advertise themselves or their accompanying products on their own package. On example is the Neopets cereal above. The picture of the Neopets cereal came from the cereal box. I cut the picture out with enough cardboard left around  it to make the box out of. The downside of this method is that there are no side or back panels for the packaging. It works all right if you are making them for kids, or if you're using them in a diorama or for photos,as long as all that shows is the front.

Like the Cheerios and Life cereal boxes in the cupboard in the top left of this picture from a photo story I posted. You can see the full story HERE.

This box of Cheerios is Fuzzys,and made from the same picture on the cereal box as the one in the cupboard above. These came out really nice.

The logo on our toothpaste box made a great mini toothpaste box. This was in Ivy's doll stuff. I was amused to find she had put a tube of Crest in the Colgate box.

The Eggo box is cut from an Eggo box,as is the Colgate box. The Whoppers were from an ad paper. The Hershey's are made from Hershey's minis wrappers. The tiny Aero bar was computer printed,but only in black and white. The candy bars themselves are polymer clay. The Aero one was made to look nibbled.These are Ivy's.

A better look at the Eggo box, with the homemade popcorn bag I showed you yesterday.

   We made mini books for the mall bookstore.  In the early days of making our minis we just cut pictures of book covers out of ads and left enough paper attached to fold it and make a back cover.
 

Like these of Fuzzy's.

As time went on,(after the Doll Mall), I started gluing the ad pictures to thin card stock...ok,usually 3X5 cards or cardboard the appropriate thickness saved from candy packaging or anything else that worked. We didn't make spines on the books at first,but I moved up to that for making books for the kids later.

Like these mini versions I made of some of Ivy's favourite books. At this point I am still using pictures of covers cut out of ads, but the books have spines and pages. The pages are cut from stacks of paper and glued in the spine with Fabritac glue. These are a little beaten up from being in Ivy's stuff.

Emma and I filled a book store with homemade books.  I accumulated clearanced miniature flowers for the flower shop. We also accumulated and made grocery store items for the grocery store. The mall ended up with a grocery store, a flower shop,a book store, a toy store, a pet store or vet's or something,and a dress shop. The Dollar Tree had 1/6 scale dress forms with actual removable fancy dresses,so we had a few of those. We also made some sock dresses and things. There was also a sitting area with a trash can,and a gumball machine. The 'mall' was set up under and around our dining room table. I know. Where did we eat? But that was something we worked around.
   My mom would never have allowed my sister and me,(That's grammatically correct. Leave out the 'my sister and'. See?),to have done anything like the 'mall around the dining room table'. As I have said before,my mom never even allowed us to have the Barbie Dreamhouse out more than 'once in a blue moon',as the saying goes. Her catchphrase was,"What if somebody was to come?!" Nobody ever did, but Mom insisted on having a spotless house that looked like no children lived there.  I was the opposite. If someone came to our house they were liable to find a doll mall under the dining room table,or a rug of Legos in the living room floor,or a blanket house. Not only did I allow the kids to do this stuff, I was probably in it with them. I spent a great deal of time as a kid by myself. My mom was an at home mom,but she never stopped working. During the day I occupied myself,while Mom ironed or cooked,or worked in the yard. I remember being bored and lonely a lot of the time. When I had kids,if my dishes waited until the next morning to be washed instead of after dinner,that meant I had more time to read to the kids before bed. (And when they were little that meant reading separate books to Emma and Fuzz.) If the grass grew a little longer,I could make miniatures with Emma, or play Rescue Heroes with Fuzzy,or play Polly Pockets with Ivy. I skipped a lot of things,but we played together outside,we had foam brick fights in Ivy's room,and Ivy and I played with Kelly dolls before bed. The summer before Emma started kindergarten we spent weeks making a 'Wizard of Oz' movie with her dolls as the stars.(Her idea.) The dust and dishes were still there when we finished playing,but my kids didn't stay little.
  Tomorrow we'll see some more 1/6 scale miniatures that the kids and I made.