Sunday, February 12, 2017

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Dollhouse corbels

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I needed to make lots of corbels for the Kinfeld.

I decided to try to make clay corbels using a mold.

To see how I made the initial corbel for pressing in the mold click HERE and scroll down.


 Scoop the white and the purple in the same amounts.



Knead in your hand until they are mixed.







Once they are dry, sand and paint them. I discovered if they dried in the clay they tended to curve. So I immediately took them out and patted them on the table to keep them flat.


For the very small ones I cut a long piece of molding into small sections (shown below). My blade teeth were not fine enough so I had to spackle and sand the sides. I would recommend putting a better blade on your band saw so you won't have to do this step!



Still have some touching up to do, but there they are!

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Upholstering a couch and fringe carpet for a dollhouse

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I originally was going to make a chair with this fabric for a different room in the dollhouse.
I temporarily placed the fabric in this room while I was moving something else and WOW! I loved it there!
This was great because the original fabric I had my heart set on showed glue staines so I couldn't use it. ALWAYS test your fabric first to be sure it takes the glue well. I did a small test on a 2" square.


I am always on the look-out for this specific couch. It is the right scale and very well made. I sold my last one after reupholstering it years ago and was so happy when I spotted this one on eBay.

My squirrels were visiting my studio window for their peanuts while I worked, so I got distracted feeding them and didn’t take step-by-step photos for the couch. But I have listed the order below.

Always start gluing the fabric from what will be in the back to the front.
1. the horizontal panel just above the front skirt.
2. the face of the arms-wrap over no hem
3. the front skirt
4. over the arms and on the sides. Hem around the front, wrap around the back of the couch no hem.
5 side skirts and so on...


The rug is a piece of really soft, thick fabric. It needed some fringe so here's how I did it.


Pull your strands out with a needle tool. Oh gosh my needle tool has dried clay on it. I have had it since art college when I took sculpting 25 years ago! :)


I flipped it over so the green spots would be more faded. (The back of the patterned fabric is white) Surprised that it matched the blue carpet great when I flipped it over. Glue it onto the back of your rug!


In-between each snore..."Grandpa, Grandpa, Grandpa...."