1/6 scale cabinet with lights

I got this tea box for converting it into a 1/6 scale cabinet. The first task was to remove the painted text from the glass.

Acetone worked well for that and removed all traces of paint.

Then I painted the box inside and out. I covered the glass with masking tape during the painting stage, although any extra paint would have been easy to remove with acetone.

Then I got the idea of installing lights to the cabinet. I made holes for the lights on the side of the cabinet and used wooden strips painted to the same color as the outside of the cabinet to hide the light installation. The lights are in a chain of 10 battery operated LED lights. There are two lights per shelf and the two extra ones are attached at the back of the cabinet for now. I will probably build some sort of decorative display on top of the cabinet and use those lights in it.

Printables

Here are some newer 1/6 scale printables I have made. There are more in an earlier blog post. These first ones are some of my books and magazines that I scanned and resized. The two bigger books have some inside pages as well, but the rest have just blank pages inside as a filler.

I scanned, resized and printed some chocolate bar covers. The inside is a piece of cardboard and the gold wrapping is from the actual chocolate bar.

Here are some finished ones. I made these for a 1/6 scale shop set I used in shooting a photo story.

These are in 1/12 scale and I bought them as printed sheets and assembled them myself. I filled the packages with some decorative sand to make them sturdier.

Monster High mugs in 1/6 scale

When I made the heels for Monster High shoes using wooden cigarette holders, I was left with pieces of round wooden tubes and wondered what I could do with those. I decided to use them to make mugs for 1/6 scale sets. The heart-shaped plastic decorations are for making the handles.

Here are the tubes sawn into suitable length and the plastic pieces cut to shape.

Then I glued the handles in place, glued cardboard to the bottom of the mugs, and painted everything with white acrylic paint.

I found these small Monster High stickers the other day and thought they would be perfect for this purpose.

I applied one coat of glossy sealer, let dry, attached the stickers, and applied two more coats of sealer to get really glossy surface.

1/6 scale bar furniture

I have been making a 1/6 scale bar set in my bookshelf. I had a bar desk made of cardboard, but I wanted to have proper furniture for the new set.

First, here is the bar desk made mostly of balsa wood. The first photo shows it upside down before attaching the legs, so you can see the basic structure.

Then I added legs. The wooden strip in the front edge made the desk front heavy, so the front legs had to be attached right behind the strip.

Here is the finished desk painted with acrylic paint and the top has scrapbooking paper attached to it, because balsa wood was too soft for the top. The final stage was applying sealer all over.

The next piece is a small table with a tap and sink and it will be behind the desk, against the side wall. The table top is a piece of cardboard with wooden strips around it and a hole for the sink. The sink is from a package of 4 AA batteries.

Here is the same seen from below. I glued some pieces of wood and cardboard for support.

All the wooden parts are painted with acrylic paint, but for the sink, I used Revell paint meant for painting plastic scale models. The pipes are made of wood, except for the "S" piece, which is made of modeling clay. The white strips are made of cardstock and help to keep the pipes in place.

Here is a view from above. I made a hole in the bottom of the sink and carved a little hole in the "S" pipe. Then I painted the parts visible through the hole black.

The final step was to make a tap and attach it to the top, making sure it matches the location of the pipe underneath. The tap is made of modeling clay. I first made the curved part and baked it alone. Then I made the bottom part around it and baked the two pieces together. I made the hot and cold water taps separately, baked them and then glued them in place. Then I painted the assembled tap white using acrylic paint. Finally, I used a hole puncher to cut red and blue round pieces of paper and glued them on the taps. As the paint was matte finish, I applied sealer to get more dirt-resistant surface.

The third piece is a shelf for bottles and other items needed in a bar. This is a very simple structure made with wooden cigarette holders and pieces of cardboard. The first photo shows the upper and lower pieces after assembling them separately.

Here is the finished shelf in its place in the set. It only needed two coats of paint and one coat of sealer after assembly.

Furniture

Here are pictures of some furniture I have made. The first ones are in 1/12 scale.

This rocking chair came as a part of a kit, so I have only assembled and painted it.

The same kit also contained a dining table and chairs, which I painted and then decorated with some printed cardstock.

This chair is from a set of finished furniture made of untreated wood. I painted the parts that would remain visible and then covered the rest with fabric.

The next one is in 1/6 scale and mostly made of pieces that came in packages of Lundby dollhouse furniture and lights. The darker pieces are very dense and hard to saw, so the dimensions were primarily determined by the length of the pieces, so I wouldn't need to saw any more than was absolutely necessary.

Here is the finished bench.

Shoe shelf

As I was going through old photos, I found some pictures of making the shoe shelf.

The frame is made of pieces of particle board that were packaging material for some furniture. I used angle irons to attach the pieces together, because that's the easiest way.

Then I attached the center shelf by gluing strips of wood to the vertical parts for support and then gluing the shelf into those. I glued cardstock to the front edges, so they would be smooth. Usually this is done with strips that are laminated to the edges, but I didn't need anything that durable, just a smooth surface.

Then I used paper napkins and glue varnish to cover the frame all over.

The other shelves are made of cardboard, attached the same way as the center shelf, and then covered with napkins and glue varnish. Finally, I attached some overhead transparencies to the front for keeping most of the dust out. The transparencies are only attached on the top edge, so you lift them up to access the shelves.

Trunk for 1/24-1/12 scales

I have built a couple of 1/144 scale dollhouses from laser cut kits. The wood in those is very thin and the bits left over after removing the house parts can be used for various miniature projects. One of the things I have made using them is a trunk that fits several scales.

This is the trunk before painting. The black parts are cardstock, the lid is made of foamcore, the strips around the lid are leftover dollhouse skirting, and the rest of the wooden parts are from the dollhouse kits.

Here is the finished trunk with gold paint, some plastic decorations and a coat of sealer to keep the decorations secure.

Kindle case

At the end of the previous post, I had a picture of a protective case for a Kindle. This post explains in detail how I made it.



The first step was to cut the bands to correct length. I first sewed across the bands to keep the ends from fraying and then cut them.



Then I pinned them together for sewing. As the bands are a bit stretchy, you need to pin the ends first and then the rest of the length spread evenly.



Next step was sewing the bands together using the yarn used in the edges.



Here are the bands sewn together.



To remove all unevenness, the piece needed to be pressed. I used a regular iron and ironed through a damp cloth.



Here you can see the reverse side. The seams are a lot flatter after ironing.



Then I cut the lining and two pieces of sturdy bubblewrap for reinforcement.



I sewed the lining to a piece of wool fabric. The plastic pieces went between these two fabrics and the seam in the middle kept them in correct places.



Then I cut away all the extra outside the seams.



I sewed pieces of the lining fabric to the short edges of the outer piece.



Then I put the lining and outer piece together, turned the fabric to cover the edges and sewed all the layers together. At his stage the side seams were not yet sewn.



Then it was time to sew the zipper and side seams. The side seams were sewn by hand and only through the edge of the outer pieces, the same way as sewing the bands together. The sides of the lining remained open.

More card weaving

These are bands I have made after having a lot more practice in card weaving. I found organic cotton yarn at a good price, so I ended up getting quite a lot of it and experimenting with different patterns.

The frame I used for these was just two chair legs joined together.

The chair had four legs, so I got two frames and could work with two bands in parallel.

Here's a closeup in which you can see the cards I'm using. They are made of ordinary playing cards as described in this earlier post.

Most of these bands ended up becoming a handbag. The two side pockets are for a mobile phone and digital camera.

The pockets close with really big snaps.

Inside has a cotton lining and the bag closes with similar snaps as the pockets. There is a small side pocket inside the bag for wallet.

There were some leftover bands and they later became a protective pouch for my Kindle. I will write a separate post later about how I made that.