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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Needling Ya


Chris from Canada wrote:
As there are only days before Christmas this is a super- quickie, and surprise(!) even seasonal, for anyone who has even the smallest branch cut from a live evergreen inside, especially if you want fillers, smaller plants or work in the smaller scales.
Before you vacuum up the last of the needles from your Christmas tree, or toss the evergreen branch along with the rest of the stuff in the arrangement your Aunt Beatrice sent you, save a handful or two of the needles. When completely dry, they can be used in mini flower
arrangements as fillers or as stalks for spring flowers (a tiny touch of craft paint on the tip creates a flower bud). For the truly brave, bunches of 7 or more Scotch pine needles, trimmed to the desired lengths at the blunt end and arranged carefully, make a 1:12 non-
flowering yucca plant, or any other plant with straight, spiked leaves.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Granny Rat



Chris from Canada posted this picture on the Camada Minis group. She completed the project following the directions Leslie Shepherd wrote on her About.com site. Love the feather boa Chris!
See other mice and rats along with Leslie's instructions on the Minitreasures wiki:
http://minitreasures.pbworks.com/w/page/20981795/mice

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Pharmacy Bottles Pegged!


hris from Canada writes:
I've been trying to gradually sort out some of my unsorted stash and recently I found a small baggie containing my failed attempts to shape the tops of these pegs with a craft knife, sandpaper and even my Dremel tool, as well as a handful of untouched pegs in colours like electric blue, hot pink, glowing orange and a sickly lime green.

I didn't want to trash them, and wondered if they could be softened with a candle flame, then pulled and shaped like some clear plastics. It must be the coloring agent used, but before they softened, the heated part burst into flame then immediately burned out, leaving the heated part soft, but also permanently blackened. This definitely had possibilities, so I reheated the end (it didn't ignite this time) and when it was soft, mashed it down onto the edge of my kitchen sink (stainless steel), forming what looked like a stopper on a bottle. I was short of time so played around with this idea only a few times, including heating the pliers holding the peg (not the peg itself) to shape the middle. The picture above shows two of these experiments with an untouched peg. These could be used in a pharmacy, bathroom, witch's kitchen, doctor's office, lab etc......