Miniature Baking Trays for Dollhouse: Upcycled Project

Itty Bitty baking trays with donuts and cakes (which are actually erasers) for a dollhouse.

I saw this GREAT post on Pinterest recently and thought it was such an easy but clever idea! They are tiny baking trays for a dollhouse, and you want to know what they were originally? Compact powder trays! You know when your makeup is all used up and you (generally) throw it away? Next time, hold on to the casing because not only are they refillable (and therefore minimise waste, plus save you a few dollars), you can pry out the tiny metal trays which have been emptied out an reuse them for this uber cute DIY project :D

Yes, I am aware that I am somewhat of a hoarder!

I personally have A LOT of empty compact powder cases which I squirrel away in my vanity cupboard because I do buy the refills and I just hate throwing things away. Boy am I glad I did that because I have LOTS to choose from now.

My favourite case is the one in the front with the silver roses, which is from Anna Sui. SO pretty!!!!

So you see the little metal trays inside which once contained the compact powder? You can carefully pry them out with a pair of tweezers, because they are usually glued on. Or some of them which are not glued can just easily be lifted out.

The washed and cleaned metal trays

Wash out any remaining makeup with water and soap. The glue can easily be rubbed off with a little baby oil or cooking oil and then rinsed thoroughly.

And you're done! You have adorable miniature baking trays for your dollhouse, which didn't even cost me a thing. There are different shapes of trays depending on which brand you use. Some are circular as well. You can also use eye shadow trays. Next time I might try to paint them and add other decorations, or use them as something else. Leave your comments to tell me what other ways you can use them! :)

Handmade Dollhouse Sofa/ Daybed & Cushions: DIY Tutorial for Miniature Furniture (All Upcycled Materials!)

My DIY Doll Daybed/ Sofa made from upcycled materials.

While doing the laundry (my most dreaded chore of the week!!!!), one of the plastic clothes pegs I was using broke and just before I tossed it into the bin, I stopped to inspect it a little closer. The metal ring that kept the two plastic clippy parts together was brittle, so I removed it and realised that the two clippy parts (ok, so those are clearly not the technical terms, but you know what I mean!), sort of looked like super slim chairs if you sat them upright on a flat surface. I had them side by side on the kitchen counter top and then it hit me that I could turn it into a DIY project and create a miniature sofa or daybed for Gemini Grrl's dollhouse!


SOFA/ DAYBED

For the miniature daybed/ sofa, you will need:

1 plastic clothes peg
3 popsicle sticks
Superglue
Felt/ Piece of fabric

Ribbon/ Lace

Step 1: Building the frame

STEP 1: Take apart your plastic clothes peg and place them side by side on a flat surface.

Step 2: Glue on popsicle sticks

STEP 2: Glue a popsicle stick across the "seating" part at the bottom, front and top.

Step 3: Add felt and ribbon

STEP 3: Glue on a piece of felt or fabric, as well as bits of ribbon or lace for decorative purposes and to hide any parts of the popsicle sticks or clothes pegs showing underneath.

CUSHIONS

Adding the stuffing to the cushion.

For the teeny weeny cushions, I used some leftover scrap material from another dollhouse project I did previously, as well as an old baby washcloth with a cute little bird embroided on it.

For the cutesy cushions, you will need:

Cotton
Pieces of fabric
Superglue

Itsy bitsy teeny weeny cushions :)

STEP 1: Cut out the piece of fabric to the shape and size you desire.

STEP 2: Fold up a piece of facial cotton or use a round cotton ball for the stuffing.

STEP 3: Glue the sides together.

Baby School Bag (Vintage My Little Pony - 1984 ) & her new handmade Daybed ^_^

And there you go! It was so easy to make and is an adorable addition to my daughter's new wooden dollhouse I am currently working on. I will keep you updated about that project in a new post once it's completed! Do leave your comments and tell me what you think about this little DIY project of mine, I'd love to hear your feedback :)

How To Dye Your Hair Green (Or Other Wild Colours!)

When you become a Mom, there are few expectations the conservative society seems to have of you. No more listening to heavy metal music? No more black t-shirts and tight jeans? No more wild hairstyles?
I don't think so.
What I wear and how I choose to present myself should not affect my parenting capabilities. It is not doing any harm to my child or anybody else for that matter, so I do not see why I should not continue to dress the way I did before I became someone's Mother.

For the longest time, I have always been experimenting with my hair and putting it through all sorts of torture treatments, including various hairtsyles, cuts, colours, lengths and umm, accessories:

My ever evolving hair

My personal take is that, it’s only hair anyway right? And whatever it is, it can grow back! Plus you can also opt to wear a cap/ hat/ beanie/ bandana/ sombrero if you do end up regretting shaving half your head and dyeing it neon pink. 

Well, my most recent hair escapade is to have it dyed GREEN - why not right? Since that is a lucky colour for Taurus!). As I have dark Asian hair, it is absolutely necessary for me to get it bleached prior to getting any sort of hair colour dyed in, because if not, then you won’t be able to see any other colour besides black. Total pain in the ass and I am very envious of all blonde people out there, JUST because I really hate getting my hair bleached. It can really screw up your hair texture and ends up damaging it to a certain degree no matter how much effort you put into maintaining it (and trust me, I am pretty vain and have a meticulous beauty regime and my bleached bits are still a little “crunchy” sometimes. UGH).

Anyway, not wanting to blind myself, or bleach uneven patches all over my head, I got it professionally done at the hair salon.

Ola. I am a Biker Mouse from Mars.

Umm. Yes. So hawt. LOL! They had to bleach my hair like, 3 times to get it light enough so that the dye colour can be seen. This salon also carried Manic Panic hair dye and kept asking me whether I wanted them to dye my hair there instead, but the price they were quoting was enough for me to buy about 8 tubs of dye online if I were to do it myself, so, no thank you!

I ordered some wild hair colours from La Riche Directions from my friend who is a seasoned pro with bleaching and dyeing her own hair on a regular basis and eagerly waited for the shipment to arrive. Meanwhile, I was actually sort of liking my bleached bits.

Caramel Custard Pudding Milk Tea

So when my dyes finally arrived, I decided on APPLE GREEN for the first try. It was super simple to apply and actually smells pretty nice!

STEP 1: Shampoo your hair and towel dry it. Do not put in any sort of hair product. You can actually skip this step ONLY if your hair isn’t super greasy or has hair products in it.

STEP 2: Wear plastic/ rubber gloves and scoop some hair dye out of the tub and into another container (a bowl is ideal).

STEP 3: Squeeze in some hair conditioner (any kind) and mix well. Do note that the conditioner is going to lighten the dye shade a little bit, so just figure out the exact shade  you want by adding in more or less of the dye.

STEP 4: Apply the hair dye using those applicator brushes. I couldn’t find mine so just used a small comb. Worked just fine for me. You can get a friend to help you with this just in case you miss a few spots (like how I did and then had to go back and reapply it again the next day. Duh).

STEP 5: Put on a a shower cap or just clip up your hair and wait for at least 15 minutes. I left mine in for about 2 hours. Apparantly it is even safe enough to leave on overnight (for LA RICHE DIRECTIONS, as far as I know. Not sure about other brands, so please double check first if you plan on doing that!).

STEP 6: Rinse out with cold water (Pro tip: Warm/ Hot water makes your scalp greasy), until the water runs fairly clear. Use a Colour-Protector shampoo and conditioner for the next few washes to help make the colour last.

Dyeing my hair GREEN!

I’m really happy with how my green hair turned out! It’s actually a bit brighter than what you see in the picture, and some parts are hidden (if the wind blows and reveals the inner right part of my hair, it’s super greeeeeen).

Going to my daughter's weekly playgroup, I wondered if the other Moms would judge me and still want to talk to me. I was mostly met with positive comments and enthusiastic compliments. And I also noticed a few nervous side-glances. It's alright, I don't really care what some people have to think or say. It's their right to think I'm an odd "alternative" Mom, just like how it's my right to dress how I jolly well want to. To each their own, right?

I still have “Atlantic Blue” sitting in my bathroom, and as my current Apple Green is slowly starting to wash away as the weeks go by, I’ll probably mix it in on top of the green and see what colour comes out.

Lucky Green Hair for this Taurus Mommy \m/

I hope you found this tutorial helpful. Do you think green hair suits me? What colour should I try next? Leave your suggestions in the Comments section and I may just try it next time! ;)

DIY Portable Dollhouse: Tutorial for Handmade Miniature Furniture (BONUS! Video)

(Handmade LPS Portable Dollhouse)

I have always been fascinated with all things miniature and would pretend I had a little faery friend who I would someday build a house for. Well, ever since my little baby faery daughter was born (aka: Gemini Grrl), I have been putting my craft skills to work and have enjoyed coming up with homemade activities, DIY projects and other fun games we can do together.

My recent project was this portable/ carry-along dollhouse for a vintage Littlest Pet Shop Bobble-Head Siamese Cat (from the 2004 LPS Portable Pet Series), which I used to play with (please don't do the math. I still collected and played with toys well past my teenage years. Haha!), but have since passed down to my daughter. It came with a tiny pink pet carrier, but we decided that kitty needed a bigger place to call home.

I have made a few dollhouses out of old chocolate boxes and shoeboxes, but when I saw a few posts online of portable dollhouses using mini paper suitcases, they looked so adorable and I loved how we could easily bring them out with us to keep Gemini Grrl occupied when we're over at friend's house, or eating at a restaurant, etc. It was really fun to make and I got her to help pick out the wallpaper/ flooring, choose the decals, the various colours of things, the placement of certain items, and what exactly she would like in the house. She also helped to glue some bits (using child-safe school glue) and it took us only one day to get everything done (with breaks in between for snacks, lunch and naptime).

(The outside of the mini paper suitcase is blue with orange, red, green & yellow stars)

Below is a tutorial of how exactly I made the dollhouse.
But if you prefer, you can also watch a short & sweet tutorial video I made :)

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

Mini Paper Suitcase

Scissors

Pencil

Superglue

Gift Wrap Paper or Scrap Book Paper

Cotton Wool

Drinking Straw

Toothpicks or Matchsticks

Popsicle Sticks

Various Bits of Fabric

Scrap Book Decals

Stickers

Magazine Cut-Outs

String or Wool

Letter Beads

Small Empty Boxes

Cupcake Liner

Craft Foam

(You can easily glue your wallpaper & flooring to the insides, if it is made of paper like this one)

You can either choose the same piece of gift wrap paper/ scrap book paper for both the wallpaper and the flooring, or you can do what we did and use two different pieces. Our wallpaper is light yellow with little trees, teal silhouettes of deer and tiny white flowers. Our flooring is white with green, red and yellow triangles. You can also use any kind of fabric or even felt for your flooring, to make it more like a carpet instead. I got both gift-wrap papers from a knick-knack shop near my house for 40 cents each (3 rolls for $1). This is partly why I have a seriously hoarding problem when it comes to gift-wrap! Put the mini paper suitcase on the the gift-wrap paper and trace around it with a pencil. Cut it to size to fit on the insides. I had to trim it a few times because the outside of the house is obviously a little bit bigger than the inside, but it wasn't too hard to do. 

(The cosy little bed with pictures on the wall)

I used an empty (plus washed & dried!) mini drink box and wrapped it up in a preloved baby washcloth that has been sitting in Gemini Grrl's bottom drawer for a while now, and glued it together. The pillow is a wad of facial cotton (the kind that you use to remove make-up), wrapped up in a small piece of fabric (also cut up from an old baby washcloth) and glued shut. The bed's headboard is a little craft foam decal used for scrap-booking, which I dug out of my collection of bits & bobs. You can use whatever you already have or cut out a nice picture from a magazine.

(Who's the fairest of them all?)

The picture frame directly above the bed's headboard (Je t'aime), is made out of toothpicks, but you can also use matchsticks. Just trim the length to fit around your chosen picture (mine was cut out from a magazine) and glue it directly onto the edges of the picture. I added a little craft foam heart at the corner there just to make it look even nicer, and glued the frame directly onto the wall.

The same method applies to the mirror on the other side of the room as well. I just so happened to have a piece of reflective paper which I tore out from a magazine years ago (seriously, I think it was actually 10 years ago! I told you I am a hoarder). You can also paint or colour in the frame to make it even prettier. The other picture on the wall of the crown with a heart in a middle, is actually a bottle-cap decal mixed in with my loot bag of craft stuff which I won from an online competition. SO happy with the stuff I got :)
Oh, and the round rug in front of the mirror is actually the liner from a Ferrero Rocher chocolate, but you can also use any other cupcake liner, or a piece of fabric.

(Itadakimasu!)

The base of the table is an old plastic bottle top and I glued this glittery yellow craft foam circle on as the table top. The dining chair is the top of a vitamin bottle (the seal thingy that you remove from the inside). The irritatingly cute sushi are actually erasers I got as a set from a dollar store. I know I can also make the miniature food myself, but I have a weakness for these things when I see them in the shops. They actually give me inspiration for my next dollhouse creation.

(Rub a dub dub)

I hope you can see the details on this one. The bathtub itself is cut out of a mini cereal box, and wrapped with some gift-wrap paper. The bottom of the bathtub (inside) is a magazine clipping, and so is the row of shampoo/ conditioner/ soap/ sponge. The shower is a bendy drinking straw. The taps are letter beads (H for Hot and C for Cold water). The pink towel is cut out from another old baby washcloth. And last but not least, the bathmat is a craft foam heart.
I actually glued down all the furniture in this dollhouse, so just a tip if you intend to do that - remember not to glue things too close to the edge because you won't be able to close the lid. Umm, I speak from experience. Haha. Next time I make a dollhouse, I probably won't glue the furniture down though, because my daughter got pretty annoyed that she couldn't rearrange stuff. I only did it this time because this was a portable dollhouse and I didn't want anything to fall out and get lost outside.
Oh, I also want to point out the magazine clipping of grass in the background around the edges there, which I glued on for fun. Yes, my kitty's bathroom is outdoors apparantly. Nevermind! :P

(The other side of the bedroom)

Really, the sky's the limit! Just use whatever you already have and go with the flow! I glued on a popsicle stick as a shelf and then wondered where to go next with this little corner of the room. But then discovered some darling little dress decals and decided to glue them onto a string of wool. I didn't glue the dresses onto the wall though, so they sort of flap around if you poke them. The two tiny cupcakes on the shelf are so random, I know, but they were in my craft bag and they were too cute not to use.

(Scrapbooking bits & bobs)

It's good to have lots of bits and bobs of scrap-book decals, magazine cut-outs, stickers and all that. I just squirrel them away, hoping that they'll be of use some day and sure enough, they definitely were! Don't stress yourself out over how to make it perfect. When you're having fun, the ideas will naturally come to you. You are only limited by your own imagination, so don't overthink it and just experiment.

If you want to see a video tour of this portable dollhouse, as well as the tutorial, do check out our video on Youtube. Please remember to Subscribe to our channel as well and do let us know in the comments if you would like to see more of our dollhouse creations! :)

★☆ WATCH THE DOLLHOUSE TOUR AND HANDMADE MINIATURE FURNITURE TUTORIAL HERE! ☆★