Old Projects: Tru Toys & Sports - Christmas Village 2010

The tinker toys are Sculpey & tiny pieces of painted wire; the drum sticks are pieces of toothpick; the barbie & tinker toy boxes have miniaturized (basically unreadable) pictures of the real box labels

Old Projects: Trevor's Tweets-n-Tails - Christmas 2009

Too bad a lot of these pix came out so badly

In retrospect I wish I had put some bird poop (paint of course!) on the piece of newspaper at the bottom of the cage

Some sand in the paint gave the cinder blocks a more natural look

 

the fish are held up with wires - the aquarium (not shown) was from the same plastic as the windows

The kennel fence was a nylon mesh bag from a garlic or something like that

Old Projects: Brittany's Bouttique - Christmas Village 2008

Finally - I seem to have remembered to show the size of these puppies

trying to get all of the teeny-tiny little hangers the same size wasn't easy!

Old Projects: Brandon's Bistro - Christmas Village 2007

The hinges are so tiny they're hard to find after you make them!

Painted flagstone walkway

The chairs and table are made from screen door patches with wire legs, the umbrella pole is a toothpick

Thought I was going too go blind making the silverware!

The valance is held up with a bit of wire framing

The window "leading" was tiny strips of electrical tape

Old Projects: Lyn's Lily Pad - Christmas Village 2006

Top view - roof detail done with end of a nail file - horizontal lines of bricks done with kitchen knife, vertical edges of bricks made with an Exacto blade

Plant detail - flowers are centers from tiny purchased fabric flowers

Old Projects: Tom's Tools - Christmas Village 2006

The back of all the houses have a hole for a standard village light

House with light on

Door detail - wreath is gold pipe cleaner w/ beads

Cord on drill is pained wire - probably should have something to show scale - the paint can is about 1cm high

Window detail - window is salad bar container lid from Stop & Shop -- stupid salad cost me $7.00!

Shovel handle is painted craft wire attached to a piece of plastic cup covered with foil

Roof view - 'slate' done by making horizontal lines pushed in at 45 degree angle w/ kitchen knife, vertical lines done individually w/ dental tool

Old Projects: Intro to the Sculpey Clay Christmas Village

The houses started in 2006 as a Christmas gift for my neighbors Lyn & Tom. They continued up until Christmas of 2010 when I finally ran out of family members to make them for, since each house was customized to an individual's interests or hobbies. Not sure what I'll do next year, but my middle-aged eyes are getting too darned fuzzy to work on the tiny details anyway!

I cut out a cardboard template that got reused over the years, and by moving the front door could have 2 different style houses with roofs that sloped in different directions. I found various tools around the house (dental pick, knives, pencils) to form the details in the clay - let your imagination run wild!

Lyn's Lily Pad Flower Shop 2006

Tom's Tools 2006

Brandon's Bistro 2007

Brittany's Boutique 2008

Trevor's Tweets-n-Tails Pet Shop 2009 (poor quality photo)

Tru [for Truman] Toys & Sports 2010

The windows are made from the plastic tops at the Stop-n-Shop salad bar - I ate a lot of salad to collect those! I printed the wording out backwards on my ink-jet printer, put the plastic over it and used a toothpick to paint on the shop names - when placed in the windows the paint looks nice & smooth

Old Projects: Murray Doll 2004

Murray was made as a Christmas/Hanukkah gift for my friend & neighbor Tom (Lyn's husband - see the stuff about Ida).

The champagne bottle is Sculpey - foil is a candy wrapper, & the labels were printed from real labels I found on the web & miniaturized.

To learn about the trial & tribulations of the champagne glasses, read Ida's page

I probably lost my mind, but I lined Murray's jacket

The best part about Murray is is bad toupee (fibers from a fake fur glued to a shaped piece of fabric)

The pocket watch is painted Sculpey.