Minipig Play Date - or - A Fun School Holiday Project

No.3 grandson is passionate about his real life guinea pigs

Percy and Jasper

so,

 naturally ;)

he found some Minipigs in his

Christmas Stocking.

His comment was

"Wouldn't it be neat if we did a

Miniature Guinea Pig Play Date Scene,

so we did.

Of course, in real life, boy guinea pigs

mostly prefer to have only one male friend

but Minipigs get on splendidly in larger groups ;)

While I worked on the play pen

Grandson made the Pigloo

Piggies love new experiences.

Percy and Jasper did some excited zoomies

and then settled down to the serious business of

filling their tummies.

Cheryl and Kevin both being elderly chaps

thought the pigloo looked comfy

and strolled over to take up residence

and as for young Alf,

after some youthful popcorning,

(which is another thing excited piggies enjoy)

he did what he always does,

he teased everyone.

That's him trying to fit 3 piggies inside a two piggie pigloo.

We used mat board 3 3/4" square for the base,

1/8" square wood for posts and coffee stirrers for rails,

some sort of fuzzy fabric for the grass,

mat board, light card and 1/8" dowel for the pigloo

and raffia as miniature oaten hay.

A Nice Cuppa.....

Breathe a sigh, Christmas and New Year are over.  Time to take stock and make plans with a nice cup of tea.

Can't do the cuppa without the kettle, matching our toasters of course. 

We wanted our kettles to be real so we took our measurements from my

RL Sunbeam Kettle.

Brushed stainless steel for grandson,

green for my modern kitchen.

What we made them from.

I'm so sorry I forgot to take photos for a tutorial as I went along with these kettles, they've been a work in progress for over a month as I worked out how to achieve each step, in between christmas shopping, christmas baking, christmas decorating, christmas parcel wrapping..........you get the picture!!  I wasn't altogether sure my idea would work till after I got the wire ring to stay stuck round the bottom of the main body to represent the ridge where the top part is joined to the element part of the lift off kettle.  After that hurdle the rest went easily.  Look at your own kettle or a photo of one that you like the shape of and you'll see it is just a sandwich of pieces stuck together.

I cut part of the bead off for the main body then cut two circles from the tongue depressor the same size as the cut off base of the bead.  Then sanded a slight bevel on the cut edge of the bead and the same on the edge of one of the wood circles and glued the two pieces together so the bevel edges made a slight depression for wire to sit in.  I used 5 minute epoxy glue for the wire and there's no way to get it to stay except to hold it in position till that glue sets!  Next I drilled a hole in the piece of dowel down the shaft for the spout of the kettle and cut that tiny piece away from the dowel on an angle so it would tilt upward when glued on to the bead.  The hole in the top of the bead was filled with a plaster type filler and a tiny hole drilled to insert the pin for the knob of the lid.  The 'lid' position was marked by placing the bead upright on the table and placing a pencil on a book or something horizontally positioned so the bead can be turned round against the pencil and make an even mark all round the top where the edge of the lid would show, then a slight depression was filed using the pencil mark as a guide.  Two holes were drilled into the bead and a wire handle was bent and glued in, once again using epoxy glue. 

For the electric base, drill a hole in the centre of the other wood circle and use that as a guide to drill a matching hole in the bottom wood circle of the kettle so when the top is put on the base the two circles will match one another.  Glue a short length of toothpick into the hole in the base for the 'electric plug' bit that goes into the kettle.  Next, round off the top edge of the base and the bottom edge of the kettle.  Turn the base over and add 3 tiny slices of toothpick for feet, sand so it will sit firmly.  Black thread and card make the electric cord.  Then paint in your chosen colour scheme.

Toast anyone?..............

Levi needed a toaster so we made one.  School holidays are a specially busy miniature time round here!

Monkey see, monkey do, is me.  No imagination, but if I can touch it I can try making it.  I measured our RL toaster and we went from there.

Here is what you need.  Good old tongue depressors and coffee stirrers!  And a toaster to copy of course.

The upper part of the toaster with the slots was made as the three pieces shown bottom right, then all glued together.  Two tongue depressors glued together to get the thickness, split a coffee stirrer down the length to make the slot ends. Sand to shape.

The electric cord is made from thread with black card folded over and glued in position.  The wall plug was punched circles and the cord sandwiched between.  Tacky wax will hold it in position to make it look like it is plugged in.

Paint the upper and lower sections in your choice of colour and let dry.  Levi wanted Brushed Stainless Steel for his, mine is a retro/shabby green.  Glue top and bottom together and then add a timing knob made of a short length of toothpick.  Finally add the handle for lowering the toast.  We used black card again with a short piece of wire pushed into a drilled hole in the body of the toaster.

Addendum:- Second toaster makes its debut.

                     

How to make a Laundry Sink

This laundry no longer exists as shown, sad story....... 

Because I can't easily buy any miniature supplies I printed the wallpaper myself and, after breaking my heart over it fading within weeks and having to be replaced 3 times, each time trying more desperate measures to prevent the fading, I gave in and threw the laundry box away.  The contents now live in a clear plastic chocolate box and the printie dryer and washer have been replaced with 'real' ones! 

Apart from the sad story, the reason for showing the laundry is to show the sink unit.  It's made from balsa, earring oddments and a cheese spread container.

Make a pie tin

I am not a poly clay artist, the practical rather than the beautiful comes easier.  This pie dish is easy enough for anyone to make.

My grandson helped, they are his hands in the photos.  The pics are fairly much self explanatory, simple tools and aluminium tops from drink bottles are all you need.

Cut along the dotted line!

Pull out the insert.  Fold the edge down a little with smooth nosed pliers.

File the edge down to a 'pie dish' depth.

Smooth the top and Voila!

Cook a yummy pie in your new pie dish.  Don't look too closely, I'm not a poly clay artist!

Coat hanger jig

This jig is simple to make and sure isn't fancy as you'll see from the pics.

These are the supplies you'll need for the hangers, suitable wire of course, a block of scrap wood, different size dowels, a pin vise with drill bits or an electric drill, glue, knife to cut the dowels, snips for the wire and small smooth nosed pliers(sorry, forgot to put them in the photo.

Draw the shape you want your hanger to be on your block of wood allowing for the thickness of the wire.  Drill holes as you can see in the photo to insert the dowels, cut dowels to length and glue in the holes.  Leave to dry at least 24 hours for full strength or they might move when you put pressure on them.

Cut about 4" of wire and start bending from the hook end.

Continue bending till you are back where you started from.  Slip the wire off the jig and push the end of the wire behind the neck of the hook, slip back on and check your shape is ok, bend the end of the wire up a little and then slip the hanger back off to finish.

Fold the wire around the neck making sure you keep the shape.  Nip off the wire leaving a tiny stub, pinch that down tight with your pliers.

Snip off the hook and file it smooth.  You might need to tweak the shape a bit with your pliers.  These are baby size hangers, the hook looks a trifle large because the hanging rail in the white wardrobe is perhaps a bit thicker than it could have been but when clothes are hanging on the hangers they look ok.