Miniature hanger tutorial

Ever since I was a young teen, I have always had this one fancy clothes hanger in my closet. There is no memory of where it came from, but I loved how pretty and feminine it was. Which is funny because I was a tomboy growing up. I still have it to this day. It is just there, looking pretty, mixed in with all the ordinary wooden hangers.
After I made Ophelia’s wardrobe, I decided her dresses should hang from something “pretty”. After a few attempts I came up with an easy way to make pretty mini hangers!

 Cut a piece of foam board to about 3” x 6”.

Cut a piece of 1/8” wide ribbon. This piece will tie around the center of the bow. This piece can be any length you wish, mine is about 3 ½” long.

Use a toothpick and spread Tacky Glue on the center of the ribbon in a 1” long section.

Center the piece with the glue on it on the board. Take the end of your ribbon spool and pin it into the foam board.

Take the ribbon and create a figure 8” pattern on the two pins then pin the end into the foam and snip with scissors.Tie a tight knot at the center point of the bow with the piece that has the glue on it. Pinch, once knotted, to train the ribbon to lay flat and pointed up. Remove the pins and let your bow dry.

 I found these cool vintage pipe cleaners in with some old tools, but you can use newer ones as well. Start with a 6” long pipe cleaner, fold it in half and then twist tightly to 2” long. Snip with wire cutters.

If your hanger is going in a specific wardrobe, be sure to measure the depth of the wardrobe to get the width of your hanger first.

Use your choice of 1/4” wide ribbon and begin wrapping it around the twisted pipe cleaner in the center of the folded pipe cleaner. Work the wrapping tightly in a diagonal direction down the right side.
When you get to the end let it overhang a bit, then fold the ribbon over the end. Hold that fold as you continue to wrap in the other direction so that it tucks in and slowly continue wrapping the ribbon. Go to the other end and repeat. Don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t fold properly the first time, keep practicing and you will get it.

Bring your ribbon back to the center. Cut it diagonally.
Put glue on the end all the way to the tip and press onto hanger base. Pinch it until it is dry.

I used earring wire with an antique brass finish. Put the wire at the base of the needle nose pliers and wrap to make a hook.

Pinch the wire with the tip of the pliers and bend it with other hand.

 Do this again about 1/8” from that point. Then wrap wire around the center of the pliers.

Now pinch the base of the wire and twist the top hook with your fingers 90 degrees.

Insert your hanger base and wrap wire once around it. Then snip closely with wire cutters. If needed, press the snipped end flat with flat pliers.

Keep those fingers clean so your hangers stay pretty!


Put a dab of glue around the wire with a toothpick, and then wrap 1/8” ribbon around in a criss-cross fashion. Glue the end down under the base of hanger. Pinch until dry.

Be sure all of your hanger hooks are facing the same way for this next step.

Play with your bow to get the effect you want. Be careful not to pull the two parts that will affect your ribbon size. Put some glue on the front of the hanger and glue on the back of the bow then press and pinch until secure.

Decide which two ribbon strands to snip off and which two you want to keep and cut at a diagonal. I found this was different with each ribbon. Use very sharp scissors. Then put a dot of glue over the snipped ends with a toothpick and spread down.

Bend the hanger down on both sides to give it a curved shape.

You did it! You can hang your favorite mini dresses from them, put them in a wardrobe or lay them around in your dollhouse for decoration.

On old dollhouse carriage for the attic

Finally! I had some time to make a small section of the attic. I purchased one of those ordinary black carriages a while ago with a vision of it becoming old and used with a romantic feel. After researching some antique buggies online I went to work!

I had some old wicker blinds that I cut up for the sides. You could use a wicker placement too. Then I ran a cord along the edges where the sides meet the bottom piece. I used a hot glue gun.

Then I hot glued the fabric on as well as some trimming.
I painted the wicker and cord in a brown, then highlighted it with a quick brushing of light tan,
then a light grey for a dusty effect. I covered all of the "top" portions of the carriage in a light grey wash to make it look dusty.
Oh and, of course, pressed my steeped tea bag on the fabrics. Love my tea bags!!

I made mini potatoes!

My first batch were too small and over pasteled. So I finally had a moment to try again. I mixed an white, yellow, tan polymer clay with translucent then shaped and poked and scratched them until they had that beat up potato shape. Then I used my razor and scraped yellow, orange and brown charcoals onto wax paper and mixed with a small brush. I rolled the potatoes in the pastel dust and brushed some onto any bare spots then baked. I sewed up the mini-ist burlap fabric I could find into a bag and there they are!

The wood crate was made by printing out wood texture and gluing that paper onto a mat board template that I had made. Then I scored the area between the “boards” with a burnishing tool and glued together.

Ophelia's Dollhouse Attic

The eerie attic is coming along. Sooooooo many craft sticks!

For the walls with the wallpaper, I only did a small area of craft sticks, then glued down mat board for the rest of the wall. This way when the wallpaper went down there was no noticeable edges to the wood spots.

I started with the floor by gluing down wider craft sticks and staining them with water based wood stain. Then I brushed a gray wash over them a few times to give the impression of many years of dirt and dust.

Once I got all of the wall/ceiling craft sticks glued down, I stained them with a water based wood stain then put a red and brown paint wash over them. One that was dry I did a black wash in all of the corners and edges. The wallpaper was scrapbook paper that already had an aged look. I used Yes paste to paste it down then ripped it and smacked it with a steeped teabag. Haha I can't say I have ever smacked any thing with a steeped teabag before! I still have to darken the paper edges a bit more, but it's definitely headed in the direction I hoped it would.

Making Bigfoot

After dropping off all of their picnic items, I can only assume that the carefree picnickers made their way down to the nearby stream to wade in the water and search for minnows. Because this spot at the park has always been a good place to find food, Bigfoot never strays too far away. With a watchful eye he crept out of the forest and made his way swiftly to the table. Completely uninterested in the Frisbee or the straw hat, he flipped open the picnic basket lid and began digging through it. First, he grabbed a fist full of grapes, and then he ripped open the bag of potato chips and made a mess of himself as he devoured them. To his delight, he discovered two turkey and cheese sandwiches wrapped in napkins with care. As quick as the napkins had fallen to the ground Bigfoot was sitting comfortably on the bench with two fits full of lunch. Unaware that there is a curious little girl who has spotted him through the fence, Bigfoot inhales his turkey sandwiches.

This project was loads of fun. It all started last Thanksgiving morning when I sculpted him from polymer clay and put him in the oven. Luckily my holiday feast was elsewhere, so a turkey didn’t interrupt his baking time. After painting him using craft paints, I began to adhere the hair. Luckily, I had some left over brown Viscose that I had used for making mini dolls years ago. I cut it in short sections and used a paintbrush to apply Tacky Glue on him, starting at his ankles and then worked my way up. I spread out the short clumps of hair and press it onto him.

I have a long history with Bigfoot, which started in my childhood. When I was a little girl I would lead Bigfoot hunts with the other children in our woods. For some reason, I always thought if I found him we would be good friends. :)
Checkout the February issue of American Miniaturist (AM130) magazine to see more of my Bigfoot!

Ophelia and Nevel

I finally did it! I made mini clothes. It took a while to make the patterns, but it was worth it. The outfits are removable and require very little sewing. The patterns for Nevel and Ophelia's outfits will be in American Miniaturist Magazine August issue! A step by step tutorial with patterns to cut out as well. :)
I still need to make three more dresses for each season, this is her spring dress.
The house is coming along as you can see. The attic is taking the longest. Soooo many wood planks!!

 My art piece, A Very Strange Meeting from my book, Ophelia Under the Day Moon.
Visit www.auraleakrieger.com to see more and discover Ophelia.

Miniature coat hanger

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Making a miniature coat hanger

I am making one coat hanger made out of wood and one using mat board.

Cut wood to 2” x 3/8”. Then cut your molding strips to the correct size using a miter saw to get the beveled edges.

 Cut one piece of mat board to 2” x ¾”. Cut a smaller piece to ½” x 1 3/4”. Sand both front edges round with fine sandpaper.

Glue the smaller piece onto the center of the larger piece using wood glue.

~I want to thank Kris Compas for making me realize how great mat board is to work with for many mini projects. You should check out her blog. She has wonderful tutorials and makes beautiful furniture.

http://1inchminisbykris.blogspot.com/

Once dry, I lined the inside edges of the mat board with a small amount of wood glue and cut my ribbon corners diagonally and then pressed it into the glue and pressed it down. Let dry

Draw a dot where you want your hooks to be and drill holes with a pin vice and a drill bit that is just a bit smaller than your wire. Then lightly sand down the holes on the board.

I had copper wire laying around, so I am using this for my hooks. You can use whatever gauge wire your comfortable with.

Pinch the end with round nose pliers and make a loop, then place the pliers in front of the loop and bend loop end forward.

Next, place the pliers on the wire as shown in the photo and bend around the thickest part of the pliers.

Follow the photo and bend again using the tip of pliers. And snip. This will be trial and error as you decide what shape you want.

Push the end into the hole you drilled and start wiggling it around for a good fit. Do not bend the wire while it is in the hole. If you have to bend it for adjustments, take it out each time then put it back in. You don’t want the hole to grow in size. Don’t worry about trimming the part that sticks out of the back yet we will do that at the end. Once you are happy, be sure each wire is completely flat when it’s lying on your table. If not, they will lean left or right once in the hole.

Put those aside and paint the base the color you want, sanding in between coats.

Don’t sand your ribbon though.

I found some Styrofoam and pushed my hooks into it and painted them black to look like wrought iron. Two coats followed up with an acrylic satin varnish should do it. Let dry completely. You could spray paint them instead of brush painting, it would be eaisier.

Put the hooks into the base one at a time and trim the extra off with wire cutters. Then pull each hook out, dip the end in wood glue or super glue and push back in. Push base flat on table to be sure it will be flat on the wall.

If you have some beads that would look nice at the base of the hooks, add those first on each hook and then glue hook in place. I wiped some wood glue over the back holes as well to be safe. Let everything dry.

There you have it. Stick it to the wall and hang all sorts of fun mini things on your new coat hangers!