Tiny table accessories

In yesterday’s post I was showing off my newest purchases, including a cute coffee table and some mini playing cards.

Cards and a cup o'grog. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Here are details about the playing cards. They are downloadable and printable, for free online, here at jfitz.com. According to this website (which is not affiliated with Flip This Mini House or myself in any way): “Feel free to use for personal or professional purposes…” (followed by additional information. Visit the page to see more information.)

To make a mini set for myself, I saved the image of the cards and then pasted it into a word doc so I could easily locate the image of all the cards within the margins of the page and print it at the scale I wanted.

Start with some good quality scrap booking paper that has a repeating pattern on the back. The smaller the image, the better. One side of the page needs to be white.

Scrapbooking paper. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Now print your cards on the white side and carefully cut them out.

Tiny playing cards. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Since they’re grouped in a tight bunch, you can cut them into four strips, lay the strips on top of one another, and slice off four cards at a time. Then trim them and round the corners. It actually all goes very quickly.

The result is an adorable set of cards, for the cost of a sheet of paper. Here they are again:

Cards on a cute coffee table. Just $.69 from St. Vinny's for the coffee table and just $.69 for the paper the cards are printed on. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

The little coasters are adhesive cork dots from the craft store. I stuck them on some cotton fabric and peeled them off several times, to lessen the stickiness of the bottoms. They make perfect coasters or little cork pads to go beneath potted plants.

Tiny cork dots. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

The dots that remain will go into the mini office eventually, as a bulletin board.

The tiny grog cups shown are going to get cleaned up later today with some silver jewelry cleaner. If it doesn’t eat right through them I’ll post results soon.

Construction Update & Something Old, Something New – Part Two

Flipping my mini house

My house isn’t looking too hot.

As you can see, removing the kitchen and dining area floors has been disastrous. I would say I’ve walked away from the project for a little bit, but since it’s in the middle of my living room, it never really goes away.

Painting the upstairs floors yellow was a mistake. I recently decided to buy mini wood floors for the whole house and be done with it. Construction is on hold while I wait for the floors to arrive, and until I get the kitchen and dining room floors properly removed.

I plan to relocate the small bar separating the kitchen and dining area so it’s more centrally located between the two rooms, making the kitchen a little larger and the dining area a little smaller. It will depend on whether I can move it without breaking it. Right now, just like the floors, it’s glued in kind of like it was welded. Maybe once the floors are finally all out I can wiggle it loose.

Here is a grisly in-progress look of things:

It's always darkest before the dawn. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

To keep myself interested, I haven’t stopped shopping for furniture and decor. Miniature items have been popping up at estate sales and thrift stores lately. Let’s take a look at my recent treasures!

Tiny, fabulous finds. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Though I already have the Jonathan Adler-inspired coffee table that I made, this one might bump that one out of the running. Let’s take a closer look at it, with accessories and some hand soap to show you scale:

Cute coffee table. Just $.69 from St. Vinny's! Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

The set of miniature silver pieces was just $5 at an estate sale.
The incense burner is going to make an adorable free standing stove for the dining area.
I will be posting the downloadable, printable playing cards shortly so you can make your own mini deck!

Something old, something new

Furniture and decor I've purchased

Despite the horrendous demoing process (No pictures necessary. Let me just say, I’ll be lucky if my house stays intact as I tear out these superglued-in floors), I am maintaining a positive attitude.

I recently acquired this vintage miniature dresser that features hand-painted rosemaling. It is solid wood and has great details, like mid-century legs and real drawers. It was just $6.00. What a find! It’s going to be a wonderful addition to the master bedroom. Rosemaling might be classic Norwegian, but to me it screams 1972.

Tiny dresser with rosemaling. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Also, for the office, I got a miniature Mr. Arty! It’s meant to be a key chain, but the key chain portion was easily removed. Once that happened, Arty took off running like a gingerbread man escaping from a cookie sheet. He tried to get out the window, but the glass blocked him in.

Any art majors out there recall seeing this little wooden guy (and his counterpart, Handy) reclining in classrooms across America, supposedly helping us to capture the nuances of the human form. Now my mini dollhouse will have its own little Arty to recline on the office desk or bookshelf. I think once he gets used to it, he’ll realize it’s a pretty nice place.

Arty (key ring version), the little wooden guy who help you draw. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Arty, escaped from his box, having ditched his key ring, relaxing on the blinds. Photo by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.

Inspiration and tiny decor items lurk everywhere

Everyday objects repurposed

When I’m in the creative zone it’s kind of hard to shut it off. At any given time, I have ten (or twenty, or thirty) different projects swimming in my head. From books I’m writing to houses online I’m dreaming of buying to my imaginings of going on Project Runway (even though my sewing talent level is more on par with Threads), I’m always dreaming about my next creative endeavor. Lately my mini dollhouse is on my mind quite a bit and I find inspiration everywhere. Example: What do you see here?

A.) Some bodywash on a bookshelf

B.) Something out of place. Is that still wet? It might leave a mark. Maybe you should have set it on a coaster or something.

C.) A disposable bottle and a cap that looks like a tiny, modern bowl.

If you said A, you are a normal person. If you said B, you might be a little bit neurotic. If you said C, let’s take a closer look!

Ooh! Look at the lovely curving lines of this bottle cap. And the rich, gold color. If I flipped it over and ripped off the top I’m sure it would look something like this…

This is going to make a great little holder of mini fruit, mini balls of yarn, mini magazines, mini plants, and other items. What did I tell you? Tiny decor truly can be found anywhere if you simply look a little closer.

Mini modern bed and pom pom accented bedding

Handmade decor for my mini house

Inspired by modern miniature beds like this, I have created a bed for my miniature master bedroom. The frame is made of part of a picture frame and some thumb tacks. The mattress is made of a piece of Styrofoam covered in quilt batting. It is a work in progress. I plan to give it another coat of paint and maybe add a headboard.

The sheets, comforter, and pillows are made from a fabric remnant, a curtain, and some mini pom pom balls. Since the master bedroom is not that big, this bed will be the focal point of the room. You may recognize the LOVE pom pom pillow from a project I started several weeks ago.