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Dollhouse Minis: http://joannesminis.blogspot.com


18” Dolls: http://joannes18dolls.blogspot.com/


General Crafts: http://joannes-place.blogspot.com/


Cooking: http://joanne-kitchen.blogspot.com/





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Sunday, October 25, 2015

Dollhouse Miniature Chocolate Chip Cookies



Okay, I have been craving some chocolate chip cookies all week so since I didn't have any chocolate chips in my pantry I decided to make some for the dollhouse instead. (don't worry I also put the chocolate chips on my grocery list and I will have the real thing before this video actually goes live)

I know I have made a similar cookie in the past on this channel but I used poppy seeds for the chips (or raisins, they could have been either) but this time I am using chopped up cooked clay for the chips.

For these cookies you will need to do a bit of prep work in the form of making a snake of brown clay and baking it off ahead of time. The snake I used in the video was actually made for my other channel so it is a bit larger than I would normally make for this scale but it works, I just had to do a bit more chopping. In the end the “chocolate” pieces are probably more the size of chocolate chunks than actual chocolate chips but those are good too.

You can use any dough color clay you have on hand. I am still using the batch of equal parts Sculpey III Tan and Beige that mixed up a while back. You could also use Fimo Sahara or Premo Ecru.

Roll the clay out rather thin, I used the 3rd setting on my pasta machine and use a small cutter to portion out the clay. I used the smallest Kemper round cutter.

I do recommend you get some chalks scraped off onto your work surface ahead of time if you want to use them. Just use the usual brown, reddish brown and ocher that we always use for baked goods. Roll those little disks of clay into balls, dip the bottoms in the chalk dust and place on a piece of sandpaper.

Slightly flatten the cookies with either your finger or a toothbrush.

Now it is time to add our chocolate pieces. I love the technique of using the piece of raw spaghetti for this. Just touch the end to your tongue to slightly moisten it (you could barely dip it in water but be very careful you don't want to get it really wet just moist) then use the spaghetti as a pick up tool. The dampness is just enough to make the tip of the spaghetti tacky so it will hold the tiny pieces of clay just long enough to place them.

If the spaghetti gets too damp or banged up just snap off to a fresh spot. This little trick works great for small beads too.

Add a slight brushing of our usual chalks to make the cookies looked baked.

When you are happy with them bake as instructed on the package of clay.


There you have a wonderfully fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies for the dolls in your dollhouse. 

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Dollhouse Miniature Halloween Cookies


This week I decided to continue with the Halloween theme that we started last week with some really cute (and easy) cookies.



I was looking at one of my Halloween cookbooks the other day and happened on a recipe that was showing how to use a simple heart shape cookie cutter to make some really cute pumpkin shaped cookies. The little light bulb in my brain went off with the realization that would work just as well for mini cookies for the dollhouse. I have spent so much time over the years trying to find a good source for clay cutters to make cookies for the dollhouse. It is next to impossible to find nice shapes that are small enough to make a normal sized cookie in this scale. I have long used the flower shaped Kemper cutter to make gingerbread men but I had never thought to use either the heart or the teardrop for pumpkins before. This might not be new to some of you but for me it was just a wonderful discovery.

So for today's project I am concentrating on just the decorating of the cookies and not much time on the basics of the cookie base. I think most of us have made cookies before and because I want the emphasis on the decorating I really don't think the rest is important.

So just use your favorite dough colored clay, there are options in every clay line. I used a mixture of equal parts Sculpey III Beige and Tan clays simply because that was leftover from a project I did a few days ago.

Roll your clay out fairly thin (I used the #3 setting on my pasta machine) and cut your cookies using the smallest heart or teardrop cutters from Kemper. These measure right around ¼” in size so they are a perfect size for 1/12th scale. The setting I used is just a tad too thick but that is because I wanted to use my finger to flatten the cookies slightly onto a piece of sandpaper. This gives just enough texture to make them look like a real cookie.

Bake the cookies directly on the sandpaper according to the directions on you clay package. The allow the cookies to cool completely. It is really important that they are cool for the next step.

Transfer the baked cookies to a piece of tape or other surface that will keep them in place as you work on them.

Now use a dental pick or similar tool and some orange fabric paint to make lines on your cookies to transform them into pumpkins. Allow this to dry then add a drop of green fabirc paint to the very top tip for a stem/leaf.


And there you have a really convincing pumpkin shaped cookie for the doll's Halloween party table. 

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Dollhouse Miniature Bat Cake


This week I thought it would be fun to make this super cute and really easy bat cake. With Halloween fast approaching I know that a lot of you like to decorate your dollhouse's for all the holidays. This would be really cute in a mini bakery too for a touch of holiday cheer.



This is a project that you can use any polymer clay you have on hand. The color really doesn't matter since we will never see it once we are done. This would be a great one to use up some of your scrap clay on. I used some Original Sculpey because it was within easy reach and I felt that it would be less distracting on the video than a piece of scrap clay.

You will need to roll out your clay to the height you want you want your finished cake layer to be. I rolled my clay on the thickest setting on my pasta machine and then doubled that. My cake is supposed to be a single layer cake but feel free to make yours a two layer cake if that fits your theme better.

For each bat cake you will need two cakes cut with a ¾” round cutter. Then set one of those pieces aside for now. Cut the remaining circle into two halves. Then use a ¼” cutter (a drinking straw would also work) to cut off pieces from the straight sides to form the wings.

Now bake all three pieces of clay according to the directions on your clay package.

While we are waiting for our cakes to cool let's make the board that the cake will be set on. I used two pieces of cereal box cut 1 ½” by 3” , taped these together and covered them with foil.

Now for the frosting. I love using latex caulking for frosting in my doll size crafting. I buy the tubes of the white (paintable) kind whenever I see it on sale. It is easy to tint to different colors with acrylic paints. For dark colors (like our chocolate today) I prefer to use the paints in the tubes over craft paint. Since the color is a bit more concentrated and the paint thicker it doesn't water down the caulk like the thinner paints do. There really isn't a formula for the color mixing just add color until it looks close to what you want. I used burnt umber, Payne’s gray, and a bit of burnt seinnna to get my brown color.

Spread the tinted caulk on just like frosting and let it set up until it is completely dry. I decided to add a top coat of my burnt umber paint to hide the fact I missed some spots with my frosting. It also made my frosting a bit darker and richer looking.

Now the fun part. I used Scribble 3-D paint for this step. I love this where I want the look of decorator’s frosting. You can go as fancy or as simple as you want on this step.

If you make a bat cake I would love to see it.