| Recycling Bin E-G |
| ~~ F ~~ FABRIC: Old silk ties have nice tiny patterns!! Great for drapes, bedspreads, upholstery & doll clothing. Ties are made on the bias. When cutting out your pattern, remember to cut parallel with the grain unless you want it to stretch. FABRICS: Don't throw those old clothes and purses away before inspecting them for use as fabrics for your dollhouse or dolls. That beautiful satin dress with the stain on it "that will never come out" would make great drapes and matching bedspread. That leather purse that is worn out is probably the right texture for a new sofa. Fabric from a tapestry purse can be made into a wall hanging. Nightgowns and underwear are a source of lace. FABRIC INTERFACING: If kitchen foil is used as an interfacing with fabric, you can get folds, drapes and even a camping tent flap to go where you want it to go, and it stays put. Just glue the cloth to the foil. If both sides are to be seen, then another layer of fabric needs to be glued on the visible part. FABRIC TRIMS: If you need chenille trim or very fine feathers for clothing or floral arrangements, the most unlikely place to check is...a full line bait/fishing equipment store. They sell the prettiest pastel colors of chenille trim for using with bedding, curtains (as tie backs) and for lots of other uses. FAUCETS: Bend pierced earring "fishhook" into shape for hi-rise faucet stem. Make a base of basswood and wrap with foil. Glass or silver beads would make realistic knobs. FENCING: Netting from the fabric store, sprayed with aluminum paint, rolled and tied looks just like fencing for those outdoor barn and garage scenes. FIREPLACE: Add some model railroad gravel to your acrylic paint to achieve stone texture on wood fireplace. To make your own fireplace, use another box! Draw the pit on the front with the fire and then cover the rest with small stones from your driveway! FLOORING & FURNITURE: Thin, self-adhesive, wood veneer strips (all types of wood) are available at hardware & handyman stores. It's Real Life use is for edging countertops & tables. Cut up to make an inlaid wood floor or tabletop. FLOORING, MARBLE: Marble can be simulated by using a piece of vinyl floor tile in a marbleized pattern. Find tiles of different sizes and thicknesses at your local home improvement center. They are fairly easy to cut to use as flooring in a miniature room or cut into different shapes for table tops. A one square foot tile goes a long way in miniaturing! FLOOR TILE: You can use real clay or ceramic tile in your dollhouse. A 1 inch tile would be a 12" square in the dollhouse....an acceptable size for flooring! FLOOR TILE (free!): Make some shiny tiles for floors, walls or countertops by cutting up glossy gift boxes into squares and gluing in a tile pattern. Some glossy greeting cards are stiff enough for this too! FLOWERS: Make petal & leaf shaped cuts from colored paper with specialty edged scissors used by "memory album" crafters. If you don't have any of those, try pinking sheers! Then glue them together to make tulips, daises, etc. I was checking out the beads at Wal-Mart and I came across some new ones to me. They are called Baby's Breath Flowers. The Beadery makes them. They come in pastel colors and 40 to a package. The # on them is 880A. They are perfect for making a bouquet of glass-like looking flowers. I really had never seen them before and I have bought many beads. I can see how easy it would be to fill up a basket with these flowers after attaching stems and leaves. Flower Vase: paint the toothpaste cap for a fancy flower vase in glue in dried flowers - (You can make your own flowers by picking interesting weeds-dry and paint your favorite colors. Have any broken beaded necklaces in your jewelry box? The beads make great flower vases and small decanters - glue a small bead on top of a larger bead for a perfume bottle! FOODS: There is also a wonderful "dough" mixture on the back of the cornstarch box. You can make all sorts of your own foods, then paint. They air dry and don't even have to bake. FRAMES: Make picture frames from the metal oval-shaped settings used to hold fake gems. Use clean plastic for the glass and back with thin cardboard. Cut picture from magazine or photocopy/reduce your own. FRUIT BOWLS: Other small caps around the house can be used for fruit bowls or a cooking pan with a toothpick glued to the side and painted silver. FURNITURE: Use small boxes to cover with fabric or even colored paper for footstools and chairs. Simple glue another piece of cardboard to the box for the back of a chair. Use a longer box for a couch! You can use sticks in the yard to make rustic furniture or lawn furniture or just stack them up and tie like a cord of wood by the fireplace. |
| ~~ E ~~ |
| ~~ G ~~ GIFT WRAP: Foil papers from cigarette packages make wonderful 'wrapping paper' for presents. Foil candy wrappers purchased at a cake/candy supply store also makes great wrapping paper. They both are very thin and fold well around a block of wood. GINGER BREAD HOUSES: You can use cardboard, timber or Fimo to make the houses. The last ones I made I purchased a box of erasers, as small timber is hard to purchase here. I cut up the eraser for the shape of the house and used cardboard for the roof them mixed white paint and baby powder for the snow with a sprinkling of snow glitter. Erasers are great to cut. I also purchased erasers with red, yellow and green stripes and cut these up for gifts under the tree for small scales then you don't have to paint them. GLASS: Just about everything you buy these days, if it doesn't come in a box, comes in a rigid plastic "bubble". Don't throw any of these away without first looking at its potential for "glass". Use in picture frames, for windows in your house, on table & vanity tops, in ponds, or to cover anything to make it shiny!! Study them all!! GROCERIES: Cut out the colored ads on coupons in your Sunday paper....cereal boxes, aspirin bottles, cans of tuna, Spaghettios etc. Paste these to blocks of wood and dowel pieces (painted appropriately). Now you have little products for your house or store shelves. |