Junk Drawer Miniatures

In the corner of my studio is a basket of random odds & ends with no home, like a junk drawer.  While cleaning this morning, I decided that today's challenge will be to use some of that junk to make miniature things for a doll house sized living room (I love anything miniature).

The couch is actually from a doll house, and the little dog is a Monopoly piece.  Putting the miniatures together was ridiculously easy and made a bit more room in my junk basket.  Here's what I used:

Four robin's egg blue golf tees stand as legs for this mini end table.  Because they are from a yard sale, I don't know anything about the company that stamped its phone number on them.  Ten Scrabble pieces glued to cardboard create a wooden tabletop.  If you want a tiny dining table, this could be made with twenty five pieces instead of ten.

A tiny plastic cherub figurine adhered to a button forms the base for this lamp.  The shade is blue paper cut from a shopping bag with lace wrapped around a juice bottle lid.  To prevent the lamp shade from covering the figurine's face, two little beads are glued to its head adding height.  Vintage lamps remind me of my Grandma Patterson's beautiful old house in Oxford.  The rooms were filled with treasures like this.

This acorn topped mini lantern was put together using two buttons as the base.  Two segments of wire bent into a U shape and glued in the acorn top produce the frame.  White Perler beads beads  give the effect of mini candles.  This lantern only had space for one.  To make the little lantern more elegant, it is crowned with a pearl sewing pin snipped short and pushed into the top.

Natural sea shells in a pretty bowl look nice in any room.  The base of my teeny bowl is an ivory colored tie tack (I think that's what it is, anyway) and a large matching button.  I collected the little shells in Florida a few years ago during spring break.  All of the items have been sitting around for months, nothing was purchased for this.  The challenge of using whats on hand is a fun creative exercise.  Try it for yourself and post your pictures of the miniatures you come up with!