I took a bit of a gap year without meaning to. If you tried to visit this past year you may have noticed that the site was down. The domain registration was moved around, and I probably contacted our domain host 10 times trying to get this site up to no avail. I've had a lot of other things going on (check my Youtube channel out if you want to see a glimpse of what those are) and wasn't able to dedicate too much time to getting the site up and running again.

All good things must end, and I think this is the end of the line for this website. I've got my hands full of other projects and I can't dedicate as much time to making tutorials. Which of course isn't to say I've stopped making miniatures; just that my life and priorities have changed. Maybe I'll check back in here every now and then and post some pictures of some miniatures I've made, just for inspiration. And I'll still receive any comments/questions you send to my email or through a contact form.

I started this website as a 12 year old in 2014, and have been surprised at the number of people who visited and interacted with this website over the past 5 years. Thank you for your support all these years, and I hope you keep creating!


Sincerely,
Erin A

This hinge is great for a mini door or a little box! Made from a soda can and some wire, it shouldn't take more that 10 minutes to make this cute little working mini hinge!

Soda can
Scissors
Wire
Pliers (preferably needle nose)
​

Step 1: Cut out a small rectangle from the soda can. 

​Step 2: Cut the piece in half. These two pieces will be the two sides of the hinge.

​Step 3: Make 3 cuts in one piece. Try to make them as evenly spaced as possible. Lay the second piece on top and make another 3 cuts in the same place. The two pieces should be identical.

​Step 4: On the first piece, cut out the end two pieces, to form a T shape. 

​Step 5: On the second piece, cut out the middle piece to make a U shape.

Make sure the pieces will fit together.

Step 6: Take your pliers and begin to curl the end of the pieces. 

This is where the hinge pin will go, so it may be easier to take your piece of wire and curl the metal around that. 

The end result should look like so:

Once both pieces have been curled, place them on to the wire as shown below and make sure it turns smoothly.

 
Step 7: If you want to paint your pieces, now is the time to do so. Separate the pieces before you paint just to ensure that they won't stick together. I spray painted mine gold.

Step 9: Now is time to secure the hinge pin. One idea is to use a head pin so that you only have to worry about securing one end. To secure the end, simply curl up the end of the wire to keep the hinge from sliding off. To make this easier, you could flatten the tip first by squishing it with your plier.

Your done! Attach your hinge to your project. I used mine for a little mini box (tutorial hopefully coming soon), this could also be used on a mini door or even a mini oven!
​
This hinge is probably not as sturdy as a store bought hinge, but it works well, is a quick project, and is made from materials you likely have lying around. 

-Erin A

Sand
Small rocks
Soil
Moss (mine was 'harvested' from trees in our yard)
A broken plate (or a teacup)
Super glue/E-6000 

Step 1: I started out with building a little 'wall' out of small rocks and E-6000.

Step 2: Next I put down a small layer of sand - for drainage. 

I added dirt around to cover the rest of the glass areas and added 'steps' from small flat rocks.

Step 4: I finally adde the mosses - i used some as 'bushes' and others as grass.

That's it! It's a pretty simple tutorial but I thought it turned out pretty good! Let me know what you think of it!

Best,
Erin A

This tutorial should have been posted a while ago... I've had some difficulties including the site going down for a while. I've also got some big new coming soon, so stay tuned!

Scissors
Paint
Glue
Paintbrush
Newspaper
Paper

Step 1: Cut out 5 petals 

Step 2: Here you could optionally cut out another 5 petals and glue them to the back of the first 5 petals in order to get double sided petals. 

Step 3: Curve the petals slightly, using your finger or the back of a paintbrush.

Step 4: Time to start painting. Watercolors would be ideal, but I used acrylic paints because that is what I had on hand. Start by painting undiluted paint on the edges, and the slowly fading it down toward the point. You want some unpainted newspaper to still be visible.

Step 5: For the next layer, make your petals slightly smaller, and curve them more. You will need fewer and fewer petals per layer. Aim for about 5 layers, with the final layers being very thin petals that are basically curved around the middle. 

Step 6: Assembly. First we will glue together the final layer and set it aside. Curve the final petals around a painted toothpick and glue in place. Each petal should overlap the previous slightly.

Step 7: Now we will put together the first layer. Again, each petal should overlap the previous slightly, like so.

Step 8: The next layer should fill in the gaps of the previous layer. Since they are smaller and more curved, each layer should add up to for a dome shape, like a rose.

Step 9: Keep adding layers, until only the final layer (which we made earlier) is the only one remaining)

Step 10: Add the final layer. Simply push the end of the toothpick down through the middle until the final layer sits snugly. Glue in place.

Step 11: Final Adjustments. I wasn't satisfied the gap between the final layer and the previous layer, so I added a few more petals and adjusted the spacing a bit.

Step 12: Done! I added a little bit of glitter paint to the ends just for a sparkle and cut the extra toothpick off (optional if you want to stick it into a bouquet or something).

Hope you enjoy! And make sure to never be afraid to experiment! Some ideas include a colorful newspaper flower bouquet (perfect for the book lovers)  or maybe an unpainted rustic flower on a headband. Or even try using sheet music! The possibilities are endless.

-Erin A

I've always loved boxes, so I took it a step further and made mini boxes! It's a great way to reuse old credit cards to make a nice mini storage box for things like beads and buttons.

Materials:

Old credit cards/gift cards (I used 3)
Scissors
Construction Paper
Glue

​Instructions:

Step 1: Cut out 2 identical pieces of credit card. This will be the length of your credit card. Then cut out 2 other pieces that are identical to each other, and have the same height as the first set. This will be the width of your box. Arrange as shown below.

Step 2: Cut out another set just as before, but thinner, and slight longer/wider. This will be the cap for your box. Below is a picture of the two side by side.

Step 3: Tape the edges of the credit cards together on the outside, so they form a box shape, and add glue on the inside. Do the same to top and let dry.

Step 4: Trace out the perimeter of the box onto another card. This will be the bottom of the box. Place and the box on top and glue in place. You can use tape on the outside for added security. Do the same for the cap.

The cap should sit snugly around the box. 

Step 5: Time to decorate! Cut out a piece of paper as shown below. Then, fold flaps up the sides and glue to the box.

Step 6: Next, cut out a strip of paper with the same height as the box, and long enough to go around the perimeter of the box. Glue onto box and let dry. Repeat for cap of box.

Step 7: Add your finishing touches, and you are done! I gave my box a distressed look by adding some black acrylic paint in the corners. 

I hope this tutorial was easy to follow. Give it a try! Let me know how it went in the comments below.

Happy Crafting!
-Erin A

Apologies for the huge delay. If you don't know, I have 9 awesome ducks. They are the cutest little things and I think they're awesome. So this project if because ducks are epic. Read till the bottom and you'll get a surprise!

Yellow Polymer Clay
Paint
Orange Polymer Clay (optional)
Glue (optional)
Eye Pin (optional, if you want to make a keychain or something)
Oven

Step 1: Condition a ball of yellow polymer clay

Step 2: Separate into two balls, one big, for the body, and one small, for the head. Also keep aside a small portion for the wings.

Step 3: Shape the larger ball into the shape of a duck body. This took me a while to get right. Try to make it compact and add a little tail.

Step 4: Make the head by using the smaller piece of clay

Step 5: Fashion two wings. Try to make them as identical as possible.

Step 6: Add to the body. Try to add them in around the same place on both sides.

Step 7: Create a beak by flattening out an oval shaped piece of clay and folding it in half. If you have orange clay, by all means use that. I used yellow and painted it orange later on.

Step 8: I took the head off to add the beak. Reattach. If you want to add an eye pin, this is the time. You may want to use glue. White school glue worked fine for me.

Step 9: Bake! I baked mine at 230F (110C) for one hour, per the instructions on the packet. You can put it for longer if you want to make sure it is thoroughly cured. According to information I found on the internet, you don't have to worry about it burning unless your temperature is too high. Beware that your oven thermometer my be wrong.

Step 10: Paint! I painted the bill orange and added two dots for eyes.

Step 11: Seal. This step is optional; however, it will give your duck a cool shine. I used Studio by Sculpey in Glossy. It was laying around and I've used it as a sealer for various things, I only realized it was a clay sealer doing this project. ? I added multiple coats to get a nice shine; make sure you are following the instructions on the bottle if you choose to do so.

Sorry for many bad quality pictures, I think the camera had a hard time focusing on the bright yellow clay, and I had a bad lighting situation.

Hope you enjoyed!
Erin A


Surprise! There's more. Here's some pictures of my ducks.

So I finally made a miniature room based on the one I shared with you 3 years ago (here).
I can't believe it's been so long, I know I promised you guys a tutorial "soon" back then; its been in the back of my mind and I've finally finished. Tell me your feedback in the comments (or shoot me an email at erin@allthingsmini.sueztech.com).

It's going to be a long and somewhat complicated tutorial; I finished the structure in 2 or 3 days, most of accessories I had on hand, but I waited two weeks to pick out matching scraps for the bed. So all in all if I hadn't procrastinated it might've only taken me a week or less.

(edit: I got this tutorial ready a month ago but was missing a few pictures and got lazy. Sorry. :)

Materials:

A Box - I used a chocolate tin.

Paperboard - Cereal boxes. An easy way to store cereal boxes is to flatten them and slip them into a drawer. They don't take up much space and they're good for lots of things.

Glue Stick and School Glue - These should not be used interchangeably. The glue stick is for paper/card stock to prevent wrinkling and the school glue is for gluing down fabric.  

Fabric - (optional) For use as a wallpaper.

Card Stock 

Scissors


Pen - For marking things

This is a very incomplete picture of the materials I used. I was kind of making this "spur of the moment" so I collected materials as I used them. At least you can see the type of box/tin I used though.

Instructions:

I hardly know how to begin. Here we go!

Step 1: The first thing we are going to do is set up the walls on both sides in the front. Trace and cut out the size that you want.

You can see how it will sit in the picture below. Don't glue just yet.

Step 2: The next thing is the inside walls. Cut it to the right width/height depending on the size of your box.

Complete on the other side as well.

Step 3: Glue both pieces to a piece of card stock. This will make it easier to glue down since you can handle it as one piece instead of two. 

Make sure you leave enough space for folding like shown below.

Step 4: This is optional, but I added a strip of paper on the inside of the fold to make sure the two ends wouldn't open up.

Step 5: Glue the two sides in place. 

Another angle.

Step 6: Cut another strip of paper board. Mines was about 1.5 inches. This will be the front. 

Step 7: I had to put the phone to charge so I wasn't able to take a few pictures. You haven't missed much; I'll explain what you have to my best ability :)

I covered the outside walls and front with pick paper. 

I also cut out two rectangles as "drawers". These were initially fake but then I decided to make them real drawers. You'll see how in the next step.

I added the end of a paperboard box as a place for the bed mattress to rest. As you can tell, it sits lower than the front; this is so when I place the mattress in, the mattress will line up with the front edge. It's hard to explain. You'll see.

This is an inside view of the front.  I had to cut holes to accommodate the drawers. You can use matchboxes for the drawers and glue on the paperboard rectangles on the front, or make your own as I did.  Make sure you cut the holes for the both drawers even otherwise they will look wonky. :)

Another view from the front with the drawers open.

I would later recover the entire outside with another layer of pink paper and also glue fabric to the insides. 

So, that wasn't too hard! The terminology/wording is a little hard but I hope the pictures help explain everything clearly! We're on the decorations!

Instructions:

Step 1: Make a mattress. I made mine by wrapping a piece of foam I had around and wrapped it in white fabric. Nothing fancy, I taped the bottom to make it stay in place.

Step 2: Next we're going to make the shelves. Cut strips of paperboard that are all the same width in the following sizes.

You will need:

- 2 the same length as the sides
- 2 the same length as the back wall
- 2 (long) the same length as each other (the sides of the "bookshelf")
- 2 (short) the same length as each other (the shelves of the "bookshelf")

Cover them in colored paper.

I'm missing a few in the top picture. The bottom picture has all of them except the sides. Dunno what I was thinking.

Step 2: I made the bedsheets using scraps of fabric. 

You can find my tutorial for pillows here: Pillows

I actually tried something new this time, where I made the pillow using the above tutorial, but made a pillowcase separate, using the same method, except with no filling and leaving one side open. That way I can change the pillow covers, which takes up less space and time than making new pillows. Also more realistic.

The decorative pillow was made in the standard way of making the pillow. I.e., no pillow cover.

I don't really like the way the sheets look in this bedroom; they don't really match, so I'm thinking of changing the sheets. Will update you if I do :)


Step 3: Time to decorate!

Chair: My tutorial here: chair

Books: My tutorial here: books

Lamp: My Tutorial here: lamp (my original lamp fell apart so I made a sturdier one later, it just happened to match the color scheme :)

Tissue Box: My tutorial here: tissue box

Hanging Frame: My tutorial here: hanging frame (in fact I made that 3 years ago for this project. It's a surprise I still have it :)

Bird Cage: I made the bird cage a while ago; but didn't post a tutorial, unfortunately. It's made from wire, and the door opens and closes.

Frame: The frame is a belt buckle. I used a piece of card stock as a "picture" until I can find a suitable picture. I used a piece of wire to make a little contraption for it stand on it's own.

The mini rhino figurine is from my attempts to find a suitable size container for my Beauty and the Beast project. In case you were wondering, the container it came in was too small so I didn't end up using it.

So that's it! Hope you like it, and don't forget to leave me comments or send me an email!

Happy Crafting!
-Erin A

I made a chair a while ago from cardboard and toothpicks, but didn't post a tutorial. So today I want to share a new chair I made for a project I'm working on (tutorial to come!) It's made completely of wood.

Materials:

Paint stick - The stuff you get at The Home Depot to stir paint
Round Toothpicks - Preferably with decorative ends
Wood glue - Hot glue *will* work, but it will be messy and not so neat looking.
Utility Knife - Something to roughly shape your paint stick
Sandpaper - A Dremel would make life a lot easier if have one

This was another unplanned project, so I don't really have a picture of the materials. Apologies.

Instructions:

Step 1: Sketch out the design of your seat on the paint stick.

Step 2: Cut out a rough shape of your seat. Just discovered I don't have a picture for this. Ugh. Basically all you have to do is cut out a square around your paint stick. Score both sides of the paint stick with your utility knife, the snap it along the line. 

Step 3: Shape your seat. Use a sandpaper to finish our the sides of the seat. I originally went for a curved design, but later settled on a more simplistic design. The curved design is still there in some of the earlier photos, before I decided to go with the later design.

Step 4: Attach the toothpicks to the back of the seat. You'll want one toothpick one each side and a toothpick down the middle. I later corrected the abnormal amount of slant the back of the chair had. 

Also note that I was using hot glue at this point because it dries quickly, and I don't want to be holding toothpicks in place for however long it take for wood glue to dry. Later I would reinforce with wood glue and scrape away excess hot glue.

The top section is cut from the curved part of the paint stick (I suppose that's where you hold it), and sanded to fit the gap between the toothpicks.

The two bars at the bottom are from flat toothpicks I had on hand and initially put there to hide the hot glue mess holding the toothpicks to the seat. I like it though.

Step 5: Next, you're going to want to put in the legs. I marked, then carved out small holes where I wanted the legs to go. Then I used a small flat screwdriver to bore out fairly deep holes.

Give the legs some slant, and try to keep them as even in length as possible. If your chair is wiggling/rocking after putting all four legs in, you can use the sandpaper to wear the offending leg down and make them even. 

I know in the pictures I use hot glue, but I advise you against it. Use wood glue. I later took out all the legs and re-glued them with wood glue and they are super sturdy.

Step 6: Lastly, add in the bars in the back of the seat. I used the non-decorative part of the round toothpicks for this. They should be a perfect fit, and use wood glue to secure them.

Give it a coat of acrylic paint, or keep the original wood look. It's up to you!

Happy Crafting, 
Erin A

I made a sun catcher based off a model I saw online. I didn't take pictures of the process (even if I did I wouldn't know how to put them into a tutorial; it was a very messy process that was all over the place. Hopefully this can serve as inspiration. I just used some scrap wire and miscellaneous beads. I think it turned out pretty good; tell me what you think in the comments!

-Erin A

Here's a miniature lamp that I made... I still haven't made the post but I figured that would take me a while and I didn't want to delay putting up a tutorial. This is great for putting outside your dollhouse door!

Scissors
Scrap Paper
X-acto Knife
Pen
Glue (stick)
Toothpicks
Tweezers
Clear Plastic

Step 1: Trace or print out a pattern for the lamp shade. Below is a template I made. It may be a little imperfect since I freehanded it and made the template later. You may have to resize to fit your needs as well.

Step 2: Color in the paper with black marker. Don't use paint as it will wrinkle the paper. Or just use black paper. 

Step 3: Cut out and fold the template as instructed.

Step 4: Cut out holes in middle. I used an X-Acto knife. You could also use a small scissor.

Step 5:  Glue the flap around to make a cube like shape.

Step 6: Cut plastic film into rectangles that will cover the holes you have cut. Glue in.  Be careful with gluing so that the glue will not show through on the outside.

Step 7: Cut a square of black paper to cover the top. Glue in place. I added a bead to the top as an embellishment.

- Erin A