I wanna marry a lighthouse keeper

I had a notion the other day to make a tiny lighthouse. Here's the instructions (no photos of the stages as it was an experiment, so it wasn't guaranteed to work).

I wasn't sure whether to go for a coloured striped lighthouse, or a plain one, so I went for a plain one for a first attempt. This could be made with red and white stripes, or blue and white stripes. You can also make a platform for the lighthouse with a brown or black tight roll, and add grass/bushes with green fringed strips or coils.


Tools
PVA glue
Very fine black pen
Fine point tweezers

Tower 
2.5 white 3mm strips
0.5 blue 3mm strip

Light
2 metallic silver 3mm strips

Roof
0.5 blue 1.5mm strip (roof)
Eighth of blue 1.5mm strip (top ball)

Door
Thin section of white 3mm strip

Start by attaching the 0.5 length of blue to the 2.5 lengths of white. Roll them into a tight roll, starting from white and finishing with a blue outer rim. Carefully push this tight roll into the tower shape (making sure that the outer blue edge doesn't creep up - it's your door section), and coat the inside with PVA glue.
Put aside to dry.

Roll the 2 metallic strips up into a tight roll, and glue to secure.

Roll the 0.5 length of 1.5mm strip into a tight roll. Carefully push out into a cone shape, and coat the inside with PVA glue.
Put aside to dry.
Roll the eighth length of 0.5mm blue into a tight roll, and glue to secure.

Snip a rectangular length of 3mm white paper. Draw a small dot on one side of the long side  -this will be the doorknob.

When all parts are dry:
Glue the metallic tight roll on top of the tower.
Glue the the roof to the top of the metallic tight roll.
Glue the top ball to the top of the roof.
Carefully draw on thin rectangles (windows) in an ascending straight line on one side of the tower.
Glue the door below the line of rectangular windows.
Draw thin lines down the metallic tight roll to represent the window panes.

You now have an inch high light house!

Miniature books

I offered to make 10 miniature books for a fundraising campaign to help build a library. Here they as works in progress, and beside some of their full size versions.

The bees knees

I decided I would make some insect-based paper people...this is the bumblebee girl.

Tiny roses

Found a few forgotten tiny roses in my tool tin. I do love tiny things :D

Plotting, plotting, always plotting

It's not easy doing step by step photographic instructions of quilling, so this blog gets updated in fits and starts!

As it's Autumn, and I tend to want to hibernate through Autumn and Winter, I'll be snuggled in my flat more, and hopefully making more stuff!

Quilled Elephant Head

Materials

Grey 3mm wide quilling strips
White 3mm wide quilling strips

Tools

PVA glue in a fine nozzle dispenser
Fine point tweezers
Reverse action tweezers
Cuticle scissors
Black pen

Head – 3 strips
Chest – 6 strips
Ear – 4 strips
Trunk – 2 thirds of a strip, decreasing lengths from that

Tusk – 1 quarter strip, tight rolled, small length of grey to cover base
Jaw – 1 sixteenth strip
Eye - 1 sixteenth strip

Roll the head, chest and ear sections and glue as loose coils. The ear should be slightly larger than the head section. Use reverse action tweezers to arrange and glue the coils against one side of the roll (see photos, they help make more sense!), glue on back to hold in place and let dry.

Once dry, carefully shape each part as shown in photo. Glue the tip of the chest to the side of the head, and the ear on top of the junction between them. The two bottom parts should support the ear.

Trim some strips to the lengths required for the trunk. Make a lot more lengths than you think you'll need, as you'll need to decide by eye what sizes suit the size of the head you've made.

Roll the trunk pieces into loose coils. Make the smallest two equivalently sized.

You will need more coils than I've shown here - approx 10 parts minimum, plus the two smallest ones for the trunk tip.

Using reverse action tweezers, squash the coils flat, keep flat by clamping between the tweezers, and cover the backs with glue. Let the glue dry – this’ll hold the coils in this flattened position.

Glue the trunk pieces together in order of size, angling them in a gentle upward curve. Take the smallest two pieces and pinch into teardrop shapes. Glue to the end of the trunk. Glue trunk to the lower edge of the point of the head.

Roll the white length into a tight roll. Push into a pointed shape and fill the inside with glue. This will make it strong and solid. Let it dry, and wrap a short length of grey around the top of the tusk, so it sticks out beyond the wide end of the tusk. Coat the inside of this grey extension with glue, and press against the lower side of the head to attach. Trim any excess length of strip.

Roll a short length of grey into a loose coil, and pinch into a teardrop shape. Glue the wide edge of the teardrop to the underside of the head for the jaw.

Roll a tight white roll, and use a pen to draw on an eye. Slide into the coils of the head and glue in place.

Tweak the shape of the various parts now until you're happy they all sit well together. And that's it!

Quilled bats

Body – 1 strip black

Wings – 1 strip black each

Head – 1 half strip black

Ears – small length of black, approx 1 eighth strip

Roll the body first. Roll entire strip, release coil and allow to relax. Glue the end of the strip to the body of the coil to create a loose circle. Gently squeeze the coil at one end to create a rounded ended-teardrop shape.

Roll the 2 strips for the wings up individually. Release coils and allow to relax. Glue the ends of the strips to the bodies of the coils to create two loose circles. Try to make these circles match in size, as this will help to create more symmetrical wings.

Pinch the circles into a teardrop shape.

Pinch off-centre from the opposite side to the point of the teardrop to create an unsymmetrical half-circle, ie the bulge of the circle isn’t in the centre of the half-circle, but off to one side.

Pinch at the height of the bulge in the half circle to create another point.

You should now have a triangle shape, with one long side, and two progressively smaller sides.

Push the shortest of the sides in toward the centre of the shape, so that it curves inwards..

Roll the half strip up, release coils and allow to relax. Hold against the body shape to judge whether it is the right size.

If too small, hold the centre of the coil loosely and unroll a few loops of the coil to loosen. Glue the end of the strip in the position that matches this size.

If it is too large, hold the centre of the coil loosely and gently pull the end of the strip to tighten the coils. Roll the excess length in the same way as before, and glue to body of coil,

Position the longest point of the wings on top of the body, with the inwardly curved section furthest away from the body, and glue in place. Glue the head on top of the wings.

When the glue has dried, fold the small length of black into an ‘M’ shape. Glue the lower tip of the ‘M’ to the centre of the top of the head. When the centre has dried securely, glue the ‘legs’ of the ‘M’ to the side of the head.

Thassit: a bat!!