Thursday, April 4, 2013

A Bookcase for Tiny Books

Last month I made some tiny books for my partner Sew Do Something in a Blythe doll swap on Plastic Paradise; then I got her for a partner AGAIN in a Blythe swap on Blythe Kingdom, so I decided to make her a bookcase for the books!




I made it from balsa wood, which is pretty easy to cut using an X-acto knife. I just drew a sketch on paper and then worked out the measurements for each piece.



The theme of the swap was "favorite color", and she chose the combination of gray and yellow as her favorite. After cutting the wood and painting all the pieces yellow, I glued patterned scrapbook paper to the back wall. Then I used a hot glue gun to glue the pieces together.



Using regular acrylic craft paint, I then painted the outside gray.  It needed "something", so I added a chipboard letter "B" (for "Blythe") to the top--you can see that in the first and last pictures.  After it was dry I sprayed it with clear acrylic sealer.



Since my partner is a big Harry Potter fan, I made some more books for her.  I made each of these by reducing an image of the cover of the book on my computer and printing it out.  I glued it to heavy scrapbook paper to make the outside of the book. For the inside, I cut a stack of old dictionary pages to the size I wanted, then dipped the back edges in glue, and pressed them into the cover. This method worked well and was much easier than sewing tiny groups of pages, like I did for the first batch of tiny books!



Here you can see the bookcase with a Blythe doll for size comparison.  The bookcase is about 6" tall.

 

I'm very pleased with how this came out, and I plan to try making other pieces of doll furniture--as soon as I can get my hands on some more balsa wood!

7 comments:

Alexandra Abarca said...

Well Leslie you every time make more tiny things, and I love it to see them.

Have a nice weekend.

Ale
Costa Rica

Kay said...

I am sure she will love this, as will her dolls!

LimeRiot said...

I think every Blythe doll is quietly hoping that their owners will get partnered with you in a swap :). You make the most adorable tiny things! I'm excited to see what other furniture you come up with.

Leslie Andersen said...

Thanks for all your sweet comments!!

waggonswest said...

Your tiny things are amazing. This bookshelf is fantastic.

Jessica said...

I loved receiving this bookcase from you. It's funny now that I read your post because all along I thought the "B" was for my last name. It is going to look great in the room I'm working on for the girls!

hey9irlie said...

That's so cute. What's inside the Harry potter books? I am sure I can see print.......