hi everybody welcome back to my YouTube
channel I was working today on a
miniature actually I've been working the
past few days on a miniature and I video
taped every single part of it so I
thought I'd make a video showing you
from scratch to finish how I put this
miniature together I'm calling it not a
tutorial because you probably won't be
able to follow along with it it's just
kind of a how I put it together um
so start with something this is mat
board so really genuinely from
scratch and then I
created this piece of furniture this is
a custom order and she wanted this
bluish gray color so have these so these
are patterns I've done
before I use Cameo files with a
silhouette cameo it's kind of like a
cricket and they're files of my own
design so everything is original by me
handmade yes my machine does help me cut
it out so that everything's consistent
but everything is original and designed
by me so anyway I hope you enjoy the
video I'm going to try and talk along
with it so you know what I'm doing and
I'll also put the link to my Etsy store
if you're interested looking at some of
my items I have for sale thanks this is
the Silhouette Cameo and right now I'm
just loading in a piece of card stock
and this is cutting out some of the
little details for the cabinet um the
program that I use with this comes with
the Silhouette Cameo machine and I just
design I draw out design measure and
then I put the measurements into this
program for the Silhouette Cameo and
it's really great because it will save
it it takes a lot of time but um I I
don't have to
remeasure and recut it just it does
everything for me so right now I'm using
a pin and instead of a blade in my
machine and it's actually drawing the um
pieces that I need to cut onto the mat
board and I do this instead of having it
cut it out because the mat board I use
is really thick to make my furniture
last for a while and so it's it doesn't
cut it all that well and I end up having
to cut it myself anyway so using the pen
there you can see the markings using the
pen makes it so much easier and then I
just use an xacto knife to cut it out so
right now I'm I'm kind of recutting I
need to change my blade I'm cutting out
some of the pieces that the Cameo cut
out and I'm using that the thing in my
hand is a spatula it's just pulling the
pieces off the sticky part of the board
and um I'm just pulling those off one at
a
time and those will that it really helps
me just make some really clean nice cuts
for those tiny
details here's the mat board and I'm
cutting on the pieces on the lines that
it created and I'm just using my regular
X-Acto Knife cutting out the pieces and
each piece before I cut it out I put a
letter on it and I can go back to my
original drawing because I've lettered
all the different parts of the furniture
and the letters help me make sure that
each piece gets into its own spot and
since I've made this piece before you'll
see it on my table a couple times I just
put it out there so I could measure the
pieces against it make sure everything's
going in the right
[Music]
spot so here we are going into the
assembly so I'm just getting out all my
pieces and checking to make sure that
everything is there and um I'm using
tacky glue to put it all together and so
just a piece at a time I go slow make
sure everything's lined up especially
the base pieces you want to make sure
everything's in alignment everything's
where you want it to be so that as you
build upwards nothing starts slanting or
being
[Music]
tilted
[Music]
now I'm building the front and the back
part of the cabinet this um dresser
doesn't have opening drawers or doors I
would like to add that into my design uh
when I was first playing with the
program and I put this dresser together
I really wasn't familiar with it enough
to make drawers that open and so I'm
going to be doing that in the future but
right now it's just going to be a flat
cabinet front that I'm going to be
adding pieces onto to make it look like
drawers and a door but for right now
they don't
[Music]
open I'm putting on the top of the I
guess it's like a landing there's this
like little insert piece that goes in
there you can put items on and um
there's a smaller piece on the bottom
and then a larger piece on top and
that's to kind of give it a tiered look
and then the same for the top piece I'm
putting together right now um there's
three tiers to it and so it's just going
to kind of make the top of it look like
it has like molding on the top and now
I'm using a Dremel and a drill to drill
some holes and this will be where I put
the rods that hold up um that side of
the
[Music]
cabinet here you can see me gluing on
the very top piece and I'm going to be
lining that up so that I can make sure
that when the rods go in that they are
going to stand um vertically perfectly I
don't want them to slant over or not be
straight and also I'm drilling the holes
for the feet to the cabinet and you'll
see me make those soon oh yeah here they
go um I use Q-tips and make sure if
you're trying to do something similar to
this you get the Q-tips that have the
paper in the center you can get Q qtips
that have plastic and they just don't
work as well they don't glue as well um
also if you want to do something where
you have to bend the Q-tips um it's not
as easy with the plastic and so I really
use these paper Q-tips for a lot of
different things and um I just scraped
the cotton off the end and then cut them
to size and made sure they fit in the
holes that I had drilled with my trimmel
so now I'm cutting up pieces from card
stock and they're like really elongated
triangles and the reason I do that is so
when I roll it around the Q-tip it's
going to make this really let's see how
how can I explain it uh you'll see it it
kind of makes a slanted V or
something um and so that helps make kind
of a
curvy foot for the um dresser and then I
just I did them on the same Q-tip and
then just cut them apart so so now you
can see me gluing them in
[Music]
there so the next pieces that I'm
cutting out of card stock are going to
be for the rods that go on the top that
hold up the top of the dresser and it's
going to have a little bit different
look but U I'm going to start with
rolling that large triangle in the
center and as it gets more towards the
center it's going to get smaller and
smaller and it's going to make this um
curvy looking design on the Q-tip and
you'll be able to see that a little bit
better in a second and I'll do that for
both rods so that they match and then
put them into the
[Music]
cabinet you can see I'm testing make
sure it works you can see the center
part is um built up because of that
elongated
triangle now I'm gluing them in make
sure that they're
parallel and everything is the way I
want it to be this is a little Center
shelf and it is not cut perfectly
because I do the rods differently each
time they have a different design so I
just kind of cut that shelf to fit as I
see
[Music]
fit right now I'm putting on the drawer
front fronts and making sure that they
fit well I'm sanding down the sides so
that that the sides are more curved and
because if they were flat and I left
them just how I had cut them out there
would be no definition between the
different fronts of the
drawers and I'm also doing the same
thing to the door so now I've found a
piece of plastic you can use like um
transparency or um just like the piece
of plastic on the that comes on a toy
like the plastic on the front of a box
that was part of a toy and I'm cutting
it out to the shape that I want the
mirror on the front of the dresser to be
and I'm going to use gray and black to
kind of put down a color for the
background of the mirror because if you
just put straight silver um it's not
going to work really well you have to
put gray behind the silver and so um now
I'm going to put some silver I'm putting
silver on the mirror the plastic part
and then I'm also going to put some big
Globs of silver onto the gray that I
painted and I'm just going to Smosh it
around this is going to make the effect
of an old tiny mirror that needs to be
refinished okay so while you weren't
looking I painted the inside of that
oval black um and now I'm just gluing it
down on top of the mirror and that's
going to hold it in
place and I'm gluing down the drawer
fronts and you'll see the pieces that I
had cut out of the card stock that the
Cameo had cut and then I just kind of
recut out with my xacto I'm gluing those
down to make a little bit more detail on
the front of the drawers and then
there's also a piece that goes around
the mirror you'll see it's kind of white
you'll see it on top of the black and it
just kind of gives a little extra detail
and a better Edge to the mirror looks it
makes it look more
[Music]
finished I also have these trim pieces
for the sides of the
[Music]
dresser
[Music]
so when you use the paper method of
curling the paper around the Q-tip it
can look very bumpy like you see the
edges of the paper so I take wood filler
and I just kind of lather it over the
top of the paper edges and it Smooths it
out it makes it more curvy like it would
have been carved out of wood and right
now I'm just using my fingers and I'm
doing that the same thing for the feet
of the dresser because um it's just
easier they're so small it's easier to
use my fingers and then I'm just taking
sandpaper and sanding the entire thing
down it's going to be um it's just going
to make it look more distressed in the
end because that's the look I'm going
for and it's going to help um smooth
down some of those edges from the
wood
filler so now I'm using brown and I'm
going to be doing this undercoat for the
dresser it's not going to be a brown
dresser but because I'm distressing the
paint you're going to be able to see
some of underneath some of the paint um
I want to start with brown and that's
going to be because if this was an
actual piece of furniture it would
probably be made out of wood and so if
some of the paint was falling off you
would see brown underneath the paint and
um I'm only showing you one coat but I
actually do a couple Co coats and this
is so when I distress the paint on top
and I decide to sand it I don't want to
sand through a really thin coat of brown
paint I want to be able to see that
brown and um because if I get all the
way down to the white that's not really
going to make sense you want to see the
[Music]
brown
this is a crackle medium and you want to
use that after the brown coat and then
before the final coat and what this does
is it just really dries out the top coat
incredibly fast and so it makes the top
coat of paint um contract I think that's
the word contract so that it starts
cracking and you can see all the little
cracks in
between so I'm not going to show you me
putting crackle over the entire um
dresser but I have to wait for it to dry
for a little bit okay so here's my
special color paint that I mixed up and
I'm going really slow I am brushing it
on in the direction that I want it to
crack and I'm just being really
particular about it this is the fun part
this is the distressing part that I love
and I'm sorry you don't get to see all
of it or see a lot of my techniques but
um
you just have to work really quickly you
can only really put down paint one time
and then I'm not going to paint the
whole thing because I only have a little
window of time to kind of see I'm using
a metal tool there and I'm just kind of
working with the paint scratching it off
in different places so that it looks
really old and
[Music]
antiqu
there's the finished after I've gone
over the whole
thing and uh ready to start with the
handles so the handles were also cut out
by The Cameo and this helped me keep
them really small really delicate and
also really well cut if I had to do it
by hand it I would just it would drive
me insane so I do two layers of um card
stock for those and then I do a base
layer of gray paint this will help the
silver paint since I want them to be
silver it'll help the silver show up
there's I'm doing the the top part of
the silver
[Music]
paint zoomed in so you can see it a
little bit
better and then I'm taking some really
really watered down brown paint and this
is to help give some age to the
[Music]
silver okay almost done last step I'm
adding these little bitty handles on and
so I just kind of shape them how I want
them to look and put the glue on real
carefully so I don't have a big glue
glob on top of my paint and I just stick
them down where they need to go and
that's about it make sure I get the
hinges on there so it looks like the
door opens and that is the end of this
[Music]
project
[Music]