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hi guys welcome back to Bentley house
I'm ARA and today we're going to do
something a little bit challenging I'm
going to take some Dollar Store
dollhouse items and try and make them
look expensive so um with the dollhouse
hobby a lot of times it's really
expensive to buy all the pieces you need
and make it look the way you want to so
that's the challenge to try and take
some items that don't cost very much and
make it look like you paid a lot of
money for it
so I'm just going to go ahead and open
these guys up and kind of show you the
quality that we're working with here how
it's starting out and then
after that we will get started these I
bought at Dollar Tree
I think it was Dollar Tree and um they
were a dollar and there were some other
pieces but these were the ones I thought
I could do the best job with
so as you can see
it's just
very poor
quality plywood
and it's not even put together all that
well
it has little knobs
for the handles
and it's just grooves for where the
drawers are nothing opens
is just
your basic one dollar piece of
dollhouse furniture
so I'm going to come up with a few ideas
and then I'll get started
so the first thing I'm going to do is
I'm going to take a pair of pliers and
I'm going to pull out all these little
knobs for the drawer handles because one
thing that I can easily
upgrade are these drawer handles
it won't take that much effort and I'll
make it look much nicer
so several of those came out really
nicely but some of them were being
stubborn so I'm going to try and use
just a little chisel and there's some
other tools if you can carefully use a
box cutter that might be a good choice
as well just be very careful with your
fingers and I'm just going to cut this
guy out
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so after I have the handles removed and
I've done that safely and still have all
my fingers intact I'm going to do an
initial sand over where I had taken
those handles out so that it's fairly
smooth
and I'm just going to sand over the
entire piece because this plywood is
rather rough I want to get all the nasty
little bits that are hanging off out of
the way for a clean and Sleek paint job
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after I do my first
sanding I am going to put just a rough
layer of white paint
and you can use any color really
but this is to
I guess to kind of prime your wood when
you're using really poor quality wood
when you put the paint on it the first
time it's going to raise the fibers in
the wood and it's going to make
everything rough again just as if you
had never sanded it and so I like to put
that first coat on early so that I can
sand it again and make sure that when
I'm putting on any extra details
everything is already sanded how I like
it and
um smooth so I don't have to worry about
when I start painting later and then
there's details that I have to sand
around and that can get very
inconvenient so it's kind of like a if
you're a baker it's kind of like a crumb
coat like on a cake where it keeps the
crumbs from showing up in that final
layer that's what this is it kind of
helps raise those wood fibers that are
going to raise up no matter what you do
early so that you can re-sand it and get
the smoothest finish possible
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so after that first paint layer dries
you'll just be able to sand it again and
this is what will give you a smoother
finish on the final piece
you don't have to sand it carefully
you're just trying to get the surfaces
as smooth as possible and you can repeat
this process if for some reason you have
a really rough piece of wood and it just
keeps
I don't know like the fibers keep
popping up and it just looks really
horrible just keep sanding and then do
another layer of paint and then sand and
then do another layer of paint I'm only
going to do one on these so that you can
kind of see how that looks but you can
do this process as many times as you
need to to get a good base for turning
this piece into a quality a quality
looking miniature
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that make sure you wipe off all the dust
and already this miniature is feeling
much smoother previously I would have
felt like I would have got a splinter if
I was doing this but now it is a much
smoother texture and like I said that's
just going to help in the end making
this miniature look much nicer
so the next thing I'm going to do is use
wood filler to fill in some of the gaps
so when these items are put together
they don't really think about how the um
sides are gonna look I mean I just put
it together very quickly and there's
oftentimes gaps and inconsistencies
where these things are put together and
so you might be thinking well this is
going into a lot of detail and it sounds
really complicated but if you're trying
to up the look of a miniature detail is
where it's at and detail is what is
going to take a miniature from a one
dollar piece to something that you can
put in a collection and be proud of
so this is Elmer's wood filler and I
like this kind because it is in the tube
instead of the little tub in the tub it
tends to dry out in the tube you can
just get out whatever you need and then
you fill in the crack and I'll use a
little spatula to fill in any spaces
where I don't want there it to show that
there was an obvious joint and so that
will be what I do next
let's
see
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so now that I have the wood fill done I
am ready to start on the drawer fronts
now quality Miniatures typically if they
have drawers or some kind of moving
piece they actually function these
drawers do not open but we want to at
least make them look like they might
open nobody even from a distance is
gonna believe that these drawers will
open they're just not done very well
they're just cut along the surface of
the wood and so what we want to do is
I'm going to take
just your regular cardstock paper so
thicker than normal paper and I am going
to cut drawer fronts to sit on top of
here to give an illusion that there is a
separate piece that could possibly it
won't really but possibly pull out and
it will look more like a real drawer
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thank you
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after I've cut I measured and then cut
all the false drawer fronts I'm now
going to glue them together I've cut two
pieces for each drawer front because I
want there to be a definite thickness
and I find that two pieces of cardstock
gives me the thickness that I want so
I'm going to glue those together and
then I will just do a little bevel on
the edge to give it just a little bit of
shape and then I will be gluing them
onto my
onto the front of the dresser to give me
that false drawer front look
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so I'm now past the fixing part of
trying to make this as the best possible
version of itself and now on to the
design part one easy way to add little
details is with punches and these are
easy to find in craft stores
um like Michael's Hobby Lobby even
Walmart these are so common they're easy
to find and you can just find little
designs and what I'm going to do is I'm
going to use regular paper
and this is because I want it to be very
flush with the surface cardstock is
going to give it more of a bump and I
want this the designs that I'm putting
down to be a little bit more flat so I'm
using regular paper and then I'll be
stacking some of the designs on top this
piece I'm going to make make look more
of a Shabby Chic maybe even a child's
dresser and this piece I'm going to make
look a little bit more modern like
something that was set out into a living
room just by using strips of paper
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once I have all the paper details
applied I'm ready to put the paint the
first paint base coat on for each piece
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thank you
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I finished the painting on both of my
pieces and I didn't show all the
painting that I did I did a few aging
techniques
and it would make this video really long
for me to show you everything that I did
so if you want to see some more aging
technique videos just let me know just
basically real quick tell you what I did
is I painted the base coat yellow I went
back with some watered down Brown to put
in these spaces I put just a little bit
of green watered down Green on these
flowers and I just rubbed it with my
finger and that made there would be just
a hint of green
on these flowers and then I put a little
bit of Brown down here because I know
there are going to be handles right here
so it looks like the handles have been
rubbing against the front of the drawer
causing the paint to come off and then
I just got a little bit of brown paint
on my fingers and rubbed the edges and
it just looks like the paint has worn
off of the miniature so that's just a
quick overview of some of the painting
techniques I did on this very simple but
it makes it look old and when you make
things look old it kind of covers up any
um anything that you don't like about it
so if you still see some of the
roughness from the original
poor grade wood it kind of covers it up
because it looks antiqued
so now I'm going to do the final step
which is what kind of gives the
Miniatures character I'm going to put
the handles on to
the pieces of furniture so these are
handles that I have made
and if you're interested I could create
a video on how I make my handles but if
you are not interested in making
personalized handles for your furniture
you can always look on online miniature
stores you could probably even go to
Hobby Lobby I'm not sure if they have
they probably just have like some
generic handles I like to make my own
because I have certain ideas of how I
want them to look but you could also
like get some stud earrings you don't
want any more cut the backs off and glue
those on so there's lots of different
things you can do for handles so I'm
going to go ahead and glue these guys on
and then our miniature should be
finished
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thank you
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so that's it guys that's the whole
tutorial I'm sorry it ended up being
such a long video but good Miniatures
take time so I hope you enjoyed it
please let me know if you have any
questions I had a few other ideas that I
could do with these Dollar Store
Miniatures I was thinking I could pick
up a few and Bash them if you don't know
what that means it means make them into
something they weren't originally
intended for so maybe turn one of them
into a bench or a dog bed or a TV stand
I don't know something like that so I
know I've asked you a lot about videos
you might like me to make but it really
helps me know what you guys are looking
for and um you know I don't want to be
making videos no one wants to watch so
let me know what you're interested in
and let me know what you thought of this
tutorial thank you so much bye