DIY Network

Dollhouse Accents From "DIY Crafts" episode DIC-103

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Decorate a shadow box like this old-fashioned kitchen. Figure A Figure B Figure C Figure D

If you're not yet prepared to decorate an entire dollhouse, how about making individual rooms from shadow boxes? Mary Lyon, host of DIY Crafts, describes how to decorate a shadow-box room like an old-fashioned kitchen.

1. To make a pie, use the lid of a pill bottle with a disk of polymer clay inside (figure A).

2. Use detergent-bottle lids as canisters.

3. Surround a small picture with a polymer-clay frame and hang it over the sofa in a miniature living room. Run polymer clay through a pasta machine to make a 1/8"-thick sheet of clay. (Reminder: Once a pasta machine has been used to prepare clay, it shouldn't be used for food preparation.) Cut the clay to fit the picture. Place the picture on the clay square, and add two clay snakes around the picture both to hold it in place and to make the borders of the frame. Add a third snake in a contrasting color around the frame, if desired. Bake the picture and clay frame in a 265-degree oven for 20 minutes. The oven temperature is low so that the paper won't burn (figure B).

4. Make another picture from a postage stamp and a polymer-clay frame. Condition the clay with a pasta machine as described above. Cut a rectangle of the clay the size of the stamp, mount the stamp and wrap a clay snake around the outer edges to make a picture frame. Bake in a 265-degree oven for 20 minutes. When the frame is cool to the touch, push small gold beads into the four corners. If desired, use a small dot of white glue to keep the beads in place (figure C).

5. Mary made a "Tiffany" lamp from polymer clay and jewelry findings. She created a cane from pastel-colored clay with a black border edge and reduced the cane by rolling it to a smaller diameter. She cut very narrow slices from the cane and placed the flat sides edge to edge around a small bead. Bake the clay and bead in a 265-degree oven for 20 minutes. When cool, remove the bead. Then make the lamp base by threading a bead on a flat pin (used in making jewelry), followed by a bead cap, additional assorted beads, the lampshade and a bead cap for the top. Use jeweler's pliers to twist the top of the pin over to hold the beads in place (figure D).