Three Simple Handcrafts Made from old DVD's or CD-ROM's

I have now made 3 simple, pretty decorations or useless ornaments (depending on an individual's opinion) out of buttons, glass beads, assorted bits & pieces and old dvd's or cd-rom's.  All that is needed is an old disc of some sort, and something to glue to it, along with some glue.  I used PVA glue, because that is what I have here already.

I first got the idea for doing this from a collection of assorted bits and pieces like shells, labels off electrical goods, old jewellery, beads, ornamental erasers & other fairly useless items that I kept for quite a long time.  I kept wondering how to display these things in a way that hopefully would be interesting.

I also thought that old cd-roms and informational dvd's that my sons threw out, were too good to be consigned to the bin.  At first I thought about gluing 6 of them together to make a cube, but this would have taken up too much space and wouldn't look very good.  Then the idea of gluing the detritus (as I call the bits and pieces of chain, the metal seahorse, the plastic skull etc) to one of the old dvd's occurred to me.

I ran out of things to glue to it and I think that it might look better if it was thickly encrusted with detritus so that nothing of the dvd shows through, but I was happy to finally do something with this detritus rather than saving it all in a plastic box (along with other interesting bits & pieces).

I was encouraged by the way that my 3 sons all liked this disc, with one of them telling me that it was amazingly tactile to hold or touch, and the PVA glue worked well, so I then sorted out some of those glass beads that you buy to put in the base of vases, into the colors that I've used below - blue and transparent.  I also used some black plastic beads that I already had, that my sons have occasionally mistaken for licorice.

I have a collection of buttons that I keep in a tin.  Not only have I been saving buttons for years, but when he was very small, one of my sons stayed with one of my sisters who was then collecting buttons - buying them at auctions as well as cutting them off any old clothes that she had, and saving them.  My son began to save buttons too, but quickly lost interest, so I ended up with his discarded buttons as well as the ones that I had saved over the years just in case I need to replace a button on a piece of clothing.

For this disc, I decided to use buttons that I would be unlikely to sew on any clothes.  It was harder than I thought to go through my tin  and select buttons that looked good together.  After all, I have buttons of many different shapes, sizes, colors & materials.  At last I thought that I had a good selection, so I started gluing.

This is what they all look like together -

As for the doll house - it is now glued together with the back and middle reinforced with extra cardboard, and some of the flaps cut off the boxes.  I must now glue cardboard to the sides to reinforce them, and then I intend to try making papier mache to plaster over the two boxes, to make the structure even stronger.  I mean to take a photograph of the doll house dolls for my next blog.

I'm still learning how to use Blogger, and I don't know how to add people yet.  I think that I saw something o a previous page about adding people.  I will have to check into this.

Thank you very much Sylwia, for letting me know whether doll house and watercolor are two words or one word.  I'm following your advice for these from now on!!!!

Starting Off - Post One!!

I'm finding Blogger a little annoying to navigate so far.  Apparently I started blogging in June 2011, which means that I had only been on the net for 2 months at the most.  I don't believe that I've used it since then, so I must have stumbled onto it somehow, joined it, and now....well, now I've finally found a use for it.

Here is a photo of the two boxes that I intend to turn into a dollhouse.  The boxes originally contained electric heaters, and our cats have already been inside these boxes.  My youngest son only just stopped Hailie (our tortoiseshell cat) from clawing one of them to shreds.

This is a photo of the arms, legs and horns that I've sewn and stuffed, along with the folded fabric that I am going to sew and then stuff for a body, to make a couple of simple stuffed toys, along with a very simple stuffed toy cat.  I got the idea for these from some pictures on Google Images, so I own no copyright, and I haven't got the name of the person who originally posted the idea.

The dollhouse will be all my doing, though.

I've also made quite a number of handcrafts in the past, and I want to upload photos of these - one at a time - on here.

This blog is to be completely about handcrafts and the dollhouse.  I upload my drawings and other art to DeviantART, I make videos and upload them to Youtube, and I have a Tumblr account if I feel like writing about past abuse, MPD, post traumatic stress, physical pain etc.  I use Twitter to keep in touch with the wrestling world, and I use gmail for various other things, so this site will hopefully only be about handcrafts.

I need to reinforce the two boxes with cardboard before I do anything else, so I need to find some cardboard and cut it to size, then paste it on with PVA glue.  I don't have a hot gun for glue, so I will be relying on PVA and paper glue.  Then I'm going to paint the doll house with acrylic paint. 

I want all cupboards etc to have drawers that can open and close ie no fake ones that look good but don't work, like some that I've just seen on MyFroggy (something) on Youtube.

This house will have the top storey dedicated to horror and spirituality, and the bottom half will be for the children dolls and some of the rest, so the sink will be down there, along with bookcases and other furniture.

The left exterior of the house is to be bright, with butterflies and flowers.  The right side of the house is to have a dead tree beside it, along with some spooky stuff.

I will need to cut windows in one side of both storeys.  I intend to put cellophane bits in the window on the top storey, to make it look stained glass.  I also intend to put "stained glass" over the door on the right side lower storey.  Since the whole front will be open to view, I don't intend to make working doors.

I've seen a house built out of icey pole sticks on Google Images that is very interesting, and I might try to make it sometime, and make tiny dolls for it, but only if the stocking witch doll that I am going to make for the roof of this dollhouse, turns out okay.

Now for a question!!!   Do you write it as "dollhouse" or "doll house"?  I keep going between the two, just like I do with "watercolor" and "water color".

I feel like adding another photo here, so I'll add one of our big, overweight, fluffy cat Ash, who has also squeezed his bulk inside at least one of the boxes that is supposed to be my lower storey!!!