February

Have you ever walked into a pet shop, and just wanted to take every one of those critters home? Or better yet, get to own the shop, so you could spend your day meeting and greeting other animal lovers? Well, miniaturists are in a unique position of doing just that--on a small scale of course!

• The most important element in any pet store is the pets! There are many ways to get them. I found some great high quality snakes and lizards in a 25 cent vending machine. Also, snakes can be made from fimo very easily! You can roll them out, cook them and and paint in your favorite snake colors.

• Little mice and rats (come on, you know you like furry happy rats!) can be made from a teardrop of fimo or model medium, with small flat circles for ears. When you finish baking your rodents, just paint or draw features in with a thin tipped permanent marker.

• Fish can be formed from fimo, or paint rice grains fish colors with a black dot for an eye. Fish made from fimo can be made very interesting by dusting them with metallic powders before baking. Tanks can be made from tic tac containers, or from bubble packs. I have seen aquariums that just have a faux underwater scene (rocks, plants and a piece of acetate on the top to indicate the presence of water), and fish are just glued to various landscape features. Or if you are brave, try your hand at resin (for hints and tips on that, try Shellie's Sundries koi pond project).

• Birds are a big (if not really noisy) part of the pet store experience. Once again form a piece of fimo into a teardrop. Mount bird on a toothpick near bottom of fat teardrop. Place fat end of teardrop between index fingers (about one bird's headlength down). Roll gently between fingers until you have a separation between head and body. Make to wings and tail from a flattened teardrops of fimo and apply to bird. With needle, poke eye holes into bird's head. Roll out two small balls of fimo and insert into eye sockets. With a needle, draw in feather detail. It would be helpful to have a picture of the bird next to you so you have a reference. Bake with one end of the toothpick still in the bird, and the other end in a piece of waste fimo (as an anchor) , and let cool. Take your bird color acrylics (again consulting your bird picture) and paint the features in. Perches can be made from small round dowels, toothpicks, or if you are up in the current trends in pet stores, make a tree branch for your avian to sit upon. This can be achieved with a log of grey/brown fimo scored with a needle (it is helpful to have a tree to look at) and when it is done cooking try to do a little creative shading with acrylic paints.

• Dogs and cats can be purchased from a number of different sources, though the key is to find them in the right scale. Try toy stores, learning stores, teacher's stores, science and nature stores and card shops. I have also seen children's animal beads that could be painted/furred (with flocking). People have also made dogs and cats out of pussywillows so keep an eye out for the new blossoms that should be popping out soon.

• Bunnies, guinea pigs, hampsters can all be simulated with pom poms. Just roll them into shape, trim, add ears where neccessary. A little dop of dimensional paint can simulate eyes and nose. Make cages for these animals out of cardstock or wood mouldings, with sides of acetate or silver colored netting (from tule or bridal veil). Shavings are easy to find, they live in every pencil sharpener just waiting to be rescued.

• All pet stores have a variety of dishes. An easy method of making a dish is to cut out bubble wrap from cough candies and paint. Or try to form one out of fimo. To make the indentation in the middle, roll a small round bead or marble in the middle. Bubble wrap can also be used as a mould for plaster castings, which when dry can be painted. Cuttle bones can be made from pieces of wood shaped and painted.

• Toys are a big part of a pet store's inventory. You can make interesting ones out of pen springs, beads, feathers and pom poms. Bones, squeaky toys and colorful mice can be made from fimo. Cat trees and scratching posts can be made out of bits of wood stock covered with mini carpet (velveteen) or another rough kind of fabric.

• Pet food boxes are fairly easy to make out of cardstock. Find a picture of your favorite pet food that is in scale and glue it to the front of the box. Or if you have a good computer programs like paintshop pro and corel draw, you could take a picture of your own pet and design your own food packages (say something like Iguana chow...!). You could also make sacks of food out of a coarse fabric and stencil the words "cat food" or what have you on the side. Just cut a strip of fabric, seal ends, sew three straight seams and you will have a little bag. Then you can fill it up with small bits of chopped cooked fimo, colored fish food, small seeds mixed in a textural type paint (tinted brown), or just stuff with a bit of sand and seal off the top of the bag.

• Don't forget about leashes and collars! The latter can be made out of slivers of painted cardstock/thin leather and jewelry findings, and the former can be fashioned out of thin chain jewelry.

• Don't forget to make up some pet posters and books! Find appropriate advertisements/stamps/etc, glue to cardstock. A simple way to make a book is to glue a number of cardstock pieces together, glue on a cover and then when dry cut the whole thing out with a sharp exacto knife. Put on a store rack no one could tell that it doesn't have real pages.

Also, if you have a good tip hint that you would like to share, don't hesitate to give me a note about it, You could become famous...

For older tips, check out the Mini Tip archive.

Back to home