For a Little Vanity

 I can't believe that I've spent the better part of 3 days on this project. I want a pretty vanity display for the Manchester bathroom, so I decided to make a collection of polities. I remembered seeing a simple Youtube video on making tiny containers, so I watched it again then declared: "I can do this."

Supplies: Gel Caps. I had some fiber gel caps in my pantry, so I pulled them apart, emptied them, and cleaned them out with a Q-tip to get all the residual fiber out.

Play Dough: I poked the caps into the ball of dough that would hold them upright and in place, but I didn't poke the first batch down to the rim, as I should have.

   

Candle wax: I used what I had on hand: an old tapered, a red votive candle, and a peach colored tea light. CAUTION: This is not a child safe project. Little ones are very curious, so I suggest that you work on this project while they are either asleep or elsewhere.

            

Once the wax is set (you can speed it up by placing the project in the refrigerator to cool more quickly), peel away the dough which has broken down the gel cap--unless the cap was not shoved deeply enough into the dough. Once you peel away the dough and the gel, you will have a nicely shaped bottle. If the bottom is rough, use an Xacto blade to gently scrape the bottom to the even it up.

Clear Nail Polish (no photos of this step): Paint the bottle with clear nail polish to protect the wax. 

I found that handling these tiny wax bottles was difficult, so I put some museum wax on push pins and thumb tacks to hold the bottles securely so that I could work on them.

Beads or other jewelry findings: In the video, the artist uses hot glue to secure the bead lid to the top of the bottle, but that just didn't work for me, so I used jewelry glue to adhere the beads to the wax bottle, but that didn't work, so I used a dab of Aleene's tacky glue, which worked fine.

I found labels by searching Pinterest. I didn't want the vintage Victorian perfume bottle look. I found more modern labels which I really liked. The Manchester is anything but Victorian. I printed the labels on regular computer paper then coated them a layer of glossy Modge Podge and let it dry. I cut them out and used tacky glue to adhere them to the jars.

Now finished, I have nice collection of little bottles and soaps. I sliced one bottle that didn't turn out to make little cake soaps, but another way to get more uniform soaps is to slice a hot glue stick about .2 cm thick

 

I would suggest that you make more bottles than what you need just incase you ruin one or two or more.😬. The bottles that weren't usable didn't go to waste because I used my Xacto blade to cut round disks for little soaps. I wrapped the little soaps in a layer of tissue paper, securing it with dabs of tacky glue. 

 I cut a towel and wash cloth from a baby wash cloth that I bought at dollar store, folded them and secured them with tacky glue.

I've been fiddling around to make vanity trays, too. I found these wooden disks at Hobby Lobby, though I think this size is too large. at a little over 1 1/2 inch in diameter, so I'm going to use a smaller disk. You can use other materials: Kraft board, mat board, chip board, or multiple layers of card stock. I painted the disk with acrylic craft paint and sanded it to give smooth surface. I cut the side rim from Kraft Board about 1/4 inch thick. After I glued it to the disk, I added Washi tape after the rim is glued in place because the Washi tends to wrinkle when it is bent.

On the left are my homemade bottles. I am quite pleased with them; on the other hand, I very much like the ones that I made from a kit that I ordered from Etsy. I have a kit someplace but I can't find it, so I made my own. The kit is a very nice alternative to get really nice, clean toiletries for you tiny bathroom. 

(https://www.etsy.com/listing/77892790/miniature-dollhouse-kit-eight-bottles?ref=hp_opfy-1)

  

My inspiration soaps in the little shell soap dish were ordered from an online catalog, but I thought it would be fun to have more organic soaps to match my bottled soaps, so I decided to try making bar soap.

Then I decided to try my hand at making soaps using Fimo oven bake polymer clay. I began with rolling a very small pinch in the palm of my hand into a little ball, but I soon realized that I couldn't get consistent sizes that way, so I rolled out a rope of Fimo and cut it in the same lengths. I started with .5 cm, but that was too small, so I cut a 1 cm length and that was perfect.

Next I rolled the clay in my palm into a nice ball then rolled it just enough to get an egg shape. I transferred it to the tile and pressed it into the bar shape with better results, but I'm not really happy with the color; these look really gray and not the sweet lavender that I wanted,  so I think I'll remake my soaps in colors to match my liquid soaps.

There are different  ways to get tiny toiletries:  

• watch this Youtube artist make the bottles than try it yourself <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-1Nm2Bzsdw>
•  or buy them already made 
• or purchase a kit. 

There is one more way that I may try and that is to make the bottles using resin. I'm not quite brave enough to that yet, but if you are thinking about doing an apothecary shop where you need lots of potions, lotions, soaps and other sundry toiletries, and want nicer containers the resin method would be the most efficient--but I'm not there yet. 

Thanks for visiting. Stay tuned for there are more projects on my To List.