Happy 1st Day of Spring Everyone!!!  I was inspired last week by a picture of a miniature travel trailer I found a picture of on Pinterest.  So over the weekend I built this little Retro Travel Trailer.  I actually had a ton of fun building it and coming up with ideas of how to build each piece from items I found around the house and garage.  My favorite thing I made was the little battery on the front of the trailer and also the retro table and booth area inside the trailer.  This little trailer is on 7 inches wide by 7 inches tall by 1 foot long.  So not a lot of room to work with when I was creating it.  I was trying to keep it to scale to go along with the scale of a dollhouse.  I hope you all enjoy my newest creation. 

The barbeque had broken legs and I found some clay bricks I had previously made so I glued the bricks in stacks and put under the barbeque.   

I used wire to create the orange extension cord for the mini toaster oven outside and painted it orange and black once I drilled and glued the wire into the mini oven. 

The back side of the trailer was again my most challenging to make it open since it had too many curves in the structure to make look better, but this side should Always go against the wall as not to see. 

I went online and found pictures I liked and make bumper stickers and the license plate for the trailer.  Then I reduced the size of each picture and printed them off, it does take me a couple of print outs and reductions of the pictures to make them to the scale I like. 

This is the little battery I made, in which I found a little wood box that I painted black and used 2 beads for the electrical leads and then used a sewing pin pushed through the wood to hold the beads in place, then I cut apart a large electrical wire and pulled out the strands of copper wire and twisted it in manageable lengths and painted it red and black to make the battery wires. 

For the tail lights I went to the hobby store and found decorative Brads and cut off the prongs and painted them orange and red and glued them on. 

The Windows gave me Grief Big Time!!!  I originally had each window pane framed in Duct Tape which took forever to cut out the Duct Tape into 1/8 inch strips and then apply to each window pane frame.  Then the darn tape started to come off the glass panes, which lead me to take off each pane and redo the tape, then it came off again and I had to take the panes off again.  This time I just took off the tape which I really liked the whitish glue marks that the duct tape left behind and I left the window panes like that so they would look old.  I wanted to use the duct tape to surround the window panes since it made them look like they were framed in metal.  Plus I did try grey paint which rubbed of the pexi glass to easy.  You live and learn. 

The little bed area of the trailer.

I wish I would have made the trailer bigger, since the sink and stove area is only about 1 inch wide. 

View from the front door. 

I had a blast making the retro table and booth area.  I didn't want to try to upholster the bench cushions with material and ended up using Yellow Duct Tape on pieces of wood.  Which I also used the yellow duct tape on the tape and counter tops.  I then cut more of the thin Metal Sheets I also bought at the craft store to trim the table and counters with.  The metal work on the trailer took many hours cutting the metal into strips and then folding each strip, then using a nail to push all the little dots into the metal to give it a riveted look.   

I also used a lot of metal pieces around the trailer to make the trailer look old with many metal patches.  I also spent a lot of time cutting each metal shape then folding over the edges and then using a nail to push in the dots on the metal to make them look like they were riveted. 

The beginning of the trailer once I got done cutting out the wood.

The trailer cut out in wood from a paper pattern I made. 

This is the picture I found on Pinterest that inspired me to build my little retro trailer. 

Had to show a couple of pictures from last week when we went out and purchased a bigger travel trailer for camping this year.  We ended up getting a new 5th wheel that's almost 40 foot long. 

Thanks god I drove the car and got to follow the travel trailer home, it made me Nauseous watching it go by me it looked so massive, but hopefully my first time pulling it on the highway will go good.   

Loving the larger kitchen and the larger bedroom up the stairs. 

It took 9 hours looking through the Denver RV Show to find this floor plan which we really liked, since it feels more like a real house than a travel trailer.  Plus I really liked the large leather sectional couch. 

Hi everyone here is the newest miniature creation I have completed.  I'm calling it the 200 year old French Chateau House.  This is the house a lady I used to work with had been wanting me to redo for her for awhile now.  Her dad build it for her over 40 years ago.  I spent the past couple of weeks redoing the very 70s looking house into a rusting home with lots of paper clay and my new antiquing solution I mixed up with denatured alcohol and black ink.  I also surprised her and decorated the inside and added all the furniture and decorations as a surprise.  I figured I just had all the furniture and lighting stuff lying around from other projects so ill give them to someone who would appreciate them.  I couldn't leave the house Naked inside.  I had a small budget to work with and I didn't want to go over that for her.  It made me so happy to see the smile on her face today when I dropped it off at her office and the memories of the house her dad had made for his daughter.    The interior is far from perfect, but I used everything I could find around the house and in my junk boxes.  I found 10 sheets of decorated paper which I used as wall paper and some thin sheets of wood to make baseboards and lots of extra lighting I tore out of extra projects.  It was the biggest job I've done yet, most of my miniature houses are half the size or less.  I tried to take lots of step by step pictures of the house being transformed into what my mind imagined when I first saw the house.  Have a Wonderful February Everyone!  Big Hugs for Valentines Day!   Stan

 

 

This is the Original House Linda wanted me to redo.  I have to admit I was horrified to tear apart her dollhouse her dad made her.  I didn't want to take away any sentimental attachment.  But I kept telling myself it will be the same house, but just a different look. 

I think I spent around 6 hours or more adding all the greenery to the outside.  I cant count how many burns I got from the hot glue gun.  I do know I had a whole day of watching Love it or List it, the house redo show on TV while I worked on the greenery. 

 

My favorite thing on the exterior is the 2 cracks that developed in the paper clay when it dried on the left side of the front door.  I think it looks like the bricks actually cracked through over 200 years of aging. 

Linda wanted a red door and I think it turned out really nice.  It took around four coats of paint form the base coat of white, the black, then crackle paint, then the to coat of Red, then sanding it and scraping off paint to give it an old old look.  But after so many coats of paint the door wouldn't close and had swollen from the wetness of the paint and the layers of paint and one side of the doors original glue un adhered itself and had to be reglued.  I had to tear the door apart and cut almost 1/8 of an inch off to make the door shut.  But it finally looked pretty good.

 

 
 
 

I also tried really hard to re- incorporate pieces of the old house onto the updated house. Such as I re-added the 2 window planters, which were also antiqued with painting black then painting with crackle paint then painting white.  Plus I also reused the old 2nd story balcony the original house had which I made into a smaller balcony, but I had to make some new railing for around it since the original railing wasn't to scale.  Plus up close the 2 wood post holding up the new balcony I really like how the cracked painted turned out very small and detailed up close.

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

Since electrical lighting was a last thought on the house I ran the wiring down the inside of the walls and covered the wiring with some thin wood strips ontop ot the wall paper.

Another one of my relaxing things to do when completing the interior is when I make the model bathroom furniture.  I've made quite a few of these bathroom fixtures and it is very relaxing for me.

 





This is the point I just finished shingling the rood, which I usually dread.  I like shingling the roofs of my houses but hate the time it takes. It took around 6 hours to hot glue on all of these shingles as fast as I could go and I'm pretty fast, and I was standing the whole time.  But it wasn't so bad.  I had to stay home this night since the 2 gentlemen I take care of both got that darn stomach flu and I couldn't go play Friday Night cards and had to stay home and take care of them.  So once all the cleaning was done I spent all night standing and gluing the shingles down while taking care of my 2 guys. 


















It took me awhile to decide on a shutter color.  I ended up deciding on Black thinking it gave the house a more elegant formal look.  


 
 
 

I also like this dark grey look of the house at this point, it makes it look abandoned and haunted.  It could give me an idea for future projects if I would remember it. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The brick stamp I made out of nails for a electric nail gun compressor,  I just bend the already glued together nails into the size I want and then hot glue them into the square shape and add a stick with more hot glue.  I like using these nails since they are very thin. 

Then time for the fun with stamping out the paperclay I previously laid on and glued on. 

This is when I had just painted the house with my antiquing solution of denatured alcohol and black ink.  Sorry this picture is out of order and I cant get it to move up this page.

Laying on the wood strips which I will be adding the paperclay into the center of each section.

The house after I replaced all the new windows and door to make the house look more realistic. 

 

 

The house after I stripped the exterior.

 

 

 

The original House

The original interior.