Free printable! Ballet calendar 2024

Happy holidays!

Long time no see!  It's been some time since my last entrance.  I have been busy with work stuff, preparing a belly dancing showcase, and also sick with COVID.  Both hubby and I caught it at the same time.  Thank goodness we were not that sick, and we were fully recovered in about 2 weeks.

So how about a little mini to celebrate the holiday season?  As each year, I am happy to provide a calendar for your mini scene.  And as always, with ballet scenes, because ballet goes with every decor.  Here is the link to the printie.

The picture that is featured in the calendar (which is special to me) is not included this year - I chose some new ballet pics I found on the internet.  However, if you like that particular pic, you can find it in last year's calendar printie.  For the pages I used the Print a Calendar website.

 

Feel free to print as many as you like, make gifts for friends and pass the file along to anyone; links back are nice too.  Just please do not sell the file or your creations.  Thank you very much, and enjoy! ♥

Free printable! Easter coloring books

Happy Easter to all!

To celebrate, I am happy to offer a printie for your Easter scene: some Easter coloring books, both for kids and adults - in case your dolls want to have a fun time.

Feel free to print as many times as you like, make gifts for friends and share the link if you like.  Just please do not sell the file, or your creations.  Thank you and enjoy! ♥♥

The final touch for the ballet studio

This was the only thing that the ballet studio was lacking: a ballet barre!

I wanted to order a custom-made one, but in the end I finally decided to try and make it myself.  It was easier than I thought.

My coworker Carlos cut the wood for the bases for me.  Then I drilled some holes on them, as well as in the wood sticks:

My husband's drilling tool came in handy!

Then I used a couple of toothpicks to hold the side bars in place:

Then came the gluing, painting and staining part, and voilà!

I think it looks very nice!

The studio finally has all the furniture that it needs! 

Also, this beauty arrived all the way from Italy:

It is the child of Minimariba.  Her shop is full of beautifully made dresses and shoes.  Go check her out!  Also, see the tiny ballet box? That is a free printable from Zena Miniatures, so go and grab it right now!  And, this is the most amazing thing ever:

A box of convertible ballet tights!  Just when I think I cannot find anything else for the ballet studio, I find the most incredible things!  Also the creation of Zena.

Love the ballet studio!

Kassandra's DVDs collection

Today Kassandra and I starting unpacking some DVDs and Blu-Rays that just arrived.  Now that she had delivered a home-cinema setup, she wanted to have some entertainment for the children when they visit, and so we started organizing her collection.

"I have always assumed that vampires enjoy movies", I said.  "After all, they can be enjoyed anywhere; and these days of streaming, no need to even go out of the house to watch them".

"You are quite right, it is something thay we all in the family enjoy.  As you can imagine, I like to watch every vampire movie that comes out; some are sillier than others, but many are quite interesting.  Some of them even get a couple of things right about us.  We just watched yesterday "The Old Guard", which I thoroughly enjoyed.  They were not vampires in the strict sense of the word, but they managed to portray the vampire point of view regarding many things quite correctly.  I particularly liked Andy.  She reminded me of me.  Well, I was never a warrior like her, even though I have had my share of battles.  And the relationship between Joe and Nicky is one of the most beautiful I have seen in movies in a long time.  I hope we get to see a sequel."

"You know what a sequel is?"

"Ha!  I am educating myself in modern cinema.  I recently watched the Star Wars saga.  How fun!"

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Since we all have our favorite movies, I thought it would be fun to include some titles in Kassandra's new home.  So yesterday I spent a good portion of the afternoon making DVDs and Blu-Rays for her collection.  They are very easy, fun and cheap to do!  Here is a tutorial for you to build up your own collection:

Materials you will need:

internet access o scanner

a piece of scrap paper

white regular paper

color printer

cello tape

scissors

Eva foam (blue for Blu-Rays and/or black for DVDs)

white craft glue

Optional: tweezers and toothpick

1- Gather up your covers.  You can scan the ones you have at home, or you can search for them on the internet.  The more modern they are, the more chances you will have to find them.

2- Use a photo program to reduce them in size.  For DVDs, you need a 1,5 x 2,2 cm image; for Blu-Ray, you need a 1,4 x 2,5 cm image.  If it is easier for you, I am happy to provide you with templates to use.  DVD and Blu-Ray.  Your image has to fit inside the black lines.  Also, make them 600 dpi.  That way you won't lose resolution.

3- If you feel lazy to find your own, here is my collection; you can see I favor fantasy movies and mermaids.  The Blu-Rays are on top, and the DVDs on the bottom.

4- Print them out.  

5- Cover them with a strip of cello tape, before you do any cutting.

6- Now you can cut them up.

7- Take the Eva foam of your preferred style and cut a strip the size of your film cover:

8- Take the cover and wrap it around the Eva foam, making sure to align the spine of the movie with the foam:

9- Cut to measure:

10- Make sure there is no foam sticking out of the cover.  If so, trim the excess:

11- Put a small amount of white glue on your scrap paper and use the toothpick to extend it on the back of the cover.  You can use the tweezers to hold it so your fingers will not get covered in glue:

12- Glue the cover around the piece of Eva foam:

13- Make sure all the corners are glued.  Hold it with your fingers for some moments while the glue sets.  You have you new Blu-Ray!  Congrats!!

Now get crazy!  The more you make, the easier to do they become:

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and have lots of fun making your collection!

New project in the making...

It was a sudden idea that entered my head when I was browsing printables for dollhouses on Etsy.

Long ago I projected a market stall - only I wasn't very sure what to do with it.  I wanted it to be an organic products shop, but somehow the project was put in the back burner, and I never got around to even start it.  I reasoned it was because I was actually not convinced of my idea, so I let the matter go.  But some days ago, after buying some seed packets to put in my conservatory, I saw something in the listing that caught my attention immediately, and I decided it was going to be my next small project: a newsstand, or magazine kiosk.

So, yesterday I ordered a small (and very cheap!) market stall, and so I started planning in my head my new project.  While it arrived, I collected every sort of magazine that I could think of (thank you, Google Images!) and started composing mini-magazines on Photoshop to put on the kiosk; it was not the first time I was doing this, so I already had a template to make the whole process faster.

Today I got the package.  I was surprised when I got it to see it was going to be bigger than I expected:

I opened it eagerly, and found something peculiar.  As you can see, it says "Wood glue included".  Silly me, I thought it was going to be a small white glue bottle, and this is what I found:

Obviously, the glue was absolutely dry, and I tossed it out.  Not that I was going to use it, but who could have thought that including glue like that was a good idea?  In any case, it did not look difficult at all:

So, armed with paper clamps and my Tacky Glue bottle, I started the construction.  It was only a matter of gluing the supporting arms to the canopy, and then the whole thing to the sides of the counter:

It barely took 20 minutes!  Now I have started printing magazine convers and blank inside pages.  They all have backs; an ad related to the thing the magazine is about:

7 done,  about 40 to go!

If you want to craft some magazines for your mini-scene, here are a couple of free printables for you to play with:

Ballet magazines

Belly dance magazines

More pictures of the progress soon!

Belly dance magazines and free printable

As Kassandra was so busy with her ballet magazines the other day, I forgot to tell her I had at home some belly dancing magazines - I am a belly dancer as well - and I thought maybe she would like to have them, as I had already read them.  So, I put them in a bag and took them to her.

"I brought you something".

"Did you?  What is it?"

"It's a collection of belly dance magazines I had around.  Maybe your daugther can have some use for them.  They are a gift for her."

"Oh, are you not delightful? Thank you very much!  I am sure Jean will appreciate them.  I will give them to her on your behalf."

"You are welcome.  I hope she enjoys them."

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Fantasy apart, it was so much fun doing the ballet magazines that I wanted to have some of belly dance.  I did not know if I would be able to find any, but apparently there are (or used to be) some.  These were more difficult to find, so there are not so many.  Also, I had to be content with putting some DVD covers in the backs, as there were even less adverts of belly dance events or vendors, although I found a couple of them.  The bag is new as well.

If you belly dance I am sure you will recognize some of the people in the covers...

Except for the Dahlal ad on the left, the rest are quite famous dancers

As with the ballet magazines, I am happy to pass on the file to you, in case you want to make some for yourself.  Here are the belly dance magazines.  Feel free to use them and pass them around, but please do not sell them.  Have fun!  

Ballet magazines and free printable

Today Kassandra asked for a new magazine holder.  I wanted to know what it was going to be used for, to see if I could find a pattern that suited the theme.  Her magazine collection is quite eclectic.

"Ballet", she answered.

"Oh, I did not know you were interested in the arts".

"Oh yes, at home we have a passion for three things, mainly.  Music, specially opera, ballet and belly dance".

I didn't know which one surprised me the most.  Ballet? Belly dance? Opera sounded like the most plausible thing, since it had been around for centuries.  The other two were... unexpected.

"Those are interesting hobbies, specially the dancing", I could finally articulate.

"Oh well, the belly dance is something relatively new.  My adoptive daughter introduced me to it.  I quite enjoy it, it is so fun.  And one of her adoptive daugthers is a ballerina.  I trained her myself.  Now she is the principal dancer of my company."

"I see".  I did not know she had a ballet company.  I wanted to ask more questions, but I was afraid of appearing impertinent, so I didn't.  Hopefully, she will share more in the future on her own accord.  She usually does.

So I went and designed a magazine holder for her ballet magazines.  When I brought it back to her, she seemed pleased.

"I hope it fits your expectations", I said.  "I wanted to convey a vintage, Parisian feeling."

"It is perfect!  The magazines will look great in it."

And then she proceeded to tidy up her collection:

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Fantasy apart, I had so much fun making the ballet magazines!  I wanted to have different titles, but I only could find good resolution images mainly from Pointe.  Still, I managed to make each of them different.  And I even put a different advert on each back from famous dance supplies companies! A labor of love!

So, I wanted to share with you all the file for the ballet magazines, hoping you like it, and maybe you can make your own issues to scatter around your mini home.  As always, please feel free to share it with a link back, but do not sell the file.  Enjoy!

A couple of printable freebies for you

I have been organizing my miniature files this week, and I found a couple of things that I used to sell in my shop, which I was asked several times if I could make accesible as download for a printable.  Since the shop is no more, here is a gift for you all.  The Apothecary boxes printable and the Apothecary labels collection printable:

Both the boxes and the labels were made using real, unmodified vintage pharmacy and apothecary labels.  Some of them have been restored a bit, but that is all.  No letters were changed and nothing extra was added.  They are all authentic as they are (were).

I hope you guys have fun playing with them.  I just love making dozens of tiny bottles and filling them up!  As always, feel free to share and pass them around (links are welcome too).  Just do not sell the files or any creations you make with them. 

Absinthe Wallpapers

To celebrate the release of their Heritage Verte absinthe, Alandia is offering a beautiful free wallpaper that you can download and enjoy in your own computer. Click here to get it!

Vintage apothecary in my bathroom

Being in a new house sometimes gives us the opportunity of doing something new with old household items.

I took advantage of this wonderful idea of Cathe Holden, and turned my ordinary red towels in something out of an antique apothecary:



The labels got plenty of time to dry (2 months - I made them before we left the US, and they came with the move by sea), and they have hold up well in the washer; I do not have dryer here, so I don't know how well they could stand a dryer cycle. By the way, if you ever do this, be very careful not to stain the labels with toothpaste; I had a small drop falling in one of the labels and the ink got a bit smeared. It's barely noticeable, but better be safe than sorry.

I also used empty glass coffee containers - gift of my mother-in-law - to make some apothecary jars; labels made by Sligtly Off Center:

The small one I got at the equivalent of a Tree Dollar Store in Spain.

It's funny, I never thought I would miss crafting so much...