Props French Style Bed for Minifee

I have been making furniture for my dolls for a while now. My latest idea has been to do a furniture set for each doll. So I will start with my Minifee Shushu called Ursa. I have several other dolls but, they're all in different stages of have new faces put on them. Ursa is the only one that still has her original face-up.

I started with a french style of bed. The main body of the bed is made from basswood (headboards and sides). The bedposts are carved from another type of wood. Not sure what kind (their made from dowel I purchased a Michaels craft store). I prefer using this dowel than the kind you can get from the art supply store which is oak. The oak dowel is too hard to carve by hand as where the Michaels store dowel is softer and easier to work with. IMO.
Took me awhile to decide what kind of finials to make for the top of the bedposts. You can see the one's I finally made in the last photo. To hold the bedposts securely together I drilled holes in the top and bottom of them and glued a piece of 1/8" dowel in the hole. To add a bit of strength to each when all of the pieces where finally glued together. I'm so there's no picture of this. I also used dowel to secure the bedposts to the headboards.
The bed is not totally glued together in the last photo. Just held together with masking tape ^_^. I still have to make some more adjustments to the bed. There are also the wood slates to make for the mattress to sit on.
I will add more updates to this as I work on the other pieces of the bedroom set. A vanity w/chair, wardrobe, upholstered chair and other things.
The bed measures about 16 1/2" by 7 1/2". And the thing in the background of the last photo is my little dogs frog toy.

 

minimoon, Jemey, Nightshade, HappyGirl Thank you all for your kind words. ^_^


minimoon-Here is a little pictorial of how I make turned legs and posts for my doll furniture.

1. Measure the length of the leg or post to be made. Use a ruler to mark the different depth of the details to be carved in the piece. Leave about an inch or more at the end so there is something to hold onto when carving.
2. Carefully score with a extended box cutter. Be careful not to press too hard, otherwise the dowel may break. Roll carefully back and forth
on a cutting mat using the blade to cut into the dowel.
3, 4. (I usually hold the dowel in one hand while carving with the other) Using an exacto knife carefully cut at an angel into the dowel to create the different details. This sometimes takes a bit of practice. ^_^ After carving the details in one direction turn the dowel around and start carving details in the other direction.
5. This part tends to be somewhat dangerous and I don't recommend it. I use a drill as a lathe to sand down my legs/posts so that they are smooth and have a more finished look. The drill that I use is a crappy one and doesn't have enough power to it to put a screw in any piece of wood or even drill a decent hole. What it is good for is being used as a lathe. This is why I would not recommend doing the same thing. Using a regular drill would cause the piece to turn too quickly and injury would happen. At some point I will get a mini lathe but, until then I will have to make do with what I have.
I use different grades of sand paper and sanding sponges to achieve the smooth texture I want.
6. Comparing the two pieces unfinished and finished.

 

I had originally planned to post every Wednesday. Sorry.
So in that time I have giving the bed two coats of stain, also a coat of paint with my air brush. Once the paint has dried for at least twenty-four hours I will give the bed a light sanding to give it a distressed look. Then another layer paint with the air brush and some more sanding, and a bit more distressing. I tend to be a bit fussy when distressing and painting. Always adding more then taking it away. ^_^



Here are the colours I used to get the colour for the bed. I have the feeling that I didn't really use that much or any yellow. Yes, I use Ms. Martha's paints. I found them in the back of my closet. I kind of remember there being a sale at Michaels some time ago and I went a little crazy buying paint. I forgot to add in the picture the Liquitex airbrush medium I mix with the paint so it will flow more easily through my air brush.






Forgot to add this picture. I changed the length of the legs from 1 1/2" to 1 3/4. It's funny how just a little bit more can make all the difference.

 

SteamWitch, Thank you. You could always trim the larger pieces of dowel down to fit inside of your electric eraser. That's what I do when the dowel is larger than the chuck on my crappy drill. ^_^

Here is an update about my bed. Well, actually, the bed clothes. I started playing around with some of my quilt cottons. So far I like the result. I some cotton batting that I use on my upholstered furniture pieces that I could use for the quilt yet, will it be too bulky. I should see if I can find something that would be more size appropriate for a msd bed. Will let you know when I find what I am looking for.

 

O.k. So sorry for not posting anything for awhile. Been busy with life and such, also I have been working on other pieces as well. Thank you to everyone for your wonderful comments. This will be a short update. The bed is painted and has a mate acrylic varnish on it. The quilt is almost done. It still needs that bidding around the edges. I used regular cotton batting for the quilt. Not too keen on the end result, I should have used felt instead. Would have given the same quilting result but I think the thickness of the quilt would have been more to scale. I still need to finish the matters (not pictured) and make some sheets and a pillow. The other pieces that go with the bed are almost done I was able to get a coat of paint on the yesterday. Now they need to be sanded and then another coat of paint. The wardrobe has a draw in the bottom (not pictured) and the little table is supposed to be white but, I accidentally started with the turquoise blue paint. The floor they are sitting on was going to be the room box for the bedroom. I see now that it will end up being too small for what I have planned. So I'll finish this room box and start a new. Well I think that that's all I have for now. n_n