Giving Older Items New Life In Miniature Making

As a lifelong pack rat, it gives me great joy when something I haven’t used in ages comes in handy for our miniatures projects. Here are a few examples of the new life I have found for old purchases that were otherwise collecting dust.

Food scale: When we started shipping on Etsy, we needed to know the weight of our items and packaging. Fortunately, I had an old food scale hanging around in a kitchen cupboard. It needed a new battery, but otherwise still works great.

Embroidery floss: When my kids were babies, I customized some onesies with embroidery floss and iron-on shapes cut from quilting fabric. I stuck the remaining floss in a cookie tin in my craft supplies, but did not use it for years. It came in handy when I wanted to try cross-stitching again without investing in a lot of new materials.

Here is one of the kids in an ice-cream cone onesie I decorated, looking concerned.

Foam packaging material: To shape the miniature hydrangea petals and leaves to make them more realistic, I placed them on a piece of foam and pressed with the end of a ball stylus (link). Fortunately, I had saved the foam from past on-line purchases in my kids’ craft crate.

Leftover envelopes: I always order more Christmas cards than I wind up sending. I have been using leftover envelopes to store and mail the miniature books for my etsy shop.

And one item still looking for a miniature project: I have these photo pouches/sleeves from a scrapbook that I never used. I feel like they will come in handy but haven’t figured out what I can use them for yet. Any ideas?