DIY Mini Painting Supplies

 

I havent posted for a while so I am exited to post again and these little painting supplies are just the cutest. I always love miniature craft supplies even more than other miniatures. I made an easel, a paint pallete, a pad of paper, paintbrush and a canvas. Enjoy and I hope your inspired to make something of your own. 😁

Paintbrush

First I am going to tell you how to make a mini paintbrush because thats the most important part of painting. This is super tiny so I considered glueing it onto the easel, which i have not done at this point. It is made from polymer clay.

Start by rolling out a little bit of brown into a shape like this, to be the handle.

Now add a little bit of a different color to the end, if it is mettalic that is good but it does not have to be.

Take a small peice of your brush color and make a point on the end. Then stick it to the end of the handle. Add detail with a toothpick to make it look like hairs. Now bake following the instructions for your clay and your finished!

Paint Pallete

This paint pallete was fun to make because of drawing the paint on at the end. It is just so colorful! This is made from paper, you can use white like I did or you could use brown to make it look like wood. Using paper that is a little thicker makes this project a lot easier.

Start by drawing the shape of your pallete in pencil. It helps a lot to look at pictures. Also, some paint palletes are just circles so if its to hard to draw out the shape, just trace a small circle.

Cut that out. If you still see a lot of pencil on it you can erase that.

Cut the same shape out of your paper a bunch more times, using the one you already have as a template.

Glue all of these on top of eachother to make a thicker paint pallete. I used a regular glue stick.

And finally, add the paint. Useing markers I just drew the paint on. Don't think to hard about the placement of the paint, and overlap the colors some. 

Easel

The miniature easel is the most complex of all these projects, but it is my favorite. It is made from small peices of wood hot glued together, and I added paint splatters all over it.

Cut four peices of wood so they are equal lengths.

Next, glue two peices of wood together in a triangle shape.

Repeat this with the other peices of wood. Line the two triangles up at the same angle. They need to be close to the same so the easel will stand up.

Glue a small shelf across the triangles to connect them. This is also where a canvas would sit.

Add another piece across the back to help stabilize the easel.

On the front, glue a very small piece across above the shelf. It will help if you put a canvas on the easel, and just to make it less breakable. Glue the piece behind the sides instead of in front.

You could just say your easel is done now, but this extra step makes it look a little less plain, and it is really fun. Use multiple colors of acrylic paint to add small splotches of paint on your whole easel. I put the most paint on the small shelf. In hindsight, it would have looked more realistic if I put a lot of brown around.

Canvas

You need paper and thin cardboard for this. I used a regular glue stick for the glueing parts. It is cool to actually paint on these, but you have to use thicker paper especially with water colors. I actually painted on paper before and then glued it onto the cardboard, which worked well. 

Cut out a rectangle of thin cardboard the size you want the canvas to be. If you are going to put it on a miniature easel it should be slightly smaller then the space on the easel.

Cut your paper larger then the cardboard. Glue the cardboard in the center.

Cut the corners out of the paper, like the photo below.

Fold the tabs over and glue down.

If you flip over your rectangle you should have nice finished edges. Here are how the canvases I painted on turned out. I painted on paper first and then put them on cardboard.

Pad of Paper

The pad of paper is very versatile, so while I labeled mine watercolor paper, you could easily make it a sketchbook or a journel or even a novel. Be aware that this does not open, it is a solid piece that just looks like a book.

Start be choosing the size you want. Cut out a lot of paper that shape, it is good if it is thicker paper.

Glue these on top of eachother until you reach your desired thickness. I used a regular old fashioned glue stick, which you should never underestimate.

Use the color paper you want for the cover and cut a strip of it, slightly wider then your block of paper. Glue around the paper and trim the excess.

Decorate the cover! I labeled mine watercolor paper. 

The photo is sideways of course😑

Thanks for reading this post! 

You shouldnt feel like you need to make these exact things when you read this, you can use my projects as inspiration for your own comletley different projects. Or, you can follow the directions I write, or change the what you do only slightly. Basicaly you can use this for inspiration and ideas for different projects then I am writing about. It tends to work better for me to use things like that because then I don't need to find exactly what I want to make, and I can get ideas based on other projects.