filling up a miniature shelf

The past few weeks, I've been making miniature books and boxes with paper specifically to fill up these shelves that came in the Ikea Huset... set. (That sounds awkward, but I'm gonna go with it.)

I've been making all this out of scrapbook paper -- or maybe cardstock? It's a heavier paper that I got from a pad that I bought at Michael's for $5. It was a "hot buy" and super worth it! But certainly heavier than regular scrapbook paper. I got this shabby chic-ish one with a lot of florals in it, and I got one that was all gold foil and white, too.

The pink paper encrusted with sparkles was a separate buy. It looked so pretty and multi-faceted, although its opalescent sheen doesn't truly show up in these pictures.

I made the boxes by expanding on this "inchie box" tutorial. I just embiggened the dimensions to fit the shelves more fully and left off the tops, so it would look like storage cubes. (I guess I should see about adding handles or something!) But the inchie box looks pretty cute, too! I did a 4 1/2" square instead of a 3" square, if you have these shelves and want to do something similar!

Because I guess I like to make everything super tedious, the books are filled with actual notebook paper that I cut up into pages with scissors and just stacked and glued together. See a close-up here on my Instagram! One of them has fabric tape on it to emulate binding. It's not tidy, but that's okay!

Other little things I've currently got populating the shelf include a small pink rabbit figurine I've had for a really long time -- it was a gift from a friend! Also, a toadstool I made years ago. Also, the mini-knitting I made at the beginning of this year, and little yarn balls in tiny baskets I acquired off eBay. The little letter is from a package I also got at the craft store and painted gold with gold glitter. I made it for another project, but its miniature size made me reach for it as a possible decoration.

Making the boxes involved scoring, and I did this with a nail art tool and a ruler. The nail art tool is basically exactly the same as the scoring tools I later saw in the craft store, and I already had it. It works really well. I don't want to junk up my desk, which is already pretty worn, even more by scoring a bunch on it, so I looked for a proper scoring board at the craft store.

This one is from the Martha Stewart craft line, and I think it was $11, but I used a 40% off coupon, so I scored it for like $6.50. Heck yeah! I haven't used it yet because I got really used to scoring with my little nail art tool and, well, I fear change. But I'm still all stoked.

I made the books without scoring anything, since I didn't really think of it, but I think I'll make some more and hopefully their spines will be neater with some scoring!

Honestly, I've been hunting on and off for miniatures all year, and even though I've had luck with scoring wicker furniture off Etsy and at antique stores, I haven't had luck finding 1:6 scale stuff I like.