Cyndy's Craft Corner: Vampire Hunter's Kit in miniature

I joined a miniature exchange this year with the theme of haunted Halloween. One of the items I made was a vampire hunter's kit. First I wanted to make all of the items to see what size I should make the box, but then I went into my wood stash and found these pieces of wood with a design on them. So they were perfect for the top lid. Since I had to make 2 for the exchange, and I had two of the panels, my mind was made up. They originally came from Michaels and were the top of trinket boxes. The sides of the panel were trimmed so the box wasn't too oversized.

The lid was made with coffee stir sticks cut to make a box with the designed panel. Wood glue was used and the lego blocks keep it square.

Cutting out the bottom piece of the trunk.

Putting on sides of the trunk and keeping it square with lego blocks.

The deeper bottom was made with scrap wood, in the same manner as the top.

Making sure the lid and bottom are the same size. Some sanding was done as the bottom was a few millimeters too big.

Taping up the boxes to align the hinges.

Hand drilling the screw holes.

Screwing in the screws with E6000

The hinges were nerve wracking. After all this work, it could be ruined with the wood splitting. I pre-drilled holes and when putiing in the screws, used E6000 glue. It did not split the wood! Yay!

The trunk needs to be lined so the items can be displayed and attached. This is not a regular tool box, after all! Using some thin red fabric glued to a piece of cardstock that is slightly smaller than the inside of the box.

Used fabric glue sparingly to attach fabric to cardstock.

Luckily, I had already designed a luggage lock and leather straps for my Harry Potter trunks. They were cut out with brown cardstock on my Silhouette Cameo. After glueing the layers together, a brown marker was used to colour the white edges of the cardstock. The leather handles were made by glueing the strap templates to the back of some faux leather, and cut them out. It glued easily with wood glue to the sides of the trunk bottom.

Thin amount of wood glue to attach a cardstock strip on top of the leather strap.

The kit: What to include? These are the items I thought were essential.

Holy water

Crucifix

rosary

Bible

stakes and mallet

axe (for beheading)

hand mirror

candle

Vampire guide book

garlic

Always open for new techniques, I watched a lot of youtube videos.

With the axe, I settled for hand carving the handle with basswood. I designed a handle on my silhouette and cut out the template with cardtock. I glued it onto a piece of basswood, and started carving and sanding It was then coloured lightly with a wood marker and lightly varnished.

Love this metal file from my Grandfather's estate.

The axe blade was made with aluminum foil from a lasagna tray, and glueing it with E6000. Again, I designed a cardstock template.

The crucifix was a jewelry pendant, all that had to be done was cut off the ring on top and sanding it smooth.

The candle was a tiny wire dipped in wax.

The quide was printed from an image from online, and made into a booklet.

The bible was also printed from an image online, thanks to Pixiedustdolls.com. Thank you, they were perfect!

The stakes were made from skewers, widdling them and sanding them so they weren't all uniform.

The mallet was made with a small dowel and a skewer. The dowel was cut and a hole drilled. The skewer was then glued securely with wood glue. It was sanded a bit, and scratched to age it up. I also put a little of dark brown marker on parts of it, and quickly wiped off the excess. Hopefully it looks like a used mallet.

The Holy water containers were found in my jewelry collection. Just had to remove the charm ring, sand it and paint it.

The hand mirror was put together with a miniature butter knife for the handle, some cute 1/24 scale platters I had mistakenly purchased from Aliexpress, and some mirror paper. Sometimes these mistakes in scale can work to your advantage, as it did this time! After sanding the metal parts to help with adhesion, it was glued with E6000. I did have to cut and sand the edge of the butter knife to fit on the back of the mirror.

Three finished hand mirrors.

The rosary was a bit harder as I wanted to make it more authentic, However, not all miniatures can be made with all the detail of the lifesize item. The beads were hand picked (beads often are not of uniform size), choosing the smallest ones. After every 5 beads, I put in a tiny link from a necklace.The crucifix pendant was a cardstock design from my silhouette cameo, inserted in a jump ring and glued together. A dark brown marker is used to colour the edges, Hopefully it looks like a wooden cross. This rosary neclkace took a lot of time, and after assembling one, I broke the string and had to start over! Unfortunetly the beads were lost in the carpet.

The cardstock template squeezed into the jump ring, folded and glued to itself.

Making the garlic was actually quite easy. I did watch a few youtube videos to get some tips. My clay was a bit too grey so I had to put a few layers of white paint after baking the clay.