Moving a dollhouse: I moved my collection of room boxes and dollhouses about two years ago. We had the grandsons do the miniature moving in a rent-a-truck. The only damage I had was a nick in the stairwell when they carried the biggest piece down to my new studio/workroom All of the rooms that have glued downed furniture were stuffed with tissue paper. I put little boxes or paper around each light fixture. Because they would swingI didn't want the wires to break. The buildings with loose furniture were handled differently. All the furniture was wrapped in tissue, boxed and labeled for after the move. I used heavy duty plastic storage boxes from Target. Those boxes are now used for other storage purposes The roomboxes were wrapped in bubblewrap and brown paper and labeled. I removed all of the lead-ins and transformers and packed those in one carton. All of my fine porcelain and glass and other really really good stuff were individually wrapped in pieces of bubble wrap, put in plastic containers and labeled. Everything was found safe after the move and all was easily identified. It took DAYS to pack, but worth it

Roberta in Wisconsin

Purple Gift Bag: To me, a purple bag demands bright green and gold accessories and a Mardi Gras theme.

Loretta.Sniarowski

Purple Gift Bag: Mardi Gras would be a great idea with the beads etc all the colors of the royal purple/green yellow. Also Easter theme would be darling with spring colors and miniature eggs - you could have the rabbit hopping down the bunny trail with Easter eggs in the basket and a beautiful meadow.

Elizabeth Smith

Purple Gift Bag: How about a lovely romantic bed dressed in shades of lilac and purple with a lot of frothy lace?

SUSAN AT WRH

Purple Gift Bag: As soon as I read your post, Stacey, I immediately thought Flower Shop, stocked with spring flowers. Next thought was an Easter religious scene. Or an Easter scene of children hunting for Easter eggs. Purple is the color of royalty and that opens up many, many possibilities.

Mel in MA

Purple Gift Bag: Years ago, in Cincinnati, I saw an adorable (life sized) kiosk. It was a flower-type cart stocked with hundreds of gift items, all of them PURPLE. I think that it was called "Purple Passion." There were purple t-shirts, headbands, barrettes, teddy bears, stationary, pens, memo pads, stickers, pennants, posters, jewelry, diaries, little fancy boxes, bumper stickers, stick candy.. well, you get the drift, and every single thing was purple. You could have shelving on the back wall, and build a little awning over the cut-out front opening in the bag, to make a store instead of a kiosk. Or install a door & show window in the front.

Terri Rowe

Workshop tools: No, the scroll saw is not a Dremel attachment, it is another machine that has a small vertical saw blade. I use it to cut miniature lumber for furniture, window openings in dollhouse plywood, plastic for windows and fixtures, etc, etc. It has a relatively docile cutting action that works at a speed that you can easily cut nice corners and even reasonable straight lines in small pieces of basswood and thin plywood. Dremel does make one under its brand name, but it is not an attachment for the small Dremel tool.

The sander is a small Delta machine that costs under a hundred bucks from any large home improvement center. It has a small one inch belt sander and a second four inch disc sander. This two-in-one electric sander will sand many of the small surfaces on doll house trim and furniture. I use the 'disc' sander part of this machine to create angle cuts for small mouldings. I just set the fence (or guide) at the angle I need, and sand to that point. I use the small 'belt' sander portion to sand edges of everything: newly cut Plexiglas shelves (china shop fixture), wood mouldings, bricks for dollhouse exteriors, etc etc. It even hooks up to a shop vacuum so the dust is minimal. I use this tool all the time. The large Dremel attachments I have are a router, a shaper table, and a drill press, and then many of the smaller attachments. These tools form the basis of my workshop and I can get most things done with them. Of course I also use larger scale tools, for example, I use a table saw to cut the plywood for dollhouse shells.

Sharon Blake

Glues: I really like using Weldbond glue. It's available at hardware stores. It sets up quickly, requires minimal clamping, and has a slight amount of 'give' to it, which can be helpful at times. As for applying the glue, I have access to small, used syringes that my wife uses for treatment of her diabetes (the needle ends are snipped off, so they're not a hazard). I pull out the syringe, and force a little of the Weldbond into the syringe. I can lay down a continuous bead of glue that's about 1/64 to 1/32 inch wide. It's great for working on mini furniture. One drawback - you can't re-use the syringe, but if you let a bead of the glue sit on the tip and then cover the tip with the syringe's orange plastic protector, it will last a day or two. Then you have to draw up a new supply of glue in another syringe.

Geo. Held - Cedar Rapids, IA

More Glue Tips: When applying glue with a toothpick or the like, do not be stingy, use a new one often! As I tell my students when I teach...always better to have to add glue than use too much!

Also, for those of you who use the brush on Super Glue (which I get in the hardware dept. of WalMart and which I love) That tiny bottle tips over awfully easily! I attached mine at the base to a 2"; by 2";square of cardboard with some sticky wax..makes it much more stable, and less chance of spillage!

Thinning Tacky: I thin my Tacky glue with water almost daily, as it is open for hours while I work! It will not separate, just make sure you stir the water in well, with a tongue depressor or something!

Alice Zinn

Glue: The glue I have found to replace most others is Ultimate Glue. Can be gotten at some craft shops and here, course. I was first introduced to it by Charita Moncure to use for flowers. Not being a flower person but a glue person (Now you know how I look) I had to have some and now I sell it. I used it for everything. It will even work where there is old glue. It works well on natural fabrics, haven't tried synthetics as yet. I also tried it on a hard plastic cabinet kit I sell as a desperate measure (I didn't have my super glue or plastic glue with me) and it passed the test like trouper

Deanna from beautiful downtown Thiensville