Hagatha's House:    I have noticed the people asking that the answers to questions be posted on the digest and not mailed directly to the asker.   I asked about Hagatha's insides and roof.   On the inside, most people thought I should have hand-hewn beams with stucco or stonework inside.   I did this and it does look great, the walls are a light tan stucco with the beams dark brown,  The floors are planks, also dark brown.  The fireplace and outside walls are gray stonework stippled with black, green and brown.   Son Alex says it looks mossy on the outside now.    On the roof, I had thatch suggested the most, with sod being the second suggestion.  One reader kindly offered to send me broom straw from Georgia, which I will be very grateful for and will send some handmade roses in a florist box in swap.   Also, Another reader sent me a link to a thatching site, that showed how to do it!  More gratefulness!  I will try thatching.. what is the worst thing that can happen?  I might have to rip it off and start over.. oh, well, I've done that before!

In any case, I agree, send the answers to the digest as I really like reading the hints others give others too!  

Eileen in St. Louis

Mini Rosary: For the person wanting to make a mini rosary:  Main part is a circle containing 5 groups of beads with 10 beads in each group.  The groups are separated   by a spaced single bead.   These may be contrasting (a different size, color or design), or may match the other beads and only be distinguished by the spacing.   There is also a short straight piece of chain which starts with a crucifix, then has one single bead (spaces on either side), a group of 3, and another spaced single bead.  This usually attaches to a medal with 3 attachment points, which serves to join the ends of the circle together and attach the straight chain.  Hope this makes sense.

 I make rosaries real life and haven't been able to miniaturize the technique to make them in scale that way, but have had good luck by using metallic thread and gluing the beads in place to maintain the spacing.

Linda in MN

Mini Rosary: I think just using thread & knots for the beads on a mini rosary would be perfect. You could paint each bead with a tiny drop of nail polish from the end of a toothpick. To keep your spacing even I would set up a template using T pins and a 1" thick piece of styrofoam. Put the T-Pins thru the foam, spacing them for one group of ten plus the two separate beads before and after the Hail Mary's.  Flip the styrofoam board over with the points of the pins sticking up. Using one long piece of thread, tie a knot around each pin. After tying the knots of ten plus the two on each side, gently raise them up to remove them from 11 of the pins. Then leaving one of the separate knots attached to the pin, swing it around, back along the side of your pins, and start tying the next set of ten plus one   then repeat till you have all the groups you need.

Susie in FL

MAKING WIND CHIMES; They can be made in two (2) ways.

1. Non Chiming and looks like wind chimes but no sound.

2. They make sound but it will be only a very high pitched tinkle if at all.

Since miniatures is really giving an impression of what something is; I will  describe the no sound ones. The tinkle ones can be made following the same plans only make them from miniature brass tube.

Construction; Think in terms of a mobile.

Items needed;

Round toothpicks. (I love them tooth picks; wind chimes; wheel spokes and chair stretchers etc. Oh yes a tooth cleaner ;) )

Nylon sewing thread. Color is your choice.

A few craft sticks.

Dremel moto tool.

Dental bits or chop off the head of a finishing nail and use that as the drill bit.

This bit is going to make holes in the tooth picks so it has to be large enough to make a hole the nylon thread can pass thru but no larger than the diameter of the tooth pick. Too large and it will split the tooth pick.

PROCEDURE:

From the craft stick cut out a round disc in scale; perhaps 1/4 inch diameter (in scale is 3 inches.) Let's say you are thinking of hanging 8 chimes. Look upon the disc as a clock face and then drill a hole for the thread at 12 o'clock; 3 o'clock'; 6 o'clock and then 9 o'clock also drill holes at about 1:30;  4:30;   7:30 and 10:30. This gives you 8 holes.

>From the craft stick cut a piece shaped as circle similar to the original one but only drill a hole in the center for the thread. Take the original one that you drilled the 8 holes around the edge and now drill one more hole in the center,

We are almost there.

Cut the round toothpicks in to 8 pieces and try to vary the lengths of the eight pieces. The length of the real wind chime tubes is what gives it its varying sounds.

Drill a hole thru each tooth pick section at the same distance from one of the ends.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

With a length of thread tie a big knot in one end and feed it thru the hole in the disc that only has the center hole. In scale of 1:12 make another knot at 1 inch above the disc with the first knot. Thread the disc with all the holes (8) onto the thread so it now is held in place by resting on the second knot. At this time you should have length of thread with 2 knots and a disc resting on each knot about 1 inch apart. As I said "think of a mobile"; I see a few eyes widening as you see what comes next and a few ah ha's. Take some length of thread and pass it thru the holes in the cut tooth pick sections. Pass both thread ends thru one of the holes in the top disc. Make the length of the thread such so that the cut tooth pick has the bottom one-hole disc hitting its mid shaft point. The two ends of thread that passed thru the hole in the upper disc now has a hefty knot tied so it will not fall thru the hole and snip any excess thread off. Repeat this with the other 7 "chimes".   The original single thread that has the 2 knots and the 2 discs can be of any length you wish and this is the means of hanging the "chimes" from a support.

Dr Bob

1. Curtains: Michaels has wire edged ribbon in some of the prettiest prints. I got a 2-pack set, 1 1/2" and 3 1/2", in mini rose print. All I did was gather, wrap access wire around rod of choice, and "lightly" glue, open or closed. Nifty café curtains!

2. Toilet Plunger... I took a faucet washer, bell type that has a small hole running through it. Washed it to remove some of the oily feel, sealed, and painted it terra cotta. Rounded the end of a small dowel, cut to length (depending on the size of your 'own' plunger), glued with 527 glue. Sealed. The faucet washers can be found in any hardware store, and in many sizes, I believe I used the 000 ??

3. Cake Cover... Use the plastic cover cap from a syrup bottle.

4. Candle Sticks... If you have available a hunting/gun/rifle shop, try looking for pellet shots. The small, .177 look like mini pewter candle sticks, and the .22 look like egg cups after painting. These are made of lead, I believe, so be aware they should not be used around small children, and should be sealed in any event.

5. Metal Duct Tape.... I use this when making mirrors for young children. I also use it for the valley flashing for dh. Find it at any hardware store.

6. Brush water... Put a sponge in the bottom of the brush cleaning water to help clean those brushes.

7. Clocks... I'm talking about the type of clocks you have to apply the "time" on the face with a Sharpie (or what ever else). Use the event date. For example, our granddaughter's birth date is April 5, so I 'set' all clocks at 4:05. For Christmas, 12:25, etc. Just remember... add the year to the back of the piece, and sign, sign, sign!

Rita in Montana

Ebay Searches:

The best way to search is not using categories, in my humble opinion.    I search for 'Dollhouse' alone   and then  'miniature' alone, because not all listings use both  "dollhouse" and "miniature" in their descriptions.  Since I'm not interested in plastic, I put     -plastic     in my search.   

Do you know that you can SAVE favorite searches, and you can even save favorite SELLERS?    Yup!  And it's easy to do.   A minus sign in your search means you don't want that word.    Here's a sample of a search I have saved on ebay (under the "my ebay" section):    dollhouse   -fisher -Barbie -playmobil -playskool -tykes -tikes -turkish -hallmark -plastic

I have several of these set up, so when I want to search, I go to MY EBAY page (which is bookmarked), click on MY FAVORITES and then simply click one of the searches or sellers that I've saved,  and voila!    It's there.    So very simple, instead of typing in all those minus signs for the stuff I don't want.

If looking for a particular item, use "dollhouse" and   the item, for example: dollhouse chairs.     Be careful, because singular/plural can make a difference. I find that searching several times is more efficient than looking through thousands of items on a more general search.    Make use of the "words to exclude" box, if your search gives you too many items you're not interested in.   I rarely click the "search title and description" box, however, it does come in handy sometimes.

I've been buying/selling on ebay for years (over 1000 items) and never felt I was cheated.  I don't sell dollhouse items (I just buy, buy buy!), but I do make custom mouse pads.  I've even made mouse pads for people with their favorite dollhouse pictured on them!   Be sure to ask questions of the seller before bidding, if you have any doubts.    Just use common sense.  There are so many shortcuts available on ebay, and it really boggles my mind when I see people here complaining about going through pages and pages,   to find something, or to get where they want to be, because they don't have time! ::laughing::     Those who really want to save time will take the time ONCE to set things up instead of going through all those pages and all that typing every time they visit ebay.  Those who really don't want to save time, won't do it - they'll just keep complaining about it.    ::smile::    It's really not difficult and you certainly do not need to be a computer nerd to get it done.  Plus,   I'm even willing to help you!   How's that?  No, I'm not a stockholder!   ::grin::  

I just love the excitement of winning an auction or finding something that I need without going outside my door.   And, I enjoy helping people save time, because once it's gone, we can't get it back.  

Cecile near Philadelphia

eBay searching techniques:   I also do not use categories to search, as sometimes you find something in a category that you would not have thought of.  Like you, I use words.   I use the Advanced Search feature and I also select the option to search in titles and descriptions.   This can pull up many more listings to wade through, but I feel it is more  likely to find the odd thing that someone else might not prioritise in the same way that you would.   I also feel that it is better if you are looking for a set of words, as the seller might not put all of them in the title.  For example, if I was looking for a kit for a working miniature table lamp, a title might just list "Miniature lamp kit" but use the words "working" and "table" in the text.   I usually do not put any other limitations on the search.

I also try and search using synonyms and different spellings.   For example, you could search "dollhouse", "doll house", "dolls house" and "dollshouse".  Common mis-spellings too, such as "Realife" and "Reallife" for those super kits.

Wendy in Clinton, NJ

Another way to search ebay...I have been reading with interest all of the posts about techniques used to search ebay.  I have learned that you can search many words simultaneously, yet independently.   Example:  instead of doing five different searches for "dollhouse", "dollhouses", dolls house" "mini" and "miniatures" you can type it like this: (dollhouse, dollhouses, dolls house, mini, miniatures)

Use the parentheses.   Do not use quotes.   Separate by using commas (spaces after or before commas don't seem to affect the search)

Ebay will search for items containing any or all of those words.   Therefore you may find an auction that has "dollhouse miniatures" in it, and others that may only have the word dollhouse.

I found that this really helps cut down on the number of searches I have to do.

Lynn

Delays in Mail Orders: Just read the posting from sgiordano@toolkitmail.com (sorry, no name was given)..... It worries me when I hear about customers having problems with receiving merchandise that they've paid for, or having difficulties even receiving a response from a merchant regarding orders..

What worries me most is that with mail orders, we merchants automatically fall under the rules and regulations of the US Postal Service...and the regs are really quite specific about payments and time frames to ship merchandise.   If a payment is received and deposited, the merchant is required to ship the order within 30 days.   If the order can't be filled, the merchant is required to contact the customer in writing to offer a refund, or get an OK from the customer to continue waiting.

Worst case for the customer is that he/she waits longer, but at least knows the order's been received, but delayed.   Worst case for the merchant, if no contact is made to the customer, is called "mail fraud" and the Postal Service has absolutely no tolerance for it.   That's a scary enough prospect to keep me diligent and in contact with my customers...right up there with the terms 'IRS audit' and 'SEC investigation' - DH is a securities broker.   

Laura in OKC

Paperclay substitutes: When I checked Pearl, they had a number of other products that   look a lot like Paperclay - I've never seen any of them before. In the interests of science, I bought one package and tried it out. It's called Formo, and as far as I can tell, it looks, feels, and acts just like Paperclay, and it was a few dollars cheaper. Hurray!

There were other brands, I don't remember the names though; does anyone know if these work the same way as well? They also had something called Diamond  Paperclay, by Creative Paperclay; what's the difference between that and regular Paperclay? Paperclay is wonderful; I was lucky enough to take one of Rik Pierce's classes, and I'm a total convert.

Christine in NYC