Wainscot: My thought on wainscot would be similar to a rule I've seen somewhere (?) for wallpapering which stated you should never apply 2 designs at the exact center of the wall with the border between, such as a stripe at the bottom half a border and then a print on top. They should either meet above or below the center point. It seems that this would apply to wainscot as well.

Linda Miller (Bow, WA,)

Memories of wainscoting: During the war we lived in an old house in London, England, and inherited the old decorating features. The dining room had brown lincrusta about 3 feet high all round. It was so old it was beginning to peel away from the wall. As kids, using this room as our playroom, we used to pick bits off the top as it came loose. Looked like the rats had got at it by the time my parents could redecorate.

Also had a huge table in that room covered with an old brocade-like tablecloth with long fringes all round. We used to knot and braid the fringes. Mother would discover this on the rare occasions she wanted to use the dining room to dine in, and we'd have to spend just as long undoing all the knots.

I'm doing my Phoenix and the Carpet roombox this way. Found some lincrusta-like paper at the scrapbook store. Now I'm looking for just the right fabric for the tablecloth. I plan to braid the fringes too!

Kay in Ottawa, Canada

Pricing on Roundtables: I have found the people doing Roundtables are getting more and more competitive. Now, you can buy laser- cut kits and I wouldn't think that is inexpensive to do.

Maybe, they don't use a lot of materials, but there is a lot of work that goes into making enough kits to do roundtables, and now there is a $20.00 fee for teaching one.

Roundtables are the most exciting thing for me at a Convention or Houseparty, and I sure buy my share. Also, I think it gives a lot of people a chance to sell something that are not dealers. I have taught at several roundtables myself, and love it. Sometimes you do good, and sometimes you don't.

I was the Roundtable Chairman of the 2001 National, and believe me, there are a lot of good ideas come through, and it is hard to have to turn some of them down. I think Roundtable Kits are one of the best bargains you can buy.

Betty in Ky.

Prices of roundtables: Jean commented on roundtable kits that cost $5.00 with only 75 cents of materials. I guess I'm guilty of this, as most of my roundtables were between 3 and 5 dollars, and obviously the materials did not cost that much. But EVERY time I began packaging the kits, I was always amazed how long it took to package them. But the main reason was the roundtable kits helped pay the huge expense of attending the houseparty. I don't think my hotel bill was ever less than $400 often $600, travel was usually $500 or more, registration was over $100, and sales table $150 or more. Of course I also took in money at my sales table, but that was usually not enough to show a profit after expenses.  Also, I am one who was often told my prices were too low, but I too tried to keep prices low for beginners.

Dean Jenson

Business Books and Website: Someone mentioned Homemade Money by Barbara Brabec. Her books are THE best resources on selling crafts and pricing your work, etc. She has written Homemade Money, Creative Cash, Handmade for Profit, The Craft Business Answerbook, and Make It Profitable. You can find info on Barbara and her books at http://www.barbarabrabec.com/

These books are in most libraries. In the US you should be able to request them through an Interlibrary Loan. They are worth the time and trouble to search them out!

Dona Vaughn

Making Animated gifs: Photoshop 5.5. Just make up a document with layers...one for each position in the animation you wish to make. Then jump to Adobe Image Ready and create your animation. You can then save it as an animated gif, or even a QuickTime movie! Have fun! I do, and it's part of my job.

Dave Pierce

Archiving SS Digest & other information - I copy and paste the info I want to keep into a Microsoft Word document. This prevents me from using a lot of ink for printing and having tons of notebooks full of stuff I may not need just yet. If you click, hold and drag your mouse pointer over text, it will be highlighted. To copy, press and hold the Ctrl key then press the C key and let them go to copy this info into the computer's memory. In your word processor, position your cursor where you would like the text to be pasted.

Press and hold the Ctrl key then press the V key to paste. One or many documents (by subject) can be created. If using one document (I'm sure mine will get too large and eventually I'll have to break it into several), the Table of Contents feature can be used. Once a Table of Contents is generated, you can click on an entry in the Table of Contents and you are taken to that location in the document.

Pictures can also be pasted into your document. Place the mouse pointer over the picture on the web page and right click. Click on Copy. In your Word Processor, click on the Edit menu heading, click on the Paste Special command, then double-click on bitmap image. The image can be resized in the word processor if it is too large or small.

- - As for web site addresses I want to revisit, I have an extensive Microsoft Access database (I'd offer to share, but I'm not an Access whiz & the database is not particularly user friendly at this point). I never use the favorites or bookmarks feature in my internet access package as they can easily be lost (when changing software, hard drive crashes, etc.) and are hard to categorize without creating bunches of folders. However, Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Word would also be help in this area. For Microsoft Outlook, copy and paste (as described above) company names, addresses, web site addresses, email addresses, etc. from web sites into Contacts (one contact per web site address). For Microsoft Word or any other word processor, copy and paste the information into a document.

These methods CAN and DO fill your hard drive (my 8 gig hard drive is always full), so be sure to back things up. I move my stuff to CD with a CD burner then copy to the hard drive to add and delete information. CDs take a lot less space than notebooks in my over-busy computer/office/craft room.

Robin Konn

Printer ink cartridges: In reading and enjoying the latest edition of the Dictionary, I saw a reference to a post that I miss. It was an inquiry as to whether there it a tiny printer policeman who knows if you are using a refilled cartridge. The answer is YES. When you put a new cartridge in, the holder has to punch a hole into the cartridge. That bit of resistance tells it that this in a filled cartridge. If you refill a cartridge, of course you don't have that resistance to notify the printer that it has been refilled. PUT A PIECE OF SCOTCH TAPE OVER THE HOLE. Makes enough resistance to let the printer know everything is OK and doesn't affect the functioning of anything. Take it off and put a new one on the next time you refill.

Jeanne, San Anselmo, CA

Slippers: you can easily make a pair of slippers for your poor toeless gentleman. Cut an elongated oval out of felt. Cut this in half. Each half will become the front/top part of the slipper. Glue it down over the top part of the foot and toes (you might want to put some little beads in for the missing toes) and turn edges under, gluing them to the sole of the foot. Then cut out soles to fit and glue them on.

Paulette in IN

Quick quilt: just thought I'd post my tip for making a mini quilt the easy way. cut a piece of thin iron on interfacing the size of your quilt. cut out small irregular shapes from scraps of cotton plain and printed materials. place these in a pattern that covers the interfacing and then iron all down at once. use this piece as a top. put a piece of wadding and a piece of backing under the top and set your machine to a small close zigzag (satin stitch) and stitch over the joins of the pieces. add a binding or border and voila a tiny crazy quilt. i have made 2 quilts like this and it certainly takes away a lot of the drama of working with tiny bits. it does not replace gorgeous patchwork but is easy and looks great. mini regards

Julia