Minis to celebrate the Queen's Golden Jubilee: My dolls house club is holding a mini Golden Jubilee Summer Fayre. We are all making a different stall and will bring them together at the next meeting for display and a celebration of our own with plenty of food and drink! My own contribution is an Old English Sweets stall. I have been making toffee apples, dolly mixtures, lollipops, candyfloss, Turkish delight, liquorice, red, white & blue gobstoppers, sherbert etc etc etc for weeks now. My stall is decorated with little flags of course and I have made some weighing scales from a kit (thanks to Lesley from South Africa who pointed me in the right direction). I also have a doll that was made specially for me - her name is Violet Palmer (geddit?). Some of the other stalls are a Tombola, Refreshments, Jubilee China, Home Grown fruit and Veg competition, Kiddies lucky Dip. I'll take some digital pictures and put them up on my website. Be interested to know what others have done.

Karon

Victorian sewing room: How about some wicker rockers and table some dolls mother and some kids playing possibly a dress form?

Ann Weiner

Victorian Sewing room: you may get some ideas from my web site, There are 4 views on Page 4 under More Vignettes & Room Boxes. http://www.geocities.com/jeanettesdiminuettes/

Jeanette in Wisconsin

Garage sale: the small details- I was looking at the garage sale section of mom's memory box and it wasn't quite right. Then I realized - the garage sale items weren't priced! (A joke among all us sisters is "if it isn't priced, it must be free.")

Maureen in St. Albert AB Cda

Pillow Stuffing for the long round pillows: I use the foam hair rollers. Remove the plastic piece, and wrap the fabric around the foam, tucking the ends of the fabric into the hole that's at both ends of the roller (where the plastic piece used to be). Then cover that up with a circle of fabric, lace, or whatever.

Viola

Art Gallery: I have several bronzes by Jim Pounder (If you haven't seen his earlier works, you are missing some fabulous Western sculptures!), Robert Olszewski for Goebel, and Philip Konigsberg (sp?). They are all western/Native American themes and were purchased mostly in the 80's.. *(I have duplicates of 2 of the Pounder sculptures that I may be selling in the future, let me know if you are interested in being contacted - but be forewarned that these are not inexpensive items).

I built a very basic box using 3 picture frames and some leftover plywood as the basis. Joint compound was used for texturizing because that is what I had on hand. I figure this project cost me under $10 because I built everything including the window and door. The picture frames allowed for a see through top, and large side picture windows that you might see in a contemporary gallery. Mine is done in southwest style, but is relatively plain because I wanted the artwork within to be the focal point. You can see the finished results in my Epson albums, the pictures are in the "Mini Art/sculpture Gallery album. I welcome your questions and/or comments.
http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumList?u=1655407

Feel free to visit my other albums too. I even have pictures of some finished Michael's hutches for those of you searching for ideas. (In the minis - individual items album)

Bonnie Gibson - Tucson, Arizona

Efficiency Kitchen: Apartment stove/sink/reefer....I lived with such a device 45 years ago in my very first 'apartment'! Not a bad thing. Compact and useful for a single person. . . The only bothersome thing was that the two burner electric stovetop was within 6 inches of the dishpan sized sink. . . and no oven. . . many years later, my mom bought a similar unit from Sears for an efficiency apart she was building over the garage. It had an oven. About the size of a small bread box. . . Fascinating units to find in mini, I doubt there is one.

Also, anyone remember the small 'Hoover' Spin Washer/Dryer that was about the size of a dustbin and plugged the water into the kitchen faucet? Dumped into kitchen sink drain and tended to march around the room after one while spinning. The spin was just a glorified wringer. . . I think the washer part would only do one sheet at a time.

Judie-Daytona Beach, FL

Efficiency Kitchen: I had one of those little Hoover spin washer/drier sets in 1971.

It was supposed to run on 110, but kept blowing fuses in the little old apartment building we were in. And you're right - it only held one sheet at a time. Looking back now, I think it was more trouble than it was worth. I don't imagine anyone would want to do it in miniature, but if they did, it was just a rectangle box on wheels (ours was Harvest Gold in color) First you put your clothes in one side, filled it up with water from a hose connected to the kitchen sink, added soap and let it agitate. Then you drained it, and put the wet clothes over into the little spin basket section to spin out. Then you refilled the washer side and put your clothes back into it, to agitate for the rinsing. Then that side had to be drained again, and everything put back into the basket to be spun again. I think I could have done it all faster by hand. But we thought we had some kind of luxury appliance.

Paulette in IN

Cross Stitch: I don't claim to be near as knowledgeable about cross stitch as about needlepoint, but we did indeed carry cross stitch in my store for a few years and there are some similarities. The beads and leather that you want to add are what's known as "embellishments". Customers, students, and I used lots and lots of embellishments...buttons, beads, charms, appliqués, even sticks and stones. The best way, is to be doing the whole piece on a stretcher frame (available at needlework shops, or you can even use the wider ones from art supply store). Keep your work clean as you go, always covered or in a flat bag when you're not working on it; keep your hands clean. Thus, no need for cleaning when done, and you can add your embellishments when the stitching is done but before removal from the frame. With today's materials, you need to be careful about washing or cleaning, as many of the threads are no longer colorfast because of the FDA rules. In the olden days, we used to wash our finished pieces in Woolite and wet block them before making up the pillow or whatever; but no more. I have a tiny attachment for the vacuum cleaner (the same one you see advertised for dusting your miniatures) and I think that with an occasional cleaning with that, the needlework is going to look fine for a good long time.

Ginger

Detective's Apartment: Speaking of detectives, wouldn't Kinsey's new apartment make a really neat roombox. Does anyone remember which letter book she got her new apartment that had the really good description of the whole thing?

Rusty in Ky