Metal furniture: These are likely furniture made by Metal Miniatures. I have sold it for many years. Wash it and spray with any metal spray paint..I use white. Then paint with acrylic paints. Very little of the metal furniture is actually 144 scale. Much is close but you will find everything from 1/8" scale to N scale sold as 144 in the metal things. If you use them in appropriately scaled groupings they will look good and can even be covered with fabric once you prime them. There is a section in my book on 144 scale describing finishing these pieces.

Anita McNary IGMA Artisan

Butt Hinge Pottery: You need to check out www.cottonridge.com. I just ordered some Butt Hinge pottery from them. And They have a lot of other things you might like.

Cathy in Sugar Land

Books: Lindsie asked about botany books (SSD Vol. 2, #932) - you might want to check out Lilliput Press who make real, tiny readable books which are truly little treasures. I have a small collection of them and covet plenty more! The web site is http://www.lilliput.co.uk and the address is
Tim Sheppard
10 Manor Road,
Bishopston, Bristol
BS7 8PY England
One of their books is "A Herbal Legacy" based on Culpeper, which could be just what you require.

Donna

eBay Hints: My DH left a little something on my night stand. He's so romantic: Cliff Notes on e-bay! It's another version of "For Dummies" in Cliff Notes form. A smallish book with step by step how to deal with e-bay either selling or buying. http://www.cliffsnotes.com/product.asp?prod_id=1859

Laurie Sisson

Pricing Your Work: Remember a while ago when we were discussing how much to charge for things we make? Well, today on the Carol Duvall show she had a man on who gave a general formula for things. He is an artist who makes woven rugs and sweaters etc. He said that you have to pay yourself a wage. He said for starters make it $10.00/hr. Figure in your materials, and 25% of labor and materials for overhead. Then you come up with a price for what it costs you to make the item. Then depending on what the market will allow for the type of art you do will decide how much you can add on for profit. He said that if the formula comes out to more that what you can charge for an item, then you should find something else that is less time consuming or uses less materials, or is a more popular item. He used one of his rugs as an example. He said the yarn that when into it was about $30.00. It took him 40 hours to complete it. Then with the 25% OH it came to $537.50, but because these woven rugs he makes are something that a lot of people want and the market will allow it, he can charge $1000.00 for the rug. He said you really have to know your product. Another woman said that you have to be flexible if you want to make money.

Linda

Gollywogs: I was just looking around on some mold suppliers and found that Mystic Molds has a mini Jolly Golly Golly Wog mold but no picture. You can check it our at: www.mysticmolds.com Just a bit of information for those into porcelain dolls/molds

Rhonda in Fl

Handkie Dressing: Greetings! And to the lady who wanted miniature doll patterns (using handkies) try our Miniature Doll web site (from the MSATMiniDoll list). There are over 40 how to projects, to view and learn. Here is the URL http://msatminidolls.minilists.com/index.html

Dana

Hanky Dressing: Dressing a doll with "hanky" --the article is in" Dolls in Miniature", Fall 1992, Vol II, Issue No. 3. Written by Loretta Kasza.

Jackie

Miniature Quilts: In response to the request for info and patterns for quilts for 1/12 dollhouses, I have free patterns on my web site for pieced quilts in the 1/12 inch scale. I have just added miniature quilt kits to the site. www.miniquiltmaker.com

Nancy

Crumbling clay: [after baking at 275 for 15 minutes, the pieces were stillsoft. Those tiny fudge squares crumbled when I squeezed one with my tweezers]

Yes, they'll still be somewhat soft and quite flexible when they're hot from the oven. Sculpey III will crumble if it's hot and is fairly brittle even after it's cooled. The weak end-product isn't much of a bother with things that are this tiny and that won't be played with and subject to abuse by children. For particularly thin parts, it's best to use Premo, a much stronger clay that's also very flexible when it's cooled.

The other cause of brittleness or crumbling of cooked and cooled pieces is under baking, which you can get when you don't cook it long enough or at a high enough temperature. If your oven's thermostat is off, for instance, you could be cooking at only 250º and that's not hot enough to complete the fusing process between the molecules.

Elizabeth