Painted Chrysnbon plates: Lisa Engler of Lisa's Little Things has terrific painted Chrysnbon plates, cups and saucers. This is the link to her website. You should be able to get more ideas from there.
http://www.lisaslittlethings.com/

Priscilla

Fantastic Salt Water Fish: Marci Trimlett of Key Largo Florida makes the most realistic salt water fish I have ever seen. They look like they came straight from the sea ! I don't know if she still has a web site, but her e-mail addy is marci@weewish.com

Mark and Sharon Stockton

American Science & surplus: Someone may have mentioned this before, but it is worth posting again: American Science & Surplus is a fabulous source for small boxes, wood, motors, light bulbs, and random other things. They sell surplus items very, very cheaply... I just got an order of basswood today, about 10 nice 2"x27" pieces, for about $3.00 total.

Anyone looking for small boxes, wire, wood, tiny zip bags, motors, grain of wheat bulbs, yoga mats, cloth, ribbon, tape... I HIGHLY recommend you check them out! Their website is: http://www.sciplus.com/

Celeste in Boston

Halfscale: I want all the 1/2" scale friends to know, that my website is updated for 2002 and you can see the new 1/2" workshop. it is a attic room with the moonlight and milky way shining through the windows, plus three way lighting and all the goodies please check it out also check out the catalog with 1/2" items, someone was looking for 1/2" furniture.
http://www.Margaretville.com/torre

Rosemarie Torre

50s Living Room in quarter scale: Thanks to the rain today, I stayed put and made my quarter scale living room furniture, plants and wall hangings. I can see why folks like working in this scale. I added pics to the page...just scroll down to the living room pics.
http://www.wishbooktoys.com/dollhouse/50s/

John Medeiros

Micro Chocolaterie: I have recently finished a micro, 1/144 scale, Chocolaterie after being inspired by the movie Chocolat. I loved the movie and the stage sets so much and the music is so inspiring. To get in the mood I bought the sound track and played it while working on the project. If you would like to see my micro it is under My Personal Projects on my site.

http://members.home.net/jday1/jean_day.htm

I have added some of my other room boxes done through the years and I am hoping to have my houses up soon too.

Chocolates are very small in this scale so I used brown silica sand. I did turnings with Light Brite pegs for the candy jars and I am forever grateful to Joann Swanson for coming up with the use of the pegs years ago that inspired me. I have had so much fun with them. I found watch parts that resembled chocolate molds and the bases for pedestal cake plates. The stool is the winder from an old watch. I had so much fun improvising.

Jean Day

1/4 scale people: I needed same and found that in the local $1.00 store, they had bags of 50 plastic soldiers in 1/4 scale size. I splurged and came home with 50 solders in all sorts of military poses and with fighting gear. With my exacto blade and a file I removed all the battle gear and by immersing the plastic figure in VERY hot water I was able to reposition the body parts to my needs. It took a few "dippings" to get the finally positioning. One of the "liberated" solders can be seen in my 1/4 scale amethyst mine shadow box at: http://albums.photopoint.com/j/albumIndex?u=67503&a=13032772

I repainted with acrylic paint to my liking.

DrBob

Quarter scale people: If you do not have a model railroad hobby shop nearby, you will certainly have to go mail order or on the net. Be advised, however, that HO is not 1/4" scale. If you want to use rail model people for your miniature, "O" (the letter) scale is supposedly quarter inch to the foot. Even there, however, poor scale is common. Lionel claims to be "O" and it is as far as "gauge" goes (space between rails) BUT, much of the detail and accessories are out of scale or proportion. As you scan the venders, look for "O" scale supplies which purport to be "1/4 inch fine scale" or "proto 48".

For what it is worth, the following are all synonyms for the same proportion/scale in different vernaculars: 1/4 inch scale, 1/4 inch per foot, 1/48th, 1:48, quarter scale, Q scale, O scale, and proto 48.

While on the subject, different folk switch among the following for my favorite miniature scale: 1/2 inch scale, 1/2 inch per foot, 1/24th, 1:24, half scale, H scale, Garden scale, and G scale (with some very loose interpretation and dispute on the last two)

On the smaller side, we have heard the smallest common dollhouse scale, One usually applied for miniatures-of-miniatures, described as: 1/144th, 1:144, twelfth of a twelfth, micro scale, and masochism.

Finally: of no standard dollhouse function whatsoever, HO scale is 3.5 millimeters per foot (How's that for an inopportune collision of metric and English?), considerably smaller than 1/4, 1/48, Q, O ,or whatever name you may choose.

Mel K. Las Vegas

Small scale people: I started in miniatures painting HO scale model train people. You can buy them in the model train stores (painted or unpainted). Painting those little things is fun. Put a piece of mounting tape on top of a small paint bottle and stand the piece on the top. I used Floquil paints from the model train store. This paint has tiny particles so you don't loose detail like you would if you used acrylic paint.

Mary Kinloch

1/4" people: To the person looking for 1/4" people.....try this website: http://patboldtdolls.com/

Shani Nelson