Gray Weathered Wood: You can get that lovely gray weathering by using Noel and Pat Thomas's Bug juice. It also gives a fantastic finish to cherry wood for rustic looking furniture.

Mark and Sharon Stockton

Splattering: I've found that using a cheep toothbrush, dipping it in paint, and scraping it with anything from your finger to a chopstick works for splatter painting. Also, scrape towards yourself. I made a full-sized paperweight and splatter painted falling snow onto the stone by scraping the toothbrush, which was very lightly covered in white paint. And I've discovered that the thicker the toothbrush is covered, the bigger the splatters.

Rachel B of MD

Downscaling: I noticed, with interest, the comment about scaling down the requirements for the time needed to bake clay. I would like to point out that this same premise applies to almost every product we use in miniature work. Tacky glue needs to be thinned. Acrylic craft paints need a Flow Medium or water. Keep this in mind when you want to use a stain designed for full scale furniture. In most cases, this will work better when thinned. We take such care to consider the thickness of the piece of paper we select to punch flower petals, but seldom consider that all of our supplies need a little scaling too. None of you hesitate to purchase tools designed for miniature work. Keep that same mind set as you select glues, paint, etc. Experiment and determine just how much you need to "scale down" the material or directions you are about to use in your next project. You will be so surprised with the effect this has on your finished project. You can always add more but it is so hard to remove excess.

Becky

Nuts: Try rolling a very thin rope of tan-colored polymer clay. Roll it up inside a VERY thin sheet of brown polymer clay, so that the inside of the rope is tan and the outside is brown. Roll the rope out so it is about as thick as a piece of spaghetti and bake. (you may need to cut it into 6" lengths or so, to get it to fit on your baking sheet.) When baked, slice very thin slices and use for sliced almonds, or chop up the slices and roll your cakes in them. This is a time-consuming method, but it makes great nuts. (this is how I make the nuts for my miniature cheese balls.)

Celeste in Boston

Milk: white glue mixed with a little white paint works great. I'm not sure about the lemonade, but I'm sure you'll hear a great suggestion from somebody here! (Hope so...I'd like to know!)

Crystal

House of Miniature kits: I stain everything before I assemble the pieces. I must have read that in some direction somewhere because I would not have known to do that myself. All of my pieces turned out very nice, much to my amazement, in some cases.

Pat, Huntington, NY

HOM kits. I agree about staining first. I had great success with the bachelor chest, my first piece. The second piece I glued, then stained and it worked out just fine, too (a half round table-cherry). Then I tried experimenting and glued, sealed then stained the hutch and bookcase top and I don't like it AT ALL. I think it will get painted now.

Peggy in Madison

When to stain/House of Miniatures clock kit: I'm in the process of putting the clock together as we speak! You are talking about the grandfather clock, correct? My process of assembly, thus far has been: Check all the pieces are present
Sand as needed
Glue as directed ( I used Aleene's tacky glue--in the gold bottle.)
Wipe any excess glue as this will interfere with staining as well as appearance.
Sand if needed.
Stain ( I used Minwax stain) The pieces that don't show and are to be glued do not need to be stained.
Sand again. With fine sand paper--You don't want to sand away all the stain.
Wipe pieces with tack cloth or any cloth to get rid of sanding dust.
Apply glossy coat of polyurethane (I used Minwax Fast-drying Polyurethane). Note follow the directions on the products whether to be stirred, shaken, or neither. This particular polyurethane is ready to go after you open the can.

Things I've learned with this kit:Now, if you note, some of the parts of the clock will need to be stained and polyurethaned prior to insertion of the inner workings of the clock--if you don't stain them first it will be difficult to do so after the pieces are in. Also, I would not stain and polyurethane the back side of the clock until the inner part is done and the top part of the clock is glued on.

Nursemini

HOM kits: While going through several kidney procedures last summer, I was assigned to the couch for a few months. During that time, I experimented with sev of the HOM kits, to see what assembly worked the best.

I would suggest the following:

I found that if you stain and seal after you glue there will be many places thatyou will miss getting the finish you desire, and you risk leaving glue residue on that will not take the stain.

Many projects can be worked on at once, as my coffee table was proof of that. I kept a separate tray for each ongoing kit, with the box on each so I could see at a glance which was which. The only 'human' in the house that didn't like my taking over table with all these projects was the cats. (any horizontal surface is their territory!). The kids liked it, cause they didn't have to fetch so many things for me, and didn't hear me WHINE as long as I had something to do with my hands and mind!

Lisa Lynn

Jigsaw puzzles: The May 2001 issue of Reader's Digest says: "...In Britain, where the first puzzles were created in the 1760's. Called dissected Maps, they were used toteach the children of King George III. . . . They moved out of the nursery in the early 1900s when a few enterprising women puzzle makers began appealing to adults by cutting up magazine covers containing portraits and landscapes." Apparently at first they were enjoyed only by the well-to-do. The article goes on to say that the New York Times in 1908 reported that "manufacturers couldn't keep up with the demand from college professors, millionaires, ministers and lawyers who were infected with 'the new puzzle germ' and could afford them. It wasn't until 1932 when machine-stamped cardboard versions began selling for just a quarter each, that the masses got hooked."

Minnie