Pirates Plunder: I love the ride "Pirates of the Caribbean" at Disneyland.... In their scene where the loot is they have included along with the trunks full of coins: Strings of pearls, loose gems (mini rhinestones) Golden goblets, urns, pitchers and trays (take your inexpensive metal minis and use rub n buff gold leafing) candelabras, trunks with jewel tone silks spilling out, barrels filled with rum, and then some nastier stuff such as a trunk with a skeleton arm hanging out, clutching a paper that says "dead men tell no tales!"

Bonnie Gibson

Plexiglas covers: the dimensions of the cover you need are large enough that you may need to consider a curved top so it does not sink inward. If you have a "Tap Plastics" near you; you might talk to them. At any rate, it is not going to be cheap. Have you considered a couple of towels?

Barb Jones

Log Cabin Ideas: base camp for a natural scientist's expedition (someone who is studying bears, eagles, wolves), writer's retreat, country decor and/or quilt shop, pioneer general store, ski lodge, pancake restaurant in maple syrup country with nearby sugarbush for processing syrup and tapped trees with buckets so customers know how fresh it is!

Loretta.Sniarowski

Log Cabin Ideas: My personal favorite log cabin is now a museum at the edge of Greer Arizona in the pines at 9,000 ft elevation. Neither palatial nor unduly rustic for its times, "Apuni Oyia" (Blackfoot: "Butterfly Lodge") was built in 1913 as a retreat for author James Willard Schultz. Equal to a small but comfortable city house of the same time, it had all the appropriate comforts and amenities one should expect. There was store bought furniture, built in cupboards, trunks, china, table linens, and kitchen "appliances" To be expected with a resident author, there were also well filled bookshelves, Mr. Schultz's typewriter, a radio for passive entertainment, Victrola, and collected memorabilia from the author's days described in his first book "My Life as an (Blackfoot) Indian (published 1907). The cabin later became the home of his half Blackfoot son who was a respected, very prolific painter and sculptor who had been raised as an Indian on the reservation in Montana and who honed his artistic skills in Los Angeles and at The Chicago Art Institute. Lone Wolf added a third (studio) room to the cabin where both he and his wife worked. Butterfly Lodge is so named because it sets in a mountain meadow surrounded seasonally by wildflowers which, in turn, attract a multitude of the colorful insects.

Mel K.

Log Cabin Ideas: The first think that comes to mind for a log cabin is Abraham Lincoln's birthplace. He was born in and spent his young years in a log cabin.

Rusty in Ky

Log Cabin Ideas: Locally there is a country gift shop and florist in a log cabin. The two girls who own it had the log cabin built just for that purpose! The front is the gift shop and the back 1/3 or so is the office/cooler/floral arranging table.

Martha

Log Cabin Ideas: I made my Adirondack log cabin into an updated fishing retreat. I also did a one room log cabin as a writer's cabin for my daughter (called D.E. Renee's).

Carole Pierce in TN

Log Cabin Ideas: Mine has been done in "millennium modern". Some of the pieces can be described in terms of "rustic, but not in a primitive way". I have the lower section done in two rooms, a store (tourist souvenirs and handicrafts from the local village) and galley kitchen. The upstairs is an apartment, decorated in very contemporary furniture (practical but stylish). I started out with an Oregon Trail, which usually does 2 rooms in 1:12, but I got it to give me 5 rooms in 1:16. It doesn't have much in the way of "vintage" anything (a couple of wicker pieces come the closest to "old"), there is lots of decoupage and painted furniture, a spiral staircase etc. I even have a furby and a Rubik's cube in there. I have many pets in the house, a collie, 2 cats, a guinea pig and eventually a couple of Scotty dogs. It is starting to get some character, even if I do say so myself:).

Kim From Canada

Prairie wagon: If anyone wants to be further impressed with the strength and endurance of those folks who trekked to the West, visit some of the sites on The Oregon and The Mormon Trails, which paralleled each other much of the way. Some of those people walked the entire distance pushing handcarts; no wagons at all. We were in Wyoming in the 60's and happened on a solitary grave of a woman who had died on the way. Such a lonely spot, with nothing but the hottest wind I ever felt in my life to break the silence. I've forgotten exactly where it was, but we had been a day's wagon ride from Old Ft. Laramie on the North Platte River at one of the stopping points on the trail west where the travelers had etched their names into the cliffs. You can still see the wagon ruts near there - and I mean DEEP-practically-over-my-head ruts. It made the hair rise on the back of my neck to contemplate them. Until we saw those ruts and one of those wagons in I think it was North Platte, Nebraska (?), I had never realized how big they were; the top rim of the wheel was well over my head. So, for the person duplicating one of the wagons that traveled on either of those trails, the top edge of the wheel would be considerably taller than the height of a 5'3" woman.

Wanna in El Paso

15th Rosary Beads: As a lapsed Catholic I would not call myself an expert on rosary beads but I have never been aware that the colour of the beads was anything other than personal choice. At school the nuns gave us blue plastic ones. My grandmother had a set that looked like real pearls (I've just had this copied in miniature for my dolls house) and I've seen wooden ones also. Unless a more knowledgeable person comes through with the answer I would guess that in the C15th rosary beads were made of wood for the peasants, and semi precious stones for the nobleman. A set in ruby red would be perfect.

Karon