Coffee Beans: for whole coffee beans maybe sesame seeds would work. You can paint them different shades of brown (just swish a bunch around in some paint all at once to color the lot) to represent the different kinds of coffee beans. They seem about the right size, and have a glossy surface like a bean. Otherwise you might look for different shades of brown seed beads (the flat solid-colored type, not the iridescent) and see how that looks behind the 'glass' of the bins.

Grace

Sink: To make a stab at sunk making try taking an old flash light battery and remove all the innards and just keep the outer zinc metal shell. This material is easy to cut and to shape. It can be polished or painted. Just a thought.

DrBob

Sink: the classic 'metal' sink component is a couple of restaurant individual jelly tubs sprayed silver. Faucets are available from Houseworks through your mini store, from the pewter mini vendors like Martha's Metal Miniatures and Parkers' Miniatures, or you can make your own out of found objects. Use pliers to wiggle the fold-down type spout out of a bottle cap for the faucet, with two small ball thumbtacks or beads for hot and cold; glue all three to a piece of flat wood coffee stirrer, spray silver.

Loretta Sniarowski

Sink: Mary Carson of Hammer 'n Smith in California makes the loveliest metal miniatures including sinks of all kinds to fit in cabinetry and counters. I could not find a web site for her, but I think Carol of SP Minis http://www.spminiatures.com carries some of her items and could help put you in touch with her. I had the table across from her at the Andover in April and spent most of my time drooling over her pieces. They are also very reasonably priced-- especially considering the quality of her work.

Michelle Fox

Sink: My first dollhouse I made all the kitchen appliances and for the sink I used a stainless steel salt shaker top. It was just the perfect size and the hole looked like a real drain. I had picked it up at a yard sale.

Sclarise

Sink: one thing you may want to try are those tiny mint tins. For example, I'm always fascinated by the Altoids tins after reading about making refrigerators out of. While standing in line at CVS the other day, I spotted a much smaller tin of mints right next to the Altoids - can't remember the names. But two of them together might make a cute sink; or one of the larger tins w/a divider. Or, take one of the plastic jelly tubs from the restaurants and give them some treatments to look like chrome, etc. They pop into cabinet holes pretty easy.

Dollladie

Quilt frame: I looked in my Aztec book and you are absolutely right they no longer do a quilt frame, but http://www.stockton-miniatures.com/page23.html has them.

Joanne

30s and 40s History: Came across an interesting site which may be helpful to some: During the 30s and 40s the USDA had pictures taken portraying the everyday lives of war-era workers and their families. There are (I think) about 300,000 pics available depicting every aspect of life in the U.S. at that time. Only spent a few minutes there but could possibly be invaluable as a research tool. http://www.usda.gov/oc/photo/histfeat.htm

Maureen in St. Albert

Fiber Optics: Go to http://fiberopticproducts.com I learned some new things here already. I will certainly be experimenting with white light LEDs to see if any give sufficient light and good color for our uses. It would be fantastic to have low voltage, non-heating, long lasting lamps with some of the other advantages that LEDs enjoy. Take a look see. I will keep all posted on the primer.

Mel K. in Las Vegas

FIBER OPTICS: I was the one who posted about making fireflies from fiber optics. Guess what?? By George, I think I've got it!! I have been planning this project for three years and have been collecting stuff for it ever since. I found the reel of fiber optics from the Dees catalog a few years back. They should still have it available. I bought a small night light with the regular 110 plug on it. I made a plastic disk and mounted it on top of a clock mechanism that I found inside an old alarm clock. I painted the disk with yellow glass stain(several coats) and black acrylic paint in a pie pattern. The fiber optics strands absorb the light from the bulb and the disk as it spins makes them light up intermittently since I have some spaces yellow and the others are blacked out! The fibers are hidden by the trees and other foliage. The mechanism is hidden behind my mountain. Looks good so far.

Pearl Jordan