The Dutch house: My initial feeling on the Dutch house was that with the interior bulging with wonderful things, the outside didn't matter, but I realised that was wrong, and the front had to be as good as the inside. Groan.   The work could be divided into 3 parts.   I had removed the American Colonial style door and windows that it had been fitted with, and I had decorated the top with with two big fish with a window between them, papered with very realistic (and amazingly expensive) Dutch brick paper the rest, and the lower part was rendered (filler and glued on tissues) and painted cream.  It then sat around for months while I did everything but..  coward me.

I had really wanted to put in a stable door (I believe you call them Dutch doors in the States) but chickened out, so that left me with only two things to do. :O)

First I made the glazing for the windows - only the upper half of the windows were glazed, with leaded glass. I've seen this is many Dutch paintings - the lower half is glassless but with shutters.   I cut the acetate, wrongly, so had to do it again.  I tried using lead paint, lines went wobbly, blobby, too thick or all 3 at once. Quivering slightly, I changed over to using mega fine strips of golf lead, cutting so SO carefully so I didn't hurt myself with my safety razor.  Finished applying the lead - it was out of scale.  I clenched my hand in my frustration, forgetting I was holding the razor, so cut across my palm and some fingers. Ouch.  Cleared everything away.  Now leaded glass looks so lively because, being small separate pieces of glass, they all catch the light differently, so I bought acetate with a printed lead design on it, and painted each diamond in a different direction with clear gallery glass paint, which made the windows look gorgeous - the glass blurry and soft yet very lively.  Hurrah!  There, that was worth all that blood and stuff - wasn't it?

Next I made the shutters from Starbucks stirrers - I scrounged a whole box of these from our local Starbucks and they are so useful. These are half shutters to go across the parts of the windows with no glass in them.   I cut to size then butt glued the stirrers, painted, aged with weathering powders used by railway modellers, then glued the shutters either open or shut so they made a dynamic pattern of open/close across the front of the house.  The closed ones have twiddly black hinges from Phoenix miniatures on them.

The next day the doors were made of wood, and I veneered them with oak veneer to look like planks, gave them a wash with acrylic, and fitted them, having made small metal door handles from twisted wire. I glued them so they are partially open, as the house which sells drinks downstairs, is full of people, and trade is brisk.

Helen from York, England

Costumes: http://www.costumes.org/pages/pattern_links.htm This site has lots and lots of links to patterns and costumes of different periods, holidays and whatever. Very nice.

Costumes: http://www.costumes.org/pages/pattern_links.htm This site has lots and lots of links to patterns and costumes of different periods, holidays and whatever. Very nice.

Leslie in WA

CAMERA ADVICE : You can't go wrong with the Pentax brand especially if you can get your hands on a Pentax K-1000 body and a 50 mm lens. Add a set of Nikon close up screw on lens in +1,+2,+3 and you can do most anything you need done in close up for your miniatures. I suggest looking for an older model K-1000 body and lens though..........Mine is over 23 years old and "still ticking and taking a licking!" Have thought on occasion of selling it but even with a fancy electronic "does it all Olympus model camera" I still keep going back to "my old war horse". Oh!! and a good sturdy heavy duty tripod! Don't skimp on this with a lightweight, cheap Wal-Mart or KMart one. Those items and Fuji film [personal preference over Kodak] and you'll be set.

Patricia / Redwood City,CA

baking plates: Any stoneware or oven proof plate will do as long as you deem it to be for "clay only"! Of course it should be smooth and flat. I was fortunate enough to come across some oven proof restaurant platters and serving plates that are large enough to allow me work space on the plate itself and plenty of room for my finished items. This is very helpful when making pastries, for instance. I can roll them out in the middle then "press" them to the plate around the edges so they "adhere" to the plate. I find this makes it SO much easier to frost (paint) after baking because I don't have to pick each up and get paint all over my fingers trying the hold the little pieces. I can paint a whole plate in no time with great ease!

Lauriel

SHABBY CHIC FABRIC: Tammy, the traditional tea-dying will mellow the colors, but you may not want them beigey. If that's ok, just brew up a triple-strength pot of cheap tea and dunk the fabric. (You may have to repeat a couple of times to tone it down enough; it will look darker wet than when it dries.) Or if you want it white but faded, my friend Linda restores old lace. Her method of lightening it is to wash in gentle soap, then dunk in undiluted lemon juice and set in the sun to dry....small bits of trim ride around in the back window of the car for a week or two to get natural sun fading, which would also work with small bits of fabric.

Loretta Sniarowski

Gutters and downspouts : you can cut ordinary drinking straws in half the long way for the gutters. For downspouts, use uncut drinking straws. For the part of the downspout that lies on the lawn, use the accordion-pleated part of drinking straws that can be bent. All pieces could be painted with silver craft paint to resemble metal. They could be attached to the house with small pieces of "tacky".

Mary in MS

Men's long handles & other 1:12th scale clothing: Dolls' House Needlecrafts by Venus A. Dodge see P. 32, Gentlemen's Combinations (long johns). Making & Dressing Dolls' House Dolls In 1/12 Scale by Sue Atkinson Has all sorts of clothing patterns, I used this book to dress a cook and a butler and to wig the cook, and was quite pleased with my first effort (I'm NOT a perfectionist!).

Havana (FL) Holly

Lead: I work for a pipe organ builder, and the industry extensively uses lead for most all of the metal pipes. We have two people called "voicers" or pipe makers,   who take lead sheets and form them into pipes, solder on them, use files, rasps,   knife blades etc. Some of the voicing includes blowing air into smaller pipes to test them, while they shouldn't many in the trade use their bare lips.

They work with this lead all day 5 days a week and have for many years. One who was in his 60s when he died from a heart problem during the flu, had annual blood tests and was never elevated. The other has been a pipe maker for over 25 years and has had no problems.

Lead enters the body only two ways; ingestion and inhalation, it cannot be absorbed through the skin! What usually happens is people handle lead and then in some form or other eat a sandwich, or handle something then food, bite their nails etc. What actually happens is they are ingesting small amounts of lead or lead oxide. With lead that has become wet, it starts to corrode a little and you see a white powdery substance on it,   THIS is very dangerous because it can be inhaled.

I suspect the poster who mentioned the lead shot in a box on her desk probably from habit occasionally put some of these tools or pens etc in her mouth (this happens a lot in offices and why you see pencils and all with nibbled tops) since the items were in lead, some of the oxide or dust got on the tools and into her mouth. There have been extensive writings about lead in the organ trade with concerns about it, but most of the terroristic claims about lead are extreme, some "alerts" I have seen will have you believe that just looking at lead will cause lead poisoning!

Lead is a toxic metal yes,  but it can't jump off the counter into your mouth, somehow it gets there is you don't follow basic precautions. If you WASH your hands thoroughly with soap and water after handling it as the voicers do, carefully clean up  any filings and then wipe the counter or work surface down with a damp rag you throw away, you will be safe.

There IS a  chelating drug given for lead exposure and it removes lead from the body as long as it's still  in the BLOODSTREAM. Like anything, some people are more sensitive to certain chemicals etc and some not, children tend to be overly sensitive to everything toxic.

Pipe organs have been built with extensive use of sheet lead since the middle ages, I have yet to hear of anyone in the trade these days with health problems from the lead, but then most all follow basic hygiene and careful handling.

Randall

Painting a sandstone effect: For starters undercoat with a semi gloss paint which is the base colour. Then a mix of (1/3s) turps, linseed oil, polyurethane paint and (1 to 10) either china clay or talcum powder. Once the base colour is COMPLETELY dry paint on the mix (keep stirring the mix all the time or the colours will be different) with an ordinary paintbrush. The mix has to be quite runny. (experiment on scrap wood until you get the colour you want). Leave for 3-5 minutes then with an artists round paintbrush facing straight onto the surface you are painting, use a quick jabbing motion and 'stipple' in lines across and down. Be quick as the paint will dry quite quickly. Use this method in sections so it flows in colour. Remember that sandstone is not even in colour, that is the joy of it. So aim for an effect that looks natural. The best effect is achieved by dabbing in a quick jabbing movement with the paintbrush in a straight line from the surface being painted. Hard on the wrist but beautiful on the eye when finished:)

This method can also be used to achieve a marble effect.

Kim