Afghans: << Is embroidery floss used for crocheting Afghans?>> People do use one strand of embroidery floss to crochet miniatures. Can also use sewing thread. I've used silk sewing thread and it is especially nice, but the pits to work with because it's so slippery. If you have patience, silk thread does a beautiful job.

Viola Williams

Afghans: I saw your query about crocheting in miniature. My 2 favorite threads are DMC Flower thread which is available in a wide range of colors and DMC #80 Tatting cotton which is a little more limited in colour choices and is a little finer. Both of these are single strand so that you don't have to separate them. I usually order mine from the Herrschner's catalog. They have a web site at: http://www.herrschners.com

Paula Foerder

Hudson Bay Blanket Points: During the fur trading times blankets were used as trade goods with the Indians and fur trappers. Because of language barriers the blankets were marked with little woven or sewn in stripes along one side end of the blanket. The number of points on a blanket indicated the size and quality of the blanket. When fur pelts were traded into the fur depot, sticks of a certain length were issued for so many pelts. These sticks were equivalent to a point. The fur trapper or Indian then went to the trade post and purchased merchandise with the points or sticks. If you are making miniature Hudson Bay blankets be sure one bottom edge is raw, not hemmed. The blankets were woven two in length and then torn or cut in two. Another method, other than sticks, was a lead coin made by flattening out a lead rifle ball and placing a stamped with the trade depot mark on it. The trapper then could punch a hole in one edge and string them on leather thongs to transport until he need to buy something. In a pinch he could melt it down and make a rifle ball from it.

Bill Hudson

A Hudson Bay blanket is usually off-white, with 4 colored stripes (black, red, green & yellow) along the short side. They are made of pure wool and in the old trading days, the points (small black lines above the colored stripes) were used to determine how many pelts (i.e., beaver) were necessary to trade for the blanket. A 4-pointer was fairly good quality, but it is my understanding that the 6-pointers were the highest quality. These blankets are still made today, but they cost quite a lot more, and pelts are no longer acceptable 'tender'.

Laura

Air freshener 'candles': actually made of some weird floppy substance in a glass container, when melted in a saucepan, poured into molds, make excellent jellies. OK melting them makes the house really smell intense, if you know what I mean, but the jellies (jell-Oes?) don't smell themselves - probably too small. They are crystal clear - and they wobble! And they're cheap. The goop is re-meltable.

Helen Cottrell

Karen's Minis in El Paso has bought out Skycrest and they had an extensive line of Halloween pottery that featured orange and black items with eye of newt and other appropriate names on them.

Dottie

This will be my first hint, and I can't even take the credit, I admit it, it was my mother. As she was putting away the Christmas decorations this year she finally decided to throw out all the broken ones... I now have a baggie full of great mini pieces I know I can use in future projects. Mom is a teacher so I now have a ton of rulers, pencils, books and apples. There are also some wonderful trees, toys, and flowers.

Suzy T.

Dollhouse Scale Plastic Models: I'm not sure how interested people will be in this, but I just discovered that eHobbies.com sorts it's plastic models by scale. They have a fairly large selection of dollhouse scale models. 1 inch scale gets the short end of the stick here as they tend to be motorcycles but there's a great selection for 1/2 inch scale-- every kind of car you can think of and even some actual minis (to "accessorize your cars"). If you're willing to fudge scale a bit there's a much larger selection of 1/16th-scale models (think of that as 3/4-inch scale) than 1" scales ones.

Jim Collins

Sorcerer's Spell Book Items: Why not buy a skeleton in the largest size you can find and remove the head? For the black candle, why not Fimo or a black painted toothpick. As for the jar of newt/leaches...why not a closed container (can) that you can't see the insides and just label it what you need?

Rita S Pierce

Braided Rug: Use embroidery thread or cotton "cro-sheen" thread. Braid a long strand -- you'll need at least 5 feet for a small oval rug. Cover a piece of cardboard (larger than you want your rug) with double stick tape. Begin your rug pattern, oval or round, by pressing braid down on tape, keeping braid close together and flat as you go around. The right side of your rug will be down at this point. When finished, use "iron on" pellon cut to the size of your rug and iron on the back. Gently pull finished rug off double stick tape.

Anne Gerdes

Bunka Flowers: I think I saw them first in an old NN article by Ann Maselli. Later, found discussion in excellent Kimberly House landscaping book. Basic approaches are to wrap and glue bunka loosely up the length of a wire stem, wrapping it around itself to achieve desired thickness, or to coil it into a disc. Stiffening first makes it easier to handle without crushing. I like to make discs on a shaped base e.g., start a marigold-type blossom by glueing a green paper punchout, slightly domed, atop your stem, and then coil bunka onto that, covering edges too. Or, start with artificial stamen, lop off half or more of the composition "blob" and sand it smooth, paint green, and you have a ready-to-go stem and calyx (stamens, or "pips" come in assorted sizes and finishes; some are wire, others are stiffened string; look among floral supplies and also craft-store bridal stuff). Try using water-color felt-tip to deepen color in center of flower.

You can get an interesting "wood hyacinth" effect by cutting short of lengths of stiffened bunka and then glueing them in a series of cross-arms circling up a wire stem, with one piece growing vertically at the tip. Trim as needed after glue dries. I love this stuff snipped up into crispy little curls. Can be used for individual flowers in same ways as those railroad landscaping crumbs (example, dip end of stem into white glue and then pat the snippets onto it), except that the effect is a bit airier. (Sudden thought: might work for hair? Or a poodle's coat?)

Mary

Book Pages: I bought from the beauty shop supply store the thin papers used in giving perms and used them for book pages.

Juanita Sellers

Apothecary/Alchemy Supplies: Leeches: try the fishing lure aisle at Walmart or Kmart. Probably the baby squids would work well, just cut little bits off the tips of the tentacles and put them in a glass jar. (the lures are made of rubber with a shiny-greasy coating. the coating will dissolve or mark some kinds of plastic) You can get nice glassware (to hold your leaches, and other good alchemist glassware) from Royal Minis ( http://www.royalmini.com/ ) at just a couple of bucks apiece. They only sell wholesale, you can buy retail from their catalog from Suzy's Dollhouses http://store.yahoo.com/suzisdollhouses/

Lee Menconi

Apothecary/Alchemy Supplies: I actually obtained very tiny jars from the vet, they use them for vaccinations for dogs and cats, are an ideal size, you do need to pull the metal cap off, which is protecting a rubber stopper, and then soak them of course, but they are very safe to use and look great in lolly shops as well.

Pauline Mackenzie

Making Mini Books: If I want real pages, I use Post-it notes. I cut back by the glued edges to the size page I need. And just peel off the thickness I want. But usually for books that are going to be in a bookshelf, I use basswood or balsa cut to size, gold pen to color the edges (only the top edge might show) then cover with the leather or whatever.

Fannye

Bunka Tips: First, you can dye it with permanent-ink felt-tips, which is handy if you have Bunka on hand that's a light, but not right, color. Sometimes you can pat the new color right onto the cording before you unravel it. Unfortunately, sometimes this seems to make it shrink up and become impossible to unravel. A trial and error business. In that case, pile up a little heap of curly thread and have at it. The ink in permanent felt markers penetrates very well. Don't stretch Bunka while it's wet.

Second: Bunka is often recommended for use in flower making, and can be very effective. I think it's more versatile and easier to work with if you first stiffen it by giving the colored, unravelled thread several sprays of acrylic matte medium. This also reduces that ferocious rayon shine. (I just stick a couple of long bamboo skewers into a block of Styrofoam, put strips of double-sided tape the length of each skewer, string the curly thread loosely back and forth between them, and spray away.)

Finally: some decorative tassels (craft and fabric stores) are made of an extra-fat Bunka. Lovely stuff. Trouble is, some other decorative tassels that look identical are NOT Bunka. Only way I can tell is by discreetly tweaking one thread.

Mary

Inexpensive Picture Frames and 'Paintings': I buy my frames at mini stores. They are unfinished, made of pot metal, very inexpensive. I soak them in vinegar for about 15 minutes, rinse and dry, then paint them gold. They look great.

Incidentally I watch the catalogs and magazines for dollhouse size pictures. When suitable, I cut them out, glue them on card and when dry coat them with 3 coats of Modge Podge, each coat going in different direction, the last coat being stippled on. The first coat is up & down and the second is back & forth. I let them dry between coats about 20 to 30 minutes. Glued onto the back of the picture frame, they look quite well, having the texture of a real painting.

Patricia

Middle-Aged Books: I wanted "contemporary" books resembling my real-life hardcovers - i.e., with paper jackets long-gone, and cloth bindings looking fairly muted. Thought others might, too. A technique learned from J. Swanson articles in DHM turned out to make good bindings.

Clip chunks of solid color from pages, usually advertising, in glossy magazines. Brush on a coat of acrylic matte medium. While this is still tacky, pat all over with a wadded-up paper towel. Let dry (a heat gun or hair dryer speeds things up); repeat process as needed until surface becomes matte and color is noticeably dulled.

Since I generally make lengths of grooved basswood to saw up for books that are to go on shelves, I "hem" strips of this fake cloth and fold and glue it onto the wood book-pieces. Actually, if you don't mind getting even more finicky, it's more realistic to have the edges of the binding projecting a tiny bit beyond the pages themselves. If they end up looking a tad battered: well, these are, after all, used books. The thickness of the doubled-over paper is realistic.

Oily colored pencils, like the Berol Prismacolors, are excellent for suggesting the lettering on the spine, with just squiggles. That includes metallics. Maybe some talented folk can actually letter real titles, etc., without their seeming out-of-scale - but I'd bet most of us can't! Use real-life books as models for lines, blocks of color, etc. I like contemporary things, but from around 1820 on (says the Britannica) cloth bindings became increasingly common. Some people still had their books custom-bound in leather, some would have inherited a collection in that format - but unless one's Victorian mini-readers are rich or awfully snobbish, they probably buy most of their new books clothbound, like their descendants.

Mary

Making Books: I have made a few by cutting pieces of paper the appropriate size, holding them stacked together (used a clothes pin for a tighter hold), putting rubber cement glue on the edge and rubber cement on the piece of "cover" at the fold (so the two glues would match and bond). They wouldn't take rough treatment, but certainly hold good enough for my purpose! I scanned a picture of my daughter and her husband, cut the name from a Time Magazine (those stickers you get every other week in the mail trying to get you to subscribe to all those magazines and you are to glue your choice(es) on the form before returning to them). Then I taped the name above my little scanned picture and re-scanned the whole thing. You would never know that my daughter and her husband weren't really featured on the cover of a Time magazine! Looks great.

Rita S Pierce

Making Books: Save the spine of a check pad or any bound pad. They can be cut to size. Most are cloth bound, but not quite as deep as a book should be. But good for a not too deep bookcase.

Cathy Bowen