Towels: Your local dollar store is a great source for mini towel material. Just go to the baby items section, and see if they have baby wash cloths. I recently found a package of four in various colors for one dollar. They are so soft and fine, and can be used for bath towels, baby rompers, bibs, even bathrobes.

Anita Myers, Arnold, MD

Rug Design: Thought I would add a tip I just learned myself. After all the talk about making French knot rugs I decided to get my needle work stuff out and make one. Very easy to do but where to find iron on designs I like was a problem. So here is what I decided to do. Went to the yardage store and bought fabric pieces with the design already there. All I needed to do is go over the printed picture just like a paint by number set. They came out great. I have made a rooster rug, a bumble bee rug, a two toned heart rug and a lamb rug. These are just the right size for a mini nursery room setting or?

Diane the Alpaca Lady

Transfer patterns for rugs: I do a lot of my transfer designs by looking through color books or design books. I find a pattern I like, scale it down on the computer to size then copy it on plain copy paper and go over it with a transfer pencil and iron it on my fabric. It works really well. Also you could find lots of patterns in your clip art program.

LaVon

Lipsticks, nail varnish: Just read the word "lipstick" on the digest. I've made lipsticks for my self & mini friend this week.

If you take a small gold/silver bugle bead( the long thin tubes) glue a small bead on one end (I used black) with "superglue" & dip the opposite end in red acrylic paint it makes a very passable lipstick tube. Another (untreated) bugle bead can be used for the cap or top piece. Also tried making nail varnish bottles - if you use a cocktail stick (I lightly sanded the end so it was less tapered) painted with the desired varnish colour, inserted through your round clear or opaque glass bead , up into the small bugle bead & glued. This then looks very much like a bottle of nail varnish & gives something for the beads to be glued onto.

P.S. Mascara - take a long gold/silver bugle bead & mark just over half way, all the way round with an over head projector pen (OHP) so it looks like a tube that will open.

Brian Cass

Jewelry boxes:   A few years back someone had directions for presentation boxes in Dolls House World that were pretty simple as I recall.  Measure the jewelry and mark a rectangle or square with a small margin around the piece on index-weight paper.  Trace around that and add another quarter-inch for the sides.   Fold the sides up and glue in place, then cover with fancy paper or velvet.  Cut another square of card to fit inside the box and cover that with velvet and glue or tack the jewel to it.  Trace around the box bottom to make a slightly larger lid, cover, and fit into place.

I've checked out a library book (think title is A Family Dollhouse) by Sarah Stein that has off-scale box patterns you can reduce to scale, so that might be an idea.

A jewelry collection box would be more difficult, especially if you have in mind one that's hinged and has a tray.   Probably copying directions for a 1:12 trunk in a smaller scale would work.

Loretta.Sniarowski

Jewelry boxes: I have made some little jewelry boxes using the little thin wood pieces that come in different sizes and shapes, I'm sorry, I don't remember what they are called (I'm at work and the bag is at home!), if you can't figure out what I'm talking about, email me. Woodsies? I don't know, anyway, I used a small oval shaped wood piece for the base, but a strip of index card type material about 1/4" wide and glued to the outside edge of the wooden oval. Did the same with another wood oval and a 1/8" wide strip for the lid. Paint the two pieces you've made. Fill the bottom part of the box, then glue the lid on so it's propped open a bit to see your jewels.

Mary in Minneapolis

Planter from champagne cage wire: I've molded needlepoint canvas over a liter soda bottle cap, glued the resulting basket to the top circle of wire, and painted it to make a fern planter. 

Loretta.Sniarowski

Plastic Price tag: I've begun looking at those closely after reading this digest.  This one was different from any I've had-- on one end was a tiny little bell-shape. This was attached to a little piece that when I cut the bell off looked like a small Bic pen. On the other end there was a tiny round piece with a knob on top--perfume bottle? And the middle was a string of tiny plastic beads that can be painted to make a lady's necklace.

SUSAN AT THE WHITE RABBIT'S HOUSE

Globe light fixture: In the bathroom over the sink, I make a long light fixture with "globe" like bulbs. I took two small rubber washers and painted them gold [all the hardware in our bathroom is gold]. I then took two clear glass marbles [there were the bulbs or globes] and glued each one sitting on top of a washer. I then cut a slender rectangular piece of balsa wood to a perfect size in relation to the space and the globes, painted it white and glued the marble assembly on, evenly spaced of course. You can use more fixtures if you wish, depending on the space you have!

Cathy Heimbauer

Crib mobile: I have used the wedding rings found in party supply shops, they can be painted or covered with bunka or yarn and 4-6 strings can be knotted on all around with 1 1/2" lengths then tie them all together to form the top, knot and snip the ends. Tie on 4-6 lengths to hang off the ring and dangle down and put whatever you want for the mobile part-tiny animals, pompoms etc. A stiffer wire can be attached to the crib and attached to the top knot. Very cute.

Gail

Crib mobile: I took tiny little white plastic birds that I bought at Hobby Lobby during Christmas time. I painted them in pastel colours. Then I tied them with thread to a round finding. Then I took another thread, tied it to the center of the finding and tied a knot in the end and stuck some wax on the ceiling over the baby's crib and stuck the knot into it.

I imagine you can find tiny white doves in the wedding decoration section where they sell the Wilton stuff for Bridal functions. You could also look for tiny buttons in the shape of things a baby would find appealing (ie kittens, bunnies and or puppies).

Patsy

Crib Mobile: I've made some crib mobiles using tiny stickers for the hanging toys.  I have some with Teddy Bears, Stars, and I forget what else.   I use them back to back with a thread or "invisible" thread to hold them.  For some I used a large star cutout as the "umbrella" or "canopy" part, with a string hanging from each point.  To attach to the crib I twisted some thin wire together tightly to give it more strength, fed one end through the center of the "umbrella/canopy"   part of the mobile, then bent it at a 90 degree angle about 1/8" from the "umbrella/canopy" and again about an inch (depends on where you want it to hang over the crib) from that, leaving the rest a relatively long straight piece.   I carefully bent the end of the straight piece so it would fit over the edge of the crib -  looks kind of like a lower case "h" at that end.   I've also used an appropriately sized/shaped jewelry finding as the "umbrella/canopy".

Lissa from Rutland, MA

Crib Mobile: There is a project for a crib mobile on this site.  http://www.pipmin.fsnet.co.uk/projectspg.html I found tiny shanked buttons, of bunnies, bears, B-A-B-Y letters and others in JoAnns.

Karolyn (Plymouth Ma)

Crib Mobile:  The November 1994 issue of Nutshell News shows how to make a crib mobile. They used a head pin as the main support, to which was attached a 1/2" dome-shaped jewelry finding using an S-hook. To the finding they used string to attach little butterflies. You could use stickers from a craft store, for instance, put them on cardboard, then cut them out. Unfortunately, they don't show how to attach the mobile to a crib.

Pat M

Crib Mobile:  look in the craft shops bead section for tiny charms or plastic beads shaped like toys or little animals and a fairly large (about 1/2 inch) filigree bead cap.  If you want, paint the little critters realistically, then knot them to lengths of single-strand floss (longer than you want the finished pendant piece) and knot each one at regular intervals around the edge of the bell cap.  Dab a bit of glue on each knot to secure and when dry, snip off extra thread.   Shape a wire hanger like a shepherd's crook and hang the bell cap from it through its top loop, wind the bottom of the hanger around the crib railing a few times, and snip off the extra.

Loretta

Crib Mobile: .I just finished one...I got a couple of paint charts from the local hardware store in pastel colors. Then I cut double shapes from them. I glued the thread between them so that if they moved, they'd be the same on both sides. I used two criss cross thin slivers of wood for the top.

Cathy Heimbauer

Ants for Picnic: What about gluing tiny black seed beads along a doubled strand of black embroidery floss?  You can cut the ends of the floss for antennae & stiffen them with a little diluted white glue.

Havana (FL) Holly

Making Mannequins Out Of Torsos From 7" Dolls - your finished project will be a little larger than regular scale, but don't let that stop you. The torsos should work fine. Your main problem will be attaching the torso to a base. I assume it has holes where the legs fit in, so you may need to fill in with putty or clay (and then bake) to attach to a dowel rod or some kind of pole for a stand. Then the bottom of the dowel or pole can be super-glued to a large metal washer or button for the base of the stand. Or you could make a tube out of plastic (like you would use for fake windows) and glue around the hips, and this would make a stand that would go all the way to the floor. (I assume you'll be doing long skirts, so it wouldn't be seen) Even posterboard would work for this. Probably you won't want to make it any taller than 6" overall, and 5 1/2 " at the shortest (figuring from the measurements you gave) I would not leave the arms on, since headless mannequins don't usually have arms, and it's easier to glue sleeves onto the shoulders of a Mannequin, rather than trying to fit them onto straight arms already attached to the mannequin. Good luck!

Paulette Stinson in Indiana

Torso: Missed the original e-mail for who was making a torso, I presume for a dress makers dummy. I'm a total beginner with little to work with this is how I did it.

First I made a mould from clay then I made a shell out of paper mache front and back separately then I joined the two together with more paper and glue, leaving an opening at the top and placing a doweling rod at the bottom and paper mache around it when dry place doweling into a button or support of some sort and fill the shell with plaster cast. when set cover with stocking fabric eyelet for neck section. Or finish how you like. I'm really happy about mine.

Carol Downunder

Garden Hose: To make your own garden hose, go to Radio Shack or anywhere else that sells plastic covered wire for electronic use. Get the green-or another color if you like. Cut an appropriate length of wire. Either roll it in a coil with the wire for support, or try to strip out the wire.

Martha Simpson