Towels: For your little towels for the haunted house, I would recommend the small Aida or hardanger cross stitch cloth you can see without crossing your eyes. LOL Try maybe 18 or 22 stitches per inch. I don't care for terry cloth when making mini towels cause to me it is always too bulky and the loops are out of scale. Try the knit type of flannel available in most fabric shops. You will know you have the right one when you lightly pinch the raw edge and no threads come off in your hand. Cut to an appropriate size for a towel. Stitch on the Aida or hardanger and then carefully seal the edges with Dritz Fray Check or a similar product, cut out the stitched piece and you can now either sew it to the mini towel or glue it with fabric glue. I hope this is clear cause I have made lots of towels.

Linda Gibeault

Putting a shade on a electric candle: I've been working on a vignette following instructions by Brooke published in Miniature Collector a couple of years ago and wanted wall sconces with shades on candle lights but had only the candle lights on hand so after trial and error I was able to make the shade part but had to figure out a way to put them on the candles. Whenever my husband has been in the hospital and he has been given pills in the little plastic cups he has saved the cups for me and I use them for small amounts of paint and so on (hey, another tip). One was sitting next to me and I cut out the bottom of it from the fairly soft plastic, fitted it to the lower inside edge of the shade and punched a hole in the centre for the candle. I installed the plastic circle using silicone and put it on the candle with a dab of silicone too, so it can be removed to change the bipin bulb, if necessary. I think it will be necessary for one of them because as I was installing the fixture I accidentally touched the bulb and it immediately glowed much brighter and will not stop doing so even though I removed and reinstalled it.

June Simpson

Pens/Pencils: I paint straight pins for pens and pencils then cut off the 'head' end - always wear goggles!

Patricia from Whitby, Canada

Fabric Puff paint ideas; you could use those paints to make button cards for a sewing room, to make that dot candy on a strip of paper, create molding on a piece of plastic then peel it off?

Parisa Javidi

Another very "darling use for puff paints, especially the yellow, is to create little lumps of it on a piece of cardstock, and form one end into a peak, which sort of "flops" over. While it is still wet, pour yellow scenic sand over it and let dry, add tiny black painted dots for eyes ... instant marshmallow "peeps" for Easter!

Alice Zinn

Another idea for miniature buttons: I use a hole punch (smallest size) - the kind that people use who work a lot with leather. I punch tiny circles from suede or coloured sequins. On the suede I use a very thin permanent marker to paint the holes of the buttons and then I glue those to the garment. When you punch circles from the sequins the material sometimes buckles a bit so it looks a bit like a domed gold button - very nice.

Heike Boam

Ice cubes, icicles: When I go to bear shows I made a whole arctic winter scene to show of my polar bears.

I use polystyrene that I broke of and then stacked and glued together so it would form a kind of ice float with peeks - like an iceberg. I used turquoise watercolor watered down a lot and painted some accents on the icebergs. For icicles (spelling?) I used my gluegun and then I painted that snow stuff over it and some glitter. It really looks frosty.

Some of the polar bears play with ice cubes - these are tiny bits of car window safety glass from the car junk yard or picked off the road where there was a crash. I sand off the sharp edges and then paint over with clear nail polish.

Heike Boam

Acorns: The tiniest acorns, i.e. mostly cap rather than nut, you can sort of hollow out to fit on the ends of twigs as finials for curtain rods.  I thread the twig through cheesecloth and then glue on the nuts.

I have a mini cupboard/hutch filled with bowls and trays made of caps and nuts.  They can make great bowls, filled with multi-colored peppercorns, coriander, and mustard seeds, whatever.  I've used a few as pots with a bit of air fern glued inside.  And of course cups and saucers with a small piece of jute rubbed with glue and shaped as a handle.  I drill tiny holes in which to insert the jute.

Also, larger caps make great baskets, again with jute handle, to hold logs near a fireplace.  And an acorn can hold kindling for the same fireplace.

Cut off the pointed end and use as the base for a chair with tree fungus seat and back.   Filled with tiny flowers, the caps can make very nice wall hangings.  Make a little hut out of a walnut and half an acorn cap makes a terrific awning.  How about a birdbath?  Or use a small whole acorn, drill a very small hole in the nut in which to insert a twig perch and somewhat larger hole for the birds' entrance and you have a birdhouse.

Kathy Watkins

Throwaways: For those of you who have friends who are nurses, or have access to a nursing home, ask them to save the small plastic part of the individual pill packages.  They may be round, oblong, oval or an odd shape.   They make good molds for baked goods, but you can't bake your clay in them.  I also save 1cc. medication bottles and whatever looks good.  The hospital will come after me one of these days!

Joan Linville

Puffy bows for presents: I stumbled upon the puffy kind of bows for gifts yesterday when I was escaping from work for a while (it's too easy to start looking at mini-sites instead of working when you work on a computer all day long - - does anyone have a solution to this problem?). Cotton ridge miniatures

have them under the miniature kits section:

http://cottonridge.safeshopper.com/154/1544.htm?424

They also have a bow-maker for mass-production:

http://cottonridge.safeshopper.com/154/1547.htm?424

Asa in Fairfax, VA

puffy bows

1. take a needle and push eye first into a cork until only a short length (about 1/2 inch) is sticking out.

2. take a length of ribbon (fine organza) as narrow as you can get.

3. pierce the ribbon on the needle.

4. take the ribbon up the length of the needle and pierce again. Use a little glue to fix

5. Repeat moving around the needle until the bow is full enough.

6. You may prefer to sew to hold in place.

I don't know if this in clear but it is easy once you get the hang of it.

Roberta, DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA

Hammock: The mesh used to package oranges and other fruits may be used to make a hammock. Gather each end of the appropriate size piece of mesh, I suggest 6" long X 2" wide. Attach each gathered end to a jewelry jump ring by looping it through the ring and fold the gathered mesh upon itself. Take a piece of heavy sewing thread and wind it around the folded mesh to secure it to the jump ring. Use a piece of crochet thread to tie the hammock from the ring to the tree or frame to suspend the hammock.

Marilyn of Michigan

Poppy-pods: they make excellent globular, narrow-necked folky vases. Carefully scissor off the fancy top, break off the stem, and sand to level both ends. I've done this with an emory board, but more recently used a cordless Dremel with flat sanding discs - spoil just as many, but faster. (You can also leave a bit of stem on to be a cork, though mostly I sand it off and ream the neck open, so it can hold a bit of dried weed.) As for the bottom of the pot, if you insist on having one, I've used both white glue and viscous glass paint to span the gaps between the interior walls (this'll make sense when you look at a pod). Left unpainted with only a glaze of clear nail polish, the pots are creamy or tan with some mottlings - could be quite contemporary, or antique.

Rose campion (furry grey-green leaves, magenta - sometimes white - flowers) has smaller pods, very smooth surfaced, that can be sanded into different shapes and take well to being "glazed" in colors. I'm sure there are other possibilities. Inexpensive way to stock a shop with multiples.

Mary (Oregon)

Book forms: I've found a new source (to me) to use for making mini books. The spines of legal pads. Problem is, I'm not sure what to use to cut them so that the edges come out clean and (more or less) square. Also thought they would make good blanks for wrapped packages.

Quinn

Cutting the legal pad spines: The best way to cut is with a square and a utility knife. However, after 3 stitches in my finger this summer, I've learned that the best thing to do is to position the square on the pad and clamp the whole thing down to your worktable so that your fingers are nowhere near the moving blade. Remove the sheets that have been cut as you go.

Jan Harris

Watch crystals: In addition to using as is for candy dishes and clock crystals, pick a pair of matching smallish crystals, glass-glue them to either end of a fancy glass bead stem, and you'll have a very elegant crystal pedestal cake or fruit plate.

Loretta Sniarowski

Watch crystals: These would make absolutely wonderful glass for old fashioned picture frames...probably there will be lots of other suggestions as well, but I know members of my husbands family have great old photos of their great-grandparents in round frames with curved glass fronts.

Kaye Meldrum

Watch crystals: Some of those crystals are very ornate. My watch has a bezeled edge and would look wonderful as a candy dish (I really had to stop myself from dismantling it!) but there are any number of types of plates, pie, serving, candy, cake, and for the smaller ones even putting the crystal on a mini clock - - Large ones could be windows (porthole type, etc.)

Ana Gerard

Watch crystals: Well, how many of us have miniature clocks in want of a crystal face? They'd be great for grandfather clocks. Also the smaller "ladies" watch crystals would probably work for desk clocks and smaller wall clocks. Some might even work over a gas or electric meter. Depending on how flat they are, they might work as serving platters, candy dishes, and so forth. A round one can be the glass in a ship's porthole.

Trish Billard

Watch crystals: your watch crystals could be fancy glass dishes by painting or etching designs on them (especially if you have several that are the same, you could make a set of dishes.)

Christi Walton