Knotty Pine: If you are fortunate enough to find someone stripping away a full sized "bottle brush" shrub from their full sized garden - - - - The wood makes excellent scale knotty pine. Takes time to season (about a year and a half) and then must be milled to mini sizes.

Mel K.

Knotty Pine: Called the store here. They do mail order to the U.S. She wasn't sure what exactly knotty pine would look like (and I'm not too sure) but she said they have a web site http://www.madscrappercda.com She's pretty sure the supplier is American so you might want to try searching for something like scrapbook+paper+wood on your favorite search engine. Haven't checked it out myself. The sheets (9" x 12") are $4.59 Cda (So about $3 US) I did tell her it was for minis and she said that she had used it herself (not for minis - but to get smaller wood effect) by tearing pieces along the grain to get the effect she wanted. I'm a great fan of scrapbooking pages - Acid-free, easy to work with.

Maureen

Knotty Pine: If you take the piece of wood you are using and use a small drill or punch to make small holes a bit larger than the thickness of a toothpick randomly over the entire piece of wood. The more holes, the more finished knots. The holes are best a bit diagonal through the wood (not straight through like a nail). Then, insert a toothpick dipped in glue in each hole. Let the glue dry. Cut the toothpick flush with the main piece of wood. Sand the panel smooth. You now have a knotty piece of wood. If you are using stain, you will want to test the stain on the knots to make sure that you are happy with the way the stain "takes". I have found that the long skewers give a more "rough" look than the toothpicks.

Whui

Brickmaking:

You need some basswood stripwood and you cut this and glue up a little open form using waterproof glue, epoxy. Coat the form real good with epoxy after it is made to make it waterproof and strong. Make a little punch that you can punch out the brick when you fill the form. Remember that these wet-clays shrink when they dry so the form has to be about 10-15% bigger than the brick you want. The side of the brick is what will show so the thickness of the form is real important too. You fill the form with moist clay and punch it out and be sure to leave the mold marks on the brick. In fact, it is the mold marks that give the charm to the bricks except that you need subtle contrasts in color and texture.

So whatever clays you use you need two of them, different colors, red & brown, etc. and then you blend about 6-8 blends of those two colors in different ratios so that you get subtle differences and when you go to "lay bricks" you don't put clashing colors together. You keep the differences more subtle than that. You might not even make bricks out of the two "parent colors" at all. Just several "shades" or "hues" in between those two colors. There are red colored Mexican Pottery Clay, gray Marblex, and brown wet-clays you can mix in as well. Play around with it. You can do this on any scale. You can add bone-emulsions to harden bricks or Elmers glue or whatever. Self hardening clays are good enough, but (kitchen) oven hardening clays (Della Roba?) are also available. You lay the form on wax paper, fill the form with wet-clay, scrape off the excess clay with a stick or spatula, and take a plunger of the exact right size and push out the brick or hold down the brick and lift up the form, pinning the brick to the wax paper with the plunger. In other words, remove the brick from the form with a plunger/pusher of brick size (it must be small enough to easily penetrate (clear the sides of) the mold from top to bottom.

Let the bricks air dry and then oven-bake them if you choose. Don't mess around with wet bricks, except to make sure that they are not warped or crooked or fouled up. If they are fouled up, return them to their wad of clay and TRY AGAIN. You can make thousands of bricks once you get the hang of it. You will have a brick yard and can oven bake thousands at the same time, hundreds if you get bored easily, or whatever pleases you. You do need more than one color, in slight variations, for best effect. All the same color looks remarkably dull compared to the effect of slight color variations in the earth colors which gives a rustic, "natural" look.

You can glue these in place with Elmers glue or some and leave the seams exposed or showing. You can make up some "mud" of Elmers glue and clay that could be applied with a little spatula. I just paint on Elmers glue with a little brush on the bricks that are already in place and sit the brick down in it and wiggle ir around a little until it is "seated" into place, it will be a little "wonkey" but that just adds to the charm. You don't want it to look too mechanical and all bricks aren't just exactly the same size. You don't want air gaps to show between bricks so you may have to have some "mud" on hand to use as needed to prevent air gaps or cracks between bricks. Let a wall, chimney, fire-place, etc. dry thoroughly before messing around with it. Overnight or longer.

Let bricks dry thoroughly before laying them, else they will shrink and distort and be a disaster. They absorb water and swell when you are laying them if you use excess water, so don't go wild on moisture while you are laying them, unless you have fired them hard (Della Robba oven bake clays, etc.).

Anyway, have fun! It's not so hard and you can make bricks on Half-Scale (1/24th scale), on "Inch Scale" (dollhouse scale) or on "O" (1/48 Scale) or even tiny bricks on "dollhouse for dollhouse" scale. So just make the forms the size that pleases you and GO FOR IT!

Walter Vaughn!

PaperClay - I use PaperClay all the time, thanks to Rik Pierce and other SSers that suggested it to me. It is a paper based product, and is great to work with. It is more for sculpting than for making food and such with. I prefer it to poly clays because I like the texture much better.....doesn't feel like I'm sculpting silly putty. It is an air drying clay, but you can bake it......250 degrees until dry, and doesn't "burn", even if forgotten for many hours (don't ask....let's just say I know this from experience and leave it at that! LOL) It takes paint and paint washes very well, and I've also used wood stains, antiquing gel, and even diluted food coloring with good results. As to texturing it....go to town! I've used a the end of a piece of wire, a dampened stencil brush, even a dry finger pounced over the surface lightly will give various textures. If you want it smooth and porcelain like, wet your finger and smooth over the top....you can also use a small piece of cosmetic sponge. BTW, it is nothing like paper mache.

Sloan

Thatching: Today, I put instructions on my web site http://www.dollhouse-miniatures.comfor thatching a dollhouse. Be aware, there are quite a few pictures, and they are 20KB each, so it can take a couple of minutes to load. Look under Tom's Tips--- Thatching.

Tom Berkner

Faux Wrought Iron: I made faux wrought iron from square profile brass tube stock, bent with pliers over a pattern and then soldered in place in a brass frame. I then painted it with a black patina finish and sponged copper colored paint on it to simulate rust. Worked really well. You need a big soldering iron - mine is 80watts - I use it for everything even dollhouse wiring (I'm very quick!) but if it's much smaller you won't get the brass tubing warm enough to take the solder properly.

Trace

Faux Wrought Iron: They can be made using the twist ties that come in packages of garbage bags. If you want to repeat a shape (like a heart) use something to bend the pieces around and glue the hearts between straight pieces of twist ties, perhaps twirling some. Glue them together and spray with flat black paint!

Alice Zinn

Mortaring Brick/Stone: For years I've used plain cement for mortaring bricks and stones. Of course, it's gray and you have to buy a 50 pound bag. LOL Enough to share with all your friends for a lifetime. I still use this on occasion. BUT . . . I just took the Brook Tucker Kitchen Class. Even though I've been building for many years, I always learn something new from her. This is what she did for the grout in the plastic sheet for flooring.

Buy Lightweight Spackle (sometimes called "shrink-free spackle" at your local hardware store. It's like working with whipped cream. Mix in a little acrylic paint, color of your choice. I apply with a putty knife but I also take my fingers and press it in well. Wipe with a wet sponge til it's just left in the grout lines. When totally dry, spray with an acrylic sealer.

Ruth, Grass Valley, CA

Thin Dowels: For extra small dowels, I've used the skewers that you use for broiling "shish kabobs" or whatever you may call them. They're pointed at one end, and about 11" or 12 " long. They're not as thin as 1/32, but can be made thinner either on a lathe, or by putting into a drill and turning them at slow to medium speed, while holding sand paper around them as it spins. Use care if you're doing that though, as the paper and dowel get rather hot with the friction. Also, make sure you support the piece so it doesn't start whipping around.

Dave Pierce

Thin Dowels: I suggest using a jeweler's draw plate (available at Micro-Mark for about $15.00). Using this, you can reduce a 1/16" dowel to any smaller size down to about 1/48" by making successive pulls thru the holes in the plate until you get the size you are interested in. I have even used the drawplate to make a dowel from a piece of 1/16" square basswood.

Dave Brazelton

Thin dowels: if they don't need to be wood, model train stores have them made of styrene. The smallest I've seen are 1/64th" quarter rounds!

Kay in Ottawa, Canada

cardboard room boxes: To make corrugated cardboard almost as indestructible as wood, try covering it with cloth and white glue. It's not an original trick, but I can't remember where I learned it!

First, get an old bedsheet (or a new piece of muslin) and rip a looong piece about three inches wider than the depth of your box. Spread white glue over the cardboard and smear it around "real good", as they say. Put the pieces face down and just barely touching on the fabric - side-top-side-bottom - and weight them down so they dry flat.

The fabric will be the "inside" of the box. You can bring the fabric along the front edge of the pieces up and glue it to the outside and glue it in place at the same time.

Cut the back for the box and glue it to a piece of fabric an inch or so larger on all four sides, wrapping it around the edges, and weight it down also. (Don't get too clever and put the back on top of the other pieces, or they will get stuck together. Ask me how I know THAT!)

When all the pieces are dry, clip the "loose" fabric on the back at the joints, and glue the final corner together, overlapping the fabric. Put the back on the box, and use the loose fabric to glue the sides and back together, as if you were taping it together.

When this assembly is done, you can cover the outside with fabric to coordinate with your decor, and paper the inside as desired. The combination of cardboard, white glue and cloth is lightweight and VERY sturdy.

Dani, in Bradshaw

Cinder Blocks: All of the talk about boys & mini's as well as the suggestions re: jails
brought back a long forgotten memory. Thin sheet of Styrofoam cut into cubes with a serrated knife. Toothpick inserted into each piece for a handle. Each cube dipped into a thin mixture of plaster of paris that had been tinted with black acrylic paint to look gray. Pieces hung on a line with wood clothespins attached to the toothpicks. When dry and picks removed, they made very realistic cinder blocks. Inexpensive, quick, and easy to build with. My son simply stacked them, like blocks. He used spackle for his mortar. The interior and exterior walls were built with the same brick. I can see a smaller version of this technique for bricks needed for a garden wall, a bar-b-q-pit.

Becky Holliday

Rich Wood Minis: A Site I've not seen before. . . Outstanding work!!! Lovely wood.
http://www.righteouswoods.net/clients_page3.html

Judie

Slate: In response to an earlier comment. We carry both English (probably Welsh) slate, and Vermont slate roofing. The English is rectangular and dark grey. The Vermont is hexagonal and multi-colored. The best way I have found to cut the slate is using a rubberized abrasive wheel in my Jarmac table saw. My diamond saw also works ok, but is very messy.
http://www.dollhouse-miniatures.com

Tom Berkner

Slate Roofs: Microcosm Miniatures
http://www.microcosm-miniatures.com.au/cart/ sells moulded plastic slates on a roll. I had the idea of real slates for my church but the weight would have been too much for the MDF roof so I looked around and Microcosm carry this roll stuff. It is on a strip, moulded to resemble slate and comes in grey slate and a red/brown slate for decorative accents. It glues on along the top which is then hidden by the next row sort of like shingles. My MDF church roof has roof trusses to support it but it would still have sagged (apparently) under the weight. We have some huge bits of slate about an inch or so thick that were used originally for crazy paving in the garden, so I asked stonemason about cutting slices to size for me. He laughed and then tried (unsuccessfully) to cover his smirk when he realized I was serious. Men! It was a darn good idea at the time!

Trace, Melbourne, Australia

Slate Roofs: Carol down under: the problem with slate even in the best of circumstances is that it is very brittle and splinters in full size let alone mini size. It needs to be cut when it is newly "mined" while it is still moist. As it dries out it begins to disintegrate and shear off with the nail holes being the first to let go. Here in Vermont (and I'm sure any place that still has homes with slate roofs), you can go around the base of a house and pick up bits and pieces of slate after a big storm and at Fort Ethan Allen near me ( from the 1800's) whole slates fall off every storm where they crumble in your hand when you pick them up. I have some slate pieces that came off of my apartment house, when they did a roof repair, that I can break up with a hammer to use for garden flagstones, foundations of houses etc. and it looks great. Black is the most brittle with red seeming to be the toughest with gray and green somewhere in between. But to roof a mini house with slate you would need new pieces cut to shape (The New Jersey dh supply shop - can't remember it's name right now - was one of the few places that supplied it) - they are heavy... and brittle... and expensive... and you need to get twice what you need because of the breakage. I saw one house done with them at Fred's Miniatures in Vermont - he used to do custom houses and told me that he would never do another with real slate because of all the problems and headaches and cost of the project. It looked great but I found another solution. Handley House was my supplier for my shop here and I found that they carried (actually were able to order it) a molded slate roofing that could be cut to shape. I haven't had any call for it so I don't know if it is still available but maybe your local shop can look it up ... I seem to remember the name Ross but this is hazy. It looked great -you can't tell it from the real thing!- and none of the headaches!

Ana

Cutting Roof Shingles: Here is the method for cutting them perfectly that I use. I make a pattern. I use a big sheet of white wrapping paper I got from U-Haul...any big sheet of paper will work, even newspaper if you can see the lines you draw. Lay the sheet over the roof where the two areas come together and crease it with a finger. Also make fold marks over the top and bottom roofline. Take the paper off, and draw lines so you can see them on the pattern creases along the top roof line and the crease that is the angle between the two surfaces that you are putting shingles on. I use a Sharpie. The house I built in the instructions it said to draw horizontal lines on the roof before it was assembled. You want to start at the bottom roofline on the pattern, or the top...whatever your directions say...and draw those lines on the pattern up to the crease that represents where the two roofs come together. These lines will come to a point where each side of the two roofs meet when the pattern is laid flat. To use the pattern, lay the shingles out along the line (or just put them on the house) from the outside edge of the roof towards the crease, starting at the bottom. When you get to the crease, part of the lower left side (or the lower right side depending on which side of the roof you started shingling first) of the last shingle will hang over the drawn line that represents where to two roofs meet: cut that part off. You should have a piece of shingle that is wider at the top than at the bottom, and should fit onto the roof and line up with the join in the two roof areas perfectly. It isn't really necessary to make a pattern of the whole roof or to draw lines on it. All you need is a pattern of where the two roof areas meet, and the top and bottom of the two rooflines. Start shingling at the edge of the bottom of one side. When you get to the crack where part of a shingle needs to be trimmed to fit, measure the width at the TOP of the shingle that you need for that last shingle. Lay it on the pattern lines with that much on the correct side of the pattern, and let the rest go over the line. Draw a line that parallels the vertical line on the pattern that is where the two roof panels meet on the shingle, and cut the shingle off along that line.

Memai

Faux Wood Floors on Foam Core: I have directions for making faux wood floors on foam core or mat board on my personal web site http://studio59.homestead.com on the DIY page.

Jennie in San Antonio TX