THE MOVEABLE DOLL/FAIRY/WITCH : Leslie from Buffalo has an excellent pattern for making little fairies, which she told me, involving fake flowers. So easy to do and makes a great mini; it's hideously seductive and it's so easy that when one is tired, it's good to fall back on, cos the end result is good and makes you feel smart, and I'm all for minis like that.

Things you will need:

Fake flower spray made of 5 curved petalled flowers, each with central stamen, each on a wire stem
Fake flower spray of 4 petalled flowers (FOR FAIRY WINGS)
Tacky glue
wire cutters
Bunka/embroidery floss/small cup shaped fake flowers (FOR HAIR)
card (WITCH'S HAT)
wooden beads, small

TO MAKE DOLL

Gently pull the 5 petalled flower up away from the stamen; it should slide along the wire. You may have to pull hard. Think tough love thoughts. Leave it loose but on the wire. If the stamen comes off, simply glue it back on end of wire. Do this for another flower but completely remove flower from wire. Put this flower on top of other flower on its wire - this is to make the skirt. So now you have one leg with stamen foot, and skirt. Poke the other wire with stamen on end through the skirts from underneath beside the other wire; twist these together both under and over the skirts. The legs should be about 1/2 an inch long. Now you have a pair of legs with feet and a skirt. Dab tacky glue on top of skirt ('waistband') near wire to keep all secure. Fold wire down so that one has about 1/2-3/4 an inch doubled wire above skirt . There will be excess wire below 'waistband level'. Cut off excess. Squeeze doubled wires together to hold firm. Use one of the bits of excess wire that you cut off to make the arms. At its midway point, wrap it again and again round the body, leaving two ends of equal length free - these are the arms. I trim these to suit when all else is done. Shove a cocktail stick with tacky glue on it into the bead hole, twirl around, remove, push bead onto top of body wires. Draw face on bead. Glue chopped up Bunka/embroidery floss on bead for hair. Or stick small cup flower on top of bead to make a flower fairy.

To MAKE FAIRY

Do as above. Remove 4 petalled flower from wire and stamen. Pinch together, dab pinched fold in glue and glue to back of doll. Flower will flatten out to look like wings. How obliging of it.

To MAKE WITCH

Dismantle all the flowers and paint black with acrylic paint. Paint stamens black. Leave to dry. Then assemble as above. Make teeny pointed black hat from black paper, stick on bead.

Helen from York, England

Brooch For Shawl: A nice brooch can be made sewing about three little irridescent seed beads together and tacking them to close your crocheted shawl. Or dig around in jewelry findings and/or cut a big one down to size.

Pamela Swain

Dying white doll hair fantasy colors: Is the doll hair natural fiber? If it is, I have your answer. Don't laugh - -- Kool-Aid. Wonderful fantasy colors. Easy to find. Cheap. What more could you ask? I use it all the time.

Mindy Skelton

In making my dolls, I find the hardest thing is for me to do is getting the folds of the fabric to lay convincingly and naturally. This is also a problem in making curtains and bedding. I've tried steaming them in place, spraying them with hairspray, pinning them, etc., but all these methods have drawbacks. Yesterday, in desperation, I tried touching the doll's costume with a LIGHTLY dampened sponge and drying with a hairdryer on its hottest setting. This worked wonderfully. I was working on a doll already dressed in cotton and fine linen. I can't suggest using this method on silk since I haven't yet tried it on silk. Another tip is one that I read here ( thank you!) and decided to try. I used very strong coffee to age a piece of rayon seam binding that I wanted to use to make fringe. I've always used tea for "aging" but coffee worked so much better. It took that "new" brightness away and since I sponged it on, it dried very quickly. I've saved he remaining coffee "dye" in a small jar to use again.

Darlene from L.I.

Brooch for Shawl - since your shawl is crocheted, you could use a small piece of fine wire on the back of your pin, and just twist ends thru the open work! The front could be made from anything- a bead, bit of clay, a tiny earring, even a small silk rose, glued into the wire!

Alice Zinn

Teen Age Dolls: I have used Levi Parker's "Kelly" for the 11 and 12 year old. I feel that she is not quite as large as she should be, however by making her as a fully poseable soft body she could be a little taller. I like the two other heads of Deborah as 16 year olds. I have my favorite posted at

http://www.angelfire.com/celeb/anniesweepeople

Annie B

Printable Paper Dolls: Here is a paper doll site with printable paper dolls. It also has links to other sites! http://www.ameritech.net/users/macler/paperdolls.html

Parisa

Printable Paper Dolls: Someone was looking for paper dolls. I just found one at Bonnie Lavish Miniatures under printables at this address http://home.dmv.com/~lavish/printables.html

Rebecca

Paper Dolls: I notice someone has asked for paper dolls. I use this site to download paper dolls for my granddaughter...it's excellent. http://members.tripod.com/~bobbie24tj/paperdolls.html

Gail in Arizona

Doll Sizes: Sammy Smith's web site is well worth a visit in any case, but she includes something that must be of special interest to people who buy and combine dolls from different artists. She points out that two 5-1/2 inch dolls may have wildly different proportions, even though both represent slim young women. She's included an illustrative photo. Definitely worth thinking about. URL: http://happinessisminiatures.com/

Mary, Oregon

THE MOVEABLE DOLL/FAIRY/WITCH : Leslie from Buffalo has an excellent pattern for making little fairies, which she told me, involves fake flowers. So easy to do and makes a great mini; it's hideously seductive and it's so easy that when one is tired, it's good to fall back on, 'cause the end result is good and makes you feel smart, and I'm all for minis like that.

Things you will need:

Fake flower spray made of 5 curved petalled flowers, each with central stamen, each on a wire stem
Fake flower spray of 4 petalled flowers (FOR FAIRY WINGS)
Tacky glue
Wire cutters
Bunka/embroidery floss/small cup shaped fake flowers (FOR HAIR)
Card (WITCH'S HAT)
Wooden beads, small

TO MAKE DOLL

Gently pull the 5 petalled flower up away from the stamen; it should slide along the wire. You may have to pull hard. Think tough love thoughts. Leave it loose but on the wire. If the stamen comes off, simply glue it back on end of wire. Do this for another flower but completely remove flower from wire. Put this flower on top of other flower on its wire - this is to make the skirt. So now you have one leg with stamen foot, and skirt. Poke the other wire with stamen on end through the skirts from underneath beside the other wire; twist these together both under and over the skirts. The legs should be about 1/2 an inch long. Now you have a pair of legs with feet and a skirt. Dab tacky glue on top of skirt ('waistband') near wire to keep all secure. Fold wire down so that one has about 1/2-3/4 inch doubled wire above skirt . There will be excess wire below 'waistband level'. Cut off excess. Squeeze doubled wires together to hold firm. Use one of the bits of excess wire that you cut off to make the arms. At its midway point, wrap it again and again round the body, leaving two ends of equal length free - these are the arms. I trim these to suit when all else is done. Shove a cocktail stick with tacky glue on it into the bead hole, twirl around, remove, push bead onto top of body wires. Draw face on bead. Glue chopped up Bunka/embroidery floss on bead for hair. Or stick small cup flower on top of bead to make a flower fairy.

To MAKE FAIRY

Do as above. Remove 4 petalled flower from wire and stamen. Pinch together, dab pinched fold in glue and glue to back of doll. Flower will flatten out to look like wings. How obliging of it.

To MAKE WITCH

Dismantle all the flowers and paint black with acrylic paint. Paint stamens black. Leave to dry. Then assemble as above. Make teeny pointed black hat from black paper, stick on bead.

Helen from York, England

Dying white doll hair fantasy colors: Is the doll hair natural fiber? If it is, I have your answer. Don't laugh - -- Kool-Aid. Wonderful fantasy colors. Easy to find. Cheap. What more could you ask? I use it all the time.

Mindy Skelton

Dyeing dolls hair: It depends what kind of material the dolls hair is. If it is natural fiber like mohair or silk,it will take the dye very nicely. If it is artificial fiber, you will have a problem getting a deep tone. For colours like purple or pink on natural fibers - Kool-Aid (the unsweetened kind) works great and you only need a few minutes. Actually any food coloring is great on natural fibers. You can also experiment with natural dyes like onion peel, tea, oak bark, walnut shells, beet root or elder berries - even a ropy red wine.... And of course all the Rit dyes work great too.

Heike Boam

Dyeing dolls hair green or purple: If your doll hair is real mohair or some other "real" fiber, you could use a fabric dye. A word of caution though, very hot water might shrink your fibers. Also, try not to agitate "hair" too much as this could cause a tangled, matted mess!

BTW, if "hair" is man-made fiber, I wonder if you could use some of those sprays that are made for coloring artificial flowers. "Design Master " is one brand that I've seen at A.C.Moore. Michael's might carry them too.

Joanne from South Jersey

Firing Miniature Doll Legs: In regard to the firing of small legs, etc for mini dolls; there is a doll stilt caddy which is in the Lou Davis catalog. I understand that this works very nicely. I think it is put out by Bell ceramics. They have two different sizes and the prices are reasonable. There is also an egg caddy that might work real well.

Sandy

Stilts: I make my own stilts using ni-chrome wire and ceramic clay for the bases. I make a star shaped clay base, and I make each stilt about 3 inches high. These stilts, after initial firing to cone 05, can withstand repeated firings up to that cone size. Just be sure your glazes fire no hotter than cone 05 (there are lots of neat ceramic glazes to try). Make sure your stilts are about 1-2 inches apart and you can fit lots into one firing! I also use these for china paint firings as I can string 2-3 heads on each stilt. Each base has up to 8-9 stilts

Nada Christensen

Susan Scogin dolls: If you want to check out www.miniworld.com/house/ they have Susan Scogin dolls.

Val

Glazing Legs for Miniature Dolls: Years ago, when we used to glaze/paint shoes or boots on all our doll kits, we used to do about 500 to 1,000 legs at a time, so we needed a fast and easy way to hold the legs while they were firing.

We tried making our own stilts with clay and nichrome wire, and they worked fine, but took up too much space in the kiln. What I ended up doing was carving out the middle of a fire brick - to make it like a box without a lid and filling the brick with silica sand. We then glazed the foot, just pushed the unglazed top of the leg into the sand, put the brick in the kiln, and fired. It worked wonderfully well. But keep the walls of the brick about 1" thick or it will eventually crack.

This gets around the problem that might occur when the hole in the leg is not large enough to go over the stilt wire.

Joy Parker, Swallowhill

Moleskin: I use moleskin mainly for my larger dolls. I place it on the neck section of the shoulder plate so that after the head of the doll is attached, the porcelain parts do not "grind" together. Have you ever heard porcelain parts grinding together? Usually it is a squeaky sound noticed when moving doll's arms up and down.

Carol Griffith

Wings for Dolls: A couple of years ago we had a lot of cicadas in the area. I still have a few cicada wings. You are welcome to try them if you are interested.

Juanita Sellers