Fairy Wings: we had angel tree ornaments at our last bazaar with the loveliest wings. The crafter had done the shapes with wire and stretched white pantyhose over them. They looked great. You could paint them, maybe with glass paint, to give them color.

Kay in Ottowa

Gollywogs: I had always known OF them but never knew anything about them. Half hour later I'm opening one of the back issues I just got from Dolls House and Miniature Scene and what do I see staring up at me but a gollywog - so popular during late Victorian times especially in Europe! He was a character in a book written by Florence Upton called "The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls" and is now over 100 years old. He originally had a blue jacket, red trousers, and a green tie. A pattern for a mini knitted gollywog was in the article if anyone is interested (about 2 dimes high). The issue was #16 and is still available as far as I know.

Ana

Golly's World: I checked with AltaVista.com and they have an incredible set of Golliwog sites: http://www.golliwogs.com

Seems they were characters in storybook from the 1890's by a mother daughter team. Cute little folks, they traveled around the world thus introducing children to a world bigger than their own.

Laurie Sisson

Sleeping Fairy Baby Doll: I have instructions for making a sleeping baby fairy on my site:
http://gerdesdesign.com/northwest.htm

Anne

Fairy Dolls: go to http://msatminidolls.minilists.com/projects.html for some great step-by-step instructions on several different fairy dolls (you can order body kits), as well as some other great projects. Also, the Frills & Fancy newsletter at http://www.miniatureart.com/ has some great stuff. They also sell dollmaking supplies and kits for the dolls at the first site above.

Graceanne

Fimo faeries: Sue Heaser's tiny 1inch high faeries can be found at http://www.polymerclaycentral.com  just look under lessons and instructions.

Jacquie Hall, Essex, U.K.

Cloth dolls: Magic Cabin Dolls has a variety of dolls appropriate for a child's dollhouse.

They have modern and pioneer style dolls that are premade in 1/12 scale by the Kathe Kruse Doll Co. I ordered a pattern from them last year to make my own posable soft dolls for my daughter's dollhouse. The pattern has boots or shoes made from modeling beeswax (I'll substitute polymer clay) so the dolls can stand up, very much like Laurie Sisson's "Foot". They also have kits for a variety of "fairy folk"- smaller dolls made from natural materials or inspired by nature. http://www.magiccabin.com

Kim in Las Vegas

Dirtying things up: if you water brown paint down and paint it onto wood it gives it a wonderful "dirty" look. I used this for the project I'm working on. I got a small (about 2" diameter) wooden bowl somewhere and beat it up, pounded it, giving it a nice crack, and then made it into a little fairy home. More watered brown paint on the base. Looks great so far.

Rachel B of MD

fairy / angel: I found a polymer clay fairy, with very clear instructions, on the following website: http://www.polymerclaycentral.com/pcc/suefairy. html I'm sure you can adapt her to be an angel, and she is just the right size for a baby angel.

Betsie, South Africa

Mouse House/Borrowers: Can I add my 2 cents worth of ideas here? If you're going for a look that the mice have "borrowed" from the "real" house for furnishings....how about using a spool of thread for the base of a side table, maybe a locket (opened) and hung on the wall for picture frame, a spice rack (or wall shelf) made from one of those small wood match boxes, Columns made from pencils.

Sloan

Fairy House: Try www.hoose.com/fairy.html as a starting point with links and rings from there. Be sure to hunt down Titania's Palace which is unarguably the most lavish fantasy dollhouse ever built.  I learned from T's Palace that Fairy houses never have outside doors since everybody knows that fairies always go in and out through windows. In your home town library, go to the children's section. Illustrated Fairy and Wood Sprite stories may give you a lot of ideas. If you live in a small town, it is recommended that you take a child with you for this search.

In my own mind's eye, a fairy house would be very woodsy such as a thatched cottage but with very light and delicate construction. No heavy beams or boulder sized rocks would seem appropriate. All window glass would be ripplyi and very lightly discolored with ancient age. No square inch would be without decoration of some sort: i.e. carved woodwork, illustrated walls (nature scenes), mosaic floors, cloud ceilings, etc, etc. Sustaining the nature theme, lamp fixtures would be lighted flowers, a large chair may be an organized tangle of gnarled tree roots, and any sink would actually be a sea shell.

Mel Koplin in Las Vegas

Some fairy abodes were sighted at:

http://gerdesdesign.com/my_dollhouses.htm

http://ladybug-fairies.com

http://www.fairytalemovie.com/  (click on photos link - picture of a camera – at top of page once you get inside)

Anne Gerdes

Acorn caps: You can wash and scrub off the dirt and then put them in a 250 oven 20 min to 1/2 hr to kill any critters. If you found these on the ground and they are real dirty, they might be too old. After you clean and dry them they should be hard. In the garden club, we always put pine cones, nuts etc. in the oven to kill the critters and keep nuts from germinating (even nuts from the grocery store). I recommend this for bird seed also.

Joanne Offutt

Wood shavings tip: What I did was to create a fairy dwelling. I started with a small balloon. I covered it with kite string fairly heavily. Then I coated it with Elmers glue and let dry. I popped the balloon and disposed of it. I cut a hole in the ball of stiff cord for an opening and glued it down to a piece of oddly cut foamcore board. I then used the wood shavings in their natural state as a covering. I used some green and brown mosses as well. I covered the foam board with moss also. Then I decorated the inside with found things to furnish it. Finally, I turned a keychain Barbie into a fairy and it was complete. It was a fun and very easy project and the person I made it for loves it.

Dottie in Florida

Acorn caps: Freeze them before putting in with miniatures as some tiny critters may decide they like minis better than acorns to munch.

Method: Place items in Ziploc bag into freezer for a couple days. To test: place items on a sheet of paper with a clear jar upside down on top of it. If after another day there are no tiny dustlike items on the paper, you are probably clear. To be sure, take the items outside and spray with sealer.

Ghosts - Our mini club made really cute mini ghosts using tinfoil as the base. We wadded up tinfoil with one end rounded (for the head) and the other end flattened out to make a base. We used a 2nd piece of foil to make the arms, one long rope to go from fingertip to fingertip. We put the "arms" through the body before wadding it together. We varied the arm positions so some sort of hung down, but most of us had the arms up in the air at about waist to shoulder height. We then soaked cheesecloth in starch and draped it over the foil frame in flowing drapes, like a sheet. Like the "real" ones, we puddled some cloth at the "feet" to make it stand when it dried and the foil was removed. One member of our group even mounted a few ghosts on a board with a hole under each ghost so he could place a small bulb under each to make them glow!! It was a fun, easy project that everyone loved, and it took much less than our 2-hr meeting time.

Verna, Florida

Ghosts: Take a needle pin and drape some glow-in-the-dark Fimo around it. Add black eyes and an ugly mouth and there is ghost. You can also drape some tissue around the pin and dab it into glow-in-the-dark paint. Another idea: take a very thin plastic bag and make look-through-ghosts!

Marjon de Haas in The Netherlands

Ghosts: An effective way (and kind of cool) to make ghosts is to take a picture of someone or a pet and take it to your local copier place. Get them to photocopy it onto a fairly stiff clear plastic sheet. It's totally see through and sort of faded out. Glue a clear plastic base under it so it'll stand in the middle of a room or by a window and it looks pretty nifty.

Debi Kolenchuk in Quesnel

Acorn Cap Uses: glue on a little handle made of raffia or a small bit of vine and an acorn cap makes a rustic little basket. You may have to file off the underside a little to make it set flat. I put them in a scene with woodland fairies, filled with seeds and holly berries.

SUSAN AT THE WHITE RABBIT'S HOUSE

Waterfalls: Make your second pond just like your first one. Make sure your water path for the water fall is painted, then use some clear tape as a guide for the waterfall. 50 year Clear Silicone makes good falling water, it can also be highlighted with white paint after it dries. Just apply it directly over the clear tape. If all else fails, go to your local bookstore and sneak a look at a model railroad how-to book. I have made several waterfalls this way and they all turned out well. You can go to either my web site or photopoint and look at Akademia- A wizards' college for examples of finished waterfalls.

http://purefantasy.centramedia.com

Shaun Crawford