Teacakes in DHM teacart how-to: This is for anyone who was confused by the teacake instructions in the teacart article in the April Dollhouse miniatures. I apologize for the delay in answering but I've been away. And, since I wrote the article, I felt I'd better make things clear.

To give the polymer clays a good slicing consistency, they need to be baked twice. The editors and I were trying to make the article fit and probably took out too many words. Bake your items on the tile and let them cool in the oven. Then remove the tile and the items but do not remove the items from the tile. In other words, your teacakes are fine on the tile. You just have to take them out of the oven while you reheat it because the oven has temperature changes while it reheats and they would burn the clay. After the oven is at the right temperature, put your tile of cakes back in and bake again, 10 minutes is enough, and let them cool in the oven again. Then slice.

Denise Pritchett

Food Sites: Your best bet would be to go to Mary Eccher's site 1st, as she has been in the business of showing people how to do mini food for many years: http://www.pannikins.com/

If you click on the catalog, and then on 'Mary's menus', you will find information and directions for some foods.

Tom of Earth & Tree Miniatures carries some quite good booklets on making food; Fimo Sweets, Petite Eats...and Meyer's Homemade Meals: http://www.dollhouse- miniatures.com

And, this great site about polymer clays...more info here than you can shake a Fimo stick at: http://www.glassattic.com

And, finally, (although there is certainly more info out there!)

Angie Scarr's site...where I learned how to make peelable oranges: http://www.compclub.demon.co.uk/asmini.htm

Kaye in L.A.

50’s Food: This is for everyone looking for food items and their packaging from the 50's.

http://www.hometownfavorites.com

They have lots of pictures you can save, resize and print out, and you can even buy the real thing. This isn't a mini site, but is a great resource for anyone recreating that era in miniature.

Lorrie

"Jello stuff": I received several molded Jello salads a few years ago from a friend, as a gift. She had taken those awful gel worms that fishermen use, which really do come in great colors, and she cut them up into small pieces, then put them into those little copper Jello molds that most hobby centers have always carried. She put them in the oven and let them melt in the mold then let them cool and out came wonderful little gel things. Sorry I don't know what temperature for the oven, but I would start low.

Joanne Trainor

Seed Beads: seed beads can be used for foodstuffs in clear jars as if they'd been canned: yellow is corn, green is peas, etc. You could also use them to make beaded lamp shades, the ornate things at the end of light pulls like on ceiling fans, drawer pulls, cupboard handles, put them at the bottom of a clear glass vase for a special flower arrangement (like marbles in "real" life), On top of lids for pans, canisters and/or cookie jars, centers of flowers, decorations on tiny little hats, and of course dresses, tops, etc. Okay, out of ideas for now!

Sloan

Bread: Another product you might try for your bread is Model Magic by Crayola. It can be found at Michael's or many craft stores, also Longs, Kmart, etc., in their toy dept. It is also an air dry modeling compound. Let it dry overnight and it slices just like bread. Brush on a colored chalk, or dry brush on acrylic paint before slicing. It stays squishy just like bread and even has tiny air bubbles and texture like bread. We love it!Holds it shape great.

Diane in SFBay Area

Mini kiwi slices: http://lincsminiworld.bizland.com/

This site has a lot of graphics and takes time to load. You have a lot of searching to do to. They have a lot of Stix (cane) you slice, and make very tiny things. Very cute !I'm not sure if there is kiwi fruit or not. Very interesting though.

Debbie

Chrysnbon Plates: About using the reducing method and patterns from the china-replacement site, I left out a couple of things that might help. I used the luncheon-sized plates.

For my project, I reduced the images I obtained from the china-replacement site. The one thing that made it easy for me was that my china is made by Nikko in the Christmas pattern and has a tree in the center of the plate with no pattern on the rim. After getting the proper reduction and printing on photo paper, all I had to do was use a round hole punch to cut out the tree, glue it to the center of the plate and put a final coat of nail polish on to give it a shiny china look.

It also helps to put down a strip of double-sided tape and set the plates on it while working on them. That way they won't slip and slide away from you.

Dolores

Icing aka Whipped Cream aka Frosting: Either in a post from a fellow mini-er or on an internet site (Forgive me, I can't remember which at the moment), they used the plastic caps from 2 liter soda bottles for cakes. For icing aka whipped cream aka frosting they slathered on "fake snow" which comes in a jar and is manufactured under different names. For "shaved chocolate sprinkles" on your cake, shave off pieces from a brown crayon. You can also top your cake with "strawberries or cherries" using red seed beads.

Karen from PA

Cream for cakes. Are you looking for something to "pipe" the cake with, frost the body with, or both?
Wall joint compound is great. It can be tinted with pigments - like chalk pastel dust. It makes convincing frosting, and it can be piped on to make little rosettes, shells, and what not. A Kemper mold works for this - but perhaps other SS'ers have other ideas as well in regards to piping. Oh, and wooden dowels make great cakes! Just cut them down to the sizes you want-they're usually sold in a variety of diameters at the hardware store in three feet lengths (which means a lot of cakes!) - then 'frost' with wall joint compound. Spackle is too flaky and dry to work with. Wall joint compound has more "give". It also makes good stucco and you can buy it by the bucket-again see your hardware store.
If you're doing Fimo cakes - then transparent mixed with a little of whatever flavor you want (say, lemon creme? - add a little yellow - you get the idea) makes marvelous frosting akin to the ganache type. Uh, ganache - it's the type that is very hard and smooth. You must bake your cake first, then press on the transparent mixture and mold it down around the sides. Bake again and wah-lah: you have a pretty yummy looking cake.

Monika

Broken Egg: Someone sent me a "broken egg" once, I believe it was made with a clear drop of glue, and a blob of yellow dimensional paint for the yellow part. Actually was looking at it just this morning, it was kind of neat:). If the egg was dropped complete (as opposed to a baking accident where someone missed the bowl), then you could create a shell out of polymer clay, or keep an eye out at the dollar store as I saw a package of plastic eggs (colored, but could be repainted) that would be the right size for minis.

Kim Bulback

Broken Egg: A broken egg can be made out of a pool of white nail polish (the kind that is used for French manicures) on a piece of glass, with a half round bead painted yellow as the yolk... or of you want a runny yolk, use some yellow nail polish, also available as Easter nears! Let the whole thing dry well, coat with clear nail polish for that "wet" shine, let dry again, and use a single edged razor blade to peel it off of the glass.

Alice Zinn

broken egg. Here's one from me!
1. Make a yellow yolk from Fimo, bake in oven as directed. Then, drip some resin (Enviro-Tex type) over it and let it puddle all around the yolk. Let dry. You might want to do this on a piece of plastic wrap so you can peel it off later.
2. Another way to get the egg white look is to use a thick white glue, which dries clear, and drip it in the same manner, let it dry and bingo, broken egg!
3. The egg shell can be tiny pieces of the real thing. If you want to make it look rounded like the shell half, try making the shell from thin, thin Fimo shaped over a smooth oval shaped bead. Give it a jagged edge look like a broken shell would have.

Betti in LA

Ice Mold: Sounds like that's a job for clear casting resin. You can imbed your fimo fruit in at in one molding (stick 'em in as it starts to harden), or try casting in layers, and you'll have layers of fruit and "ice." It depends on how deep your mold is. If you're not ready to try actual casting resin, you can try the Envirotex stuff (but check to see that both bottles are perfectly clear--it can tend to yellow), or I think there's a resin type stuff people use for "water" for flower arrangements. You might try checking the tips archives -- I think someone talked about the "water" stuff before and might have a name for the product.

Trish in Sunnyvale, CA

Egg Salad: Roll a snake of white polymer clay and square it off a bit with your fingertips. With X-acto knife, slice your snake into chopped egg white pieces. Bake these in oven at 200 degrees for 10 minutes.

Put a bit of liquid Sculpy in a paper cup and stir in just a touch of yellow acrylic paint. (The proportions of yolk mixture to chopped egg whites has to be determined by YOU for the look of real egg salad.) Mix your egg whites into your yolk mixture. Put some into a miniature bowl or spread on sandwiches. Bake all again as above.

Mary Eccher

Mineral Oil can certainly be used in canning jars instead of resin with no ill effects on the clay addition. Just make sure the clay is well-baked and that you seal the jars tightly.

Mary Eccher

Egg salad: I have never made this, but here is how I would do it: Make a small snake of white Model Magic and allow to dry. When completely dry, chop into small pieces. Mix a little acrylic gel medium, a little glue, and dabs of white and yellow paint until it is the right color. Add just enough glue mixture to the chopped "egg" pieces to coat them and stick them together, allowing a few spots of white to show through if desired. Spread on your bread or in a bowl and allow to dry.

You could also use polymer clay for the egg, I bet, but one of the advantages of the Model Magic is that it's squishy even when dry, so it might look more natural. Polymer clay pieces might stick up in funny ways.

Celeste in Boston

Porridge/Oatmeal: I have done this... mix finely chopped rolled oats with two part casting resin. Add a little white gallery glass over the top for milk.

Charleen

Corks for Spice Jars:  I haven't seen anyone mention using round toothpick sections to simulate the corks in your mini spice jars.  I made some bottles to go in a mini spice shelf using the tiny plastic tubing, with different colors of paint - green, beige, rust, etc. - to suggest the spices, and the toothpick corks worked perfectly.

Wanna in El Paso

Jars: Try cutting plastic dowel rods and adding a finding for a cap. Looks great, easy and cheap.

LadyBug