Popcorn: just break up styrofoam into little pieces, place into a bottle cap. Dribble on glue and let dry. To add butter, just color the foam with a yellow marker. Stand back and taste the flavor with your eyes. If it's not buttery enough, just add more.

lisa lynn

To make whole coconuts: Make a small, pea-sized ball of white clay. Cover with a thin (1/32") layer of brown clay. Use a razor blade to make striations (lines running from north/south) all over the coconut. Use the point of a dull wooden pencil to make three indentations (think about a bowling ball). Bake. Scrape the outside a little more with the razor blade to make it look less smooth. Cut halfway through the ball with razor blade; break open the rest of the way so that the division is not perfectly straight. Then gently insert the corner of the razor blade into the center of one half and turn to carve out a hollow in the center. It doesn't have to be perfectly round or smooth. Repeat with the other half.

Celeste in Boston

Popcorn: I used the styrofoam that my computer was packed in. The kind that breaks up into little pellets. I used an old coffee grinder to tear up the styrofoam. Use a very light yellow acrylic wash on it and it looks like popped popcorn.

Ginger in Springfield, Il

Popcorn: Styrofoam sheet - crushed up, separated "kernel by kernel", then loosely "reassembled" in a bowl with (yellow glass stain/glue mix) drizzled for butter, should work for popped. You can add "husk" to each kernel with felt tip pen(s), if you're really zealous! Very small seeds from "pickling spice" may be close for unpopped. The seeds also look great around corn shocks in a 144th scale Halloween/scarecrow scene. A mix of clear finger nail polish and yellow glass stain works even better as butter to drizzle over your popcorn than the glue/stain mix I mentioned earlier.

Linc

Dried coffee in the cup: Quite by accident, I discovered how to make a coffee cup that looks like its been left around for a while (no mold though). I wanted to make a full cup of coffee, but had such a disaster with resin in the pond that I thought I'd try something else. I used children's clear glue and mixed in a very little bit of coffee. When I poured it into the cup it looked like a cup of coffee, with some spilt onto the saucer. However, as it dried, it all evaporated or something and the coffee cup is empty with just a bit in the bottom of the cup, making it look like its been sitting around a while.

Laura Bentley

What I use for popcorn that is in a bowl, box, etc. I use landscaping material sold by Bill Lankford that comes in colors. It is used for flowers, shrubs and plant beds. Mix equal amounts of white, cream and yellow and it looks very much like in-scale popcorn

Patty Adamson in TX

Lettuce: Using acrylic paints in lettuce colors, add a bit of acrylic matte medium to the paint (which will add transparency and also make it more flexible). Spread a bit of the paint mix on glass, let it dry, then scrape it off with a razor blade, which will create a natural "lettuce leaf" look. This technique was one of "those" discoveries.....I use glass as a paint palette and was removing a light green "mess", when there it was, lettuce for a sandwich.

Another easy way (my favorite because it is instant) to "lettuce" a mini is to use torn bits of stretched, light green floral tape...small bits for a salad and larger for a sandwich and larger yet to form a head ....which, by the way. is easy to do with the tape as it sticks to itself. Spraying or lightly coating the tape lettuce with a fixative will protect it and make it a bit more sturdy.

For this and many more veggies check out NN Sept/ 1990..The Fair Booth (I think it is called).

Joann

Model Magic: Model Magic is great for breads: make your loaf or buns, coat with coloured chalk, then slice. Looks just like it. And you can snip up dried-up old stuff into bits for a potato salad. I got this from "I Love Minis" in Calgary.

Leslie Carmichael, Calgary

ICE CUBES: A while ago there was a discussion on ice cubes, but I came up with a new method which I didn't see in the archives, so here goes: There is a product called Aleene's Shrink-It (it's the plastic sheet from Shrinky-dinks, if you remember that toy.) You cut it into pieces and bake them, and they shrink and thicken. Cut small squares from the plastic (I used about 1/4" squares), throw on a baking sheet, and bake according to the directions. The squares bake to about the thickness of a nickel--voila, mini ice cubes. You could also cut tiny, irregular pieces and, after baking, use for crushed ice.

Celeste in Boston

Model Magic: Model Magic makes marvelous marshmallows! MMMM!

Alice Zinn

Another ice cube idea....The little plastic beanie things sold in bags in fabric stores for people to make their own beanie babies with works great and is ready to use right out of the bag with no fuss!

Linda Gibeault

Model Magic: I love model magic for any kind of ice cream.

Becky

Puff Paints: Maybe you could use the puff paint for fluffy cremes, meringues, cookie or biscuit dough or ice cream or frozen custard.

Joanne from South Jersey

Canned Goods: I use cut up dowels for making canned goods. I just glue on the label and use silver paint on the top and bottom and draw a circle with gray to make the lip of the can. Here is a URL for antique labels: http://www.sover.net/~oldlabel/unframed.html It has really beautiful labels of all sorts.

Parisa Javidi

Canned Goods: You can use the metal eraser holder bands on top of pencils for mini cans. Since they will be open on the top and bottom, you can glue silver sequins to both or one of the ends if you want.

Anita Myers, Maryland

Resin Coloring: You can color resins with special resin dyes, paints, glass stains, etc. Don't try food coloring, tho....I did that and it won't mix into the resin - just stays in little blobs, like a lava lamp - LOL! Clear resin dyes and glass stains will give you - obviously - a clear liquid effect, while paints and opaque glass stains will work for liquids like milk and orange juice, hot chocolate, gravy, stuff like that.

Laura in OKC

Resin Coloring: There are dyes and colors compatible to Envirotex available at your craft shop or from my web site http://www.pannikins.com/. Some people have good results using glass stain for color, but I have found that sometimes the color changes from what you mixed during the curing. Have fun with your beverages!

Mary Eccher

Build your own "Cookbook" from my Website: You asked if I still have my project booklet. I haven't had those for years. When I was writing the Mary's Menus articles on Fimo and resin for Nutshell News, I put that booklet together from copies of the articles. Well....as the number of articles increased, it became very costly to continue the booklet.

BUT.....for anyone interested in learning about modeling compounds and resin in miniature cookery, I have a plan and I hope you will like it. As of today, my WORKSHOP link at my web site http://www.pannikins.com/ was uploaded.....the very beginnings of it anyway. There you will now find information on ALL ABOUT MODELING COMPOUNDS, ALL ABOUT RESIN (dispelling some of the misinformation out there), the GINGERBREAD MAN project, and the WITCHES' BREW project. The EGG NOG will go up there tomorrow. This is just the beginning. My intention is to post many, many more projects (for the novice as well as for the advanced student) to my web. Each and every project at the Workshop link will be fully able to be printed out easily. Therefore, those interested, can compile the projects into a folder of some sort and create their own instructional miniature cookery book. All I ask is that these projects not be used for monetary gain, either by submitting them as articles of your own to the magazines, writing your own book using my techniques, or becoming a dealer at a show creating just my projects, instead of using your imagination to create your own. Yes, all these things have happened to me in the past 20 years. You are welcome to use the projects for your own use, club projects, or to develop your own talents with your own projects using the techniques mentioned...and I truly hope you do so.

Mary Eccher

TAMALE WRAPPERS: could you use the inner-most layer of real cornhusks? They are much more flexible and delicate than the darker green outer layers.

Loretta Sniarowski

The best "shredded" coconut is made by drilling holes in lucite or plexiglass, and salvaging the shavings. Size of shreds, of course, depends on the size of the drill bits you use.

Mary Eccher