Wicker: Have you looked at plain old crochet cotton? At our club we recently made dog baskets and plant stands using crochet cotton for the *wicker* medium and it worked really well. You can choose an off-white or ivory if you so desire.

Diana

Wicker: Butler's and Johnson's make unwaxed dental floss, which is what we have used for wicker furniture projects.

Ruth

Painting Wire Wicker Furniture: As wire or metal furniture normally needs a base coat, I would probably try spray painting them the color that you wanted over the white that is there. I would use a light spray paint like Testors that you can get at a hobby store. You may need two coats.

Isabel, CT

Chrysnbon finishing stain - Try using the stuff that comes with the kit. Paint it on one piece at a time and while it is still wet, lay a piece of Kleenex down on it and then pick it back up again. And strangely enough, it does end up looking more like wood. I did it on the sewing machine cabinet and was pleased with how it turned out.

Mary Lynne

Wicker: I saw a wicker baby buggy made over small-mesh hardware cloth (that's a wire mesh from the hardware store; you can get it with holes from about 1/4" to an inch or so. The wires run at right angles, making square holes, and every crossing is welded or fused, so it's very sturdy). It looked like the pattern for the body of the buggy was cut from the mesh, and white cording was woven in and out of the holes. Then the mesh was folded into shape and the seams covered (I don't remember how). The back was given a lovely curve, too.

Lee

If you are making furniture from scratch, and don't have the "real thing" to take measurements from, get out your SEARS catalog. It has furniture dimensions listed with the price and you can use the picture for reference.

Rachel Urbanowski

Real Life/Scientific Models Kits: This line was discontinued by the manufacturer a couple of years ago, unfortunately. Don't know if that addy will be useful or not.

Laura

I glue cording onto upholstered furniture with ordinary tacky glue and a toothpick. You must use the glue sparingly so it doesn't show, but even if it does, it dries almost clear. And as I've learned from later trying to remove the cording, it sticks really well.

Pat Molyneaux

House of Miniatures: Their address is 3890 Oakcliff Industrial Ct., Atlanta, GA 30340, phone #770-849-9907

Jo

Staining and Gluing: Try taping the glued surface before staining. Tiny strips of masking tape will work fairly well. Even normal Scotch tape helps. The stain will get under the edges a bit, but most of the wood will remain dry. When totally dry, remove the tape and glue as normal.

Judie

House of Miniatures: There are two entirely different companies called House of Miniatures. The one that makes the "kit of the month" furniture kits is a division of Houseworks in Atlanta. Barbara Syrcher has another business also called House of Miniatures. She used to have a shop in New York state but now just does shows. She does carry top quality items.

Beth

Leather Furniture: I had to refurbish old furniture that had been sitting around exposed and collecting dust for 15 years. It was really grimy. After recovering one sofa, which was extremely difficult, I decided to paint over the fabric of the other pieces with acrylic paint. It worked well, for the most part. However, there was one piece where someone had "painted" the flowers on fabric with magic marker. Every time I painted, the magic marker bled through. Finally, to stop the bleed through, I sprayed the painted fabric with polyurethane. The polyurethane on the terra cotta acrylic paint looked exactly like leather upholstery (and it stopped the bleed through). I painted one more time to cover the bleed through spots, sprayed polyurethane one more time and...Voila! Leather furniture. I'm sure this tip could be adapted with other finishes.

Tomi

Chrysnbon Kits: I've used a number of their pieces and have done the following to eliminate that "plastic" look. On the wood stove, spray with flat black paint after it's constructed (before adding the silver trim). On the white nursery furniture, spray with flat white. On the bathroom white pieces, spray with a white satin enamel. On the wood grain pieces, such as the medicine chest, sewing cabinet and toilet seat, I've used a wide tip permanent brown felt marker. It makes the grain stand out and really looks like wood. Haven't tried it on a chair (trying to get around all those little dowels?) or larger pieces.

Ruth

Wicker Furniture: http://www.uncleciggie.com/

This gentleman has wicker furniture kits.

Laura Busch in Burnham, PA

Chrysnbon kits- I buy these to use in "quicky" or inexpensive projects, because dollar for dollar they are the best looking and most affordable minis you can find. I use the individual pieces in a lot of vignette settings.

I often kit bash with them to make them different and I tend to paint them instead of using their stains. One TIP: use the liquid "plastic weld" type cement instead of the the glue that comes in tubes. You assemble the joint, and just touch with a bit of the liquid which will spread by itself. It melts and fuses the plastic without the messy strings and globs you get with the tube type cement.

Bonnie Gibson

"Cheap" Wooden Furniture for DIY'ers: Banner Craft stores in my area (formerly Ben Franklin) sell inexpensive wooden furniture for $l per package (Nicole Mini Wood Furniture-Made in China). It's the sort of thing Dollar Stores might sell, but I don't know if they do. The scale varies from l/l2 to l/24 approximately.

Purists, and many others among you, wouldn't touch this sort of thing, but being open to almost anything within reason, I found some pieces have hidden possibilities. They're OK anyway after giving them a mini to maxi makeover, involving refinishing to various degrees, and adding seat covers and cushions. Also the heights of some of the pieces required correction by gluing beads or whatever worked to the bottoms of legs. I do have to admit that some pieces of this furniture and other similar quality furniture, even I find hopeless.

The pieces I chose to work with - a couple of Victorian style settees, a chest with legs, dining chairs, and an arm chair - after receiving the "treatment" are still undeniably chunky-looking, but they're going into an equally chunky-looking dh - the "Halloween" House in Hobby Builders catalog. Not being a big Halloween fan, my house will have a different theme, yet to be decided.

Pretty soon, I'll have to get a job to support my hobby, then maybe I could afford higher quality dh furniture and accessories. Half my fun though, is in transforming doubtful-looking items into something that could pass muster in an appropriate setting, providing, of course, that you don't look toooo closely.

Also, someone asked about the wallpaper samples in the Secret Room. I found that most, if not all, are repeatable. I picked out a few I was interested in, then copied and saved them. Later, off-line when I had more time, I took them individually into Paint and by repeatedly using the "Paste" command, created a row, which I then copied and pasted again, and so on till I had a page filled. It worked quite well but perhaps someone else has a better or easier way. My computer knowledge isn't exactly comprehensive.

I shrunk some of the pretty boxes at this site to use in my dh. I think I reduced them by half, and they fit quite well into l/12.

Bea

Grandfather clock: I have had fun making a grandfather clock. It is black with a japanned finish. Block of wood, 7 inches high and square. Add an extra layer of wood on the bottom one and a half inches. Trim with cornice, mitred accordingly. Trim - cut fancy to form feet around the bottom. Another strip of cornice, mitred, two thirds of the way up. Fancy cornice around the top. False door added on front elevation. Hinges were filigreed tube bead / finding - added last. Spray painted with grey primer, sand, spray, sand, spray. I then spray painted with gloss black. Sand, spray, sand, spray. Took a colour photocopy of the clock I was copying and enlarged it to the size of my block of wood clock. Repeated the image so I had enough for the sides as well. Decoupaged it onto all faces except where the clock face goes. Touched up with gold pen. Added my (real) clock face and hands, some trim, and turned spindles on either side of the face. (Stair spindles cut to size).

Barbara B

Chrysnbon: I made the Chrysnbon organ last spring, and I was amazed that it did not look plastic when it was finished. I just followed the directions (took me a few tries to get the "tissue thing") and used the "stain" that was included in the kit. I did spray it with two coats of acrylic matte sealer when it was finished. That really made the difference.

Lauren Rein

Georgia Matuschak 1/4 scale: Lori Ann Potts of Mustard Seed Miniatures in North Vancouver, BC bought out Georgia's excellent line and has been doing some really neat stuff with it. You can contact Lori by email at mustardseed@uniserve.com

Debi in Quesnel

Modern Stove: A pretty convincing stove can be made with a block of balsa wood, some snaps used as the burners, and a little imagination in scoring lines to indicate the divisions between the oven door and the broiler, etc. Use spray enamel on the wood, otherwise you will never get a good finish.

Doris