Faux Finishes - This site is called "Faux like a pro" and tells you lots about faux finishes (full scale, but useful). However the bit I liked was a section where you can try out different colour combinations for your rooms to see what they will look like. You can select furniture colour and everything. Here is the link:

http://www.fauxlikeapro.com

Barbara B from South Africa

Mary Engelbreit (ME) Sites:

http://www.giftsinc.com/mary_engelbreit.htm

http://www.mbol.com/me.htm

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pointe/2049/engelbreit.html

Maria in MD

Hanging Pictures: My mom's general crafts club do a lot of projects decorating sweatshirts, hats, aprons, etc., and sometimes use an Aleene product called Stick It Again & Again which lets you glue things together but then peel them apart without leaving residue. Maybe that would work better than tacky wax to hang dh pictures, which are pretty lightweight. I plan to borrow some from Mom over the holidays to experiment with.

Loretta Sniarowski

Hanging Pictures: I've found that I can get the marks caused by tacky wax on furniture and floorboards off with acetone (nail varnish remover), but it's important to check in a corner first, as acetone dissolves some varnishes. I like to put my pictures up with tiny nails (dressmaker's pins cut down work well, but get brass ones, or they rust after a while) and thread or fine chain. Sometimes they even go crooked, which is authenticity if you like!

Lynne Connolly

Hanging Pictures: I am a die hard fan of mounting putty. The only caution is that it will leave a slightly greasy spot if you don't seal your wallpaper. I use it to hold everything down - the furniture, the coasters, magazines, lamps, Kleenex boxes - everything. I like to change things around until I get them just right and I found it is good if you are going to transport your house or room. You only need a tiny amount of it so don't go overboard. I caution again that it would not be good on walls painted in flat paint

Rebecca

Removing Marks left by wax: I have had the same problem with the wax leaving a greasy mark. When I started in minis in 1980, I always felt if a little wax was good then a big glob would hold even better. So I had a big greasy mark. I used mineral spirits and the mark was cleaned. Do not soak the paper or rub hard, but this will work.

Carroll H. Elmer

Fabric as Wallpaper: I did one wall of the Percussion studio box room with fabric as I was trying to get the coarse grass cloth type effect. I used tacky glue, spread it thin on the wall and pulled and stretched the fabric until it was straight and tight, then smoothed it out and let it dry well. Then I just used a sharp x-acto to trim where necessary. If you were to use thin fabric you might have to experiment a bit with glues to find one that wouldn't bleed through or discolor the fabric. Tacky or Yes glue would probably work if put on thin and smooth enough.

Bonnie Gibson in Tucson

Fabric as Wallpaper: I use a product called "Wonder Under" (made by Pellon) to attach fabric to cardboard, wood and foam core. Its an iron on product, like interfacing, that you can get at any fabric/craft store. It has a double adhesive. You iron one side of it to the fabric and then peel back the paper on the other side to iron it to the cardboard. To cover a wall you can cut a piece of card to fit your wall, iron it to the piece of card and then glue the card to the wall. Or, if you don't want to have the wall be permanent just use double faced tape to secure it. Its great because it is a nice, smooth finish. You don't get any of the discoloration or bubbles that some glues leave. I used it to attach the fabric on the out side of my Southwestern corner box. It is constructed out of gatorboard.

Leslie, in Buffalo

carpets / rugs: This may have been mentioned before but there is a product available here called "image maker" made by Dylon. You can transfer pictures to fabric very easily with time and patience. I have made some wonderful carpets and rugs using felt as the base and then hand sewing all the tassels on for the finishing touch. It costs about $13 N.Z and there is enough to do several depending on the size and of course you also need the picture you want to transfer. In my case I did patterned rugs.

ROBYN L MITCHELL in New Zealand

Grapevine Wreaths: I make grapevine wreaths by wrapping wire with the brown floral tape. The irregularities in the wrapping make it more realistic. After you cover about a foot or two of wire, wrap it around some sort of container to give it shape (film canister, pill bottle, etc.). After two or three wraps, remove from container and cut wire another foot or two. Finish wrapping wire with floral tape and then wrap in and out of the circle. I've even wrapped smaller wire around a pin and painted it brown to make the tendrils. This makes a beautiful wreath to decorate, but could also serve as a base for any other wreath material.

Martha South

Holly wreaths - a really easy DIY base: the plastic rings left on plastic Bottles when the cap is removed - Water, Pepsi etc. These can be covered in florist tape, ribbon or tinsel. They look very effective over fireplaces.

Chrissie London

One more wreath technique. If you don't want a deep, dimensional one - I have made them by using either a rubber gasket (many sizes) or cutting a ring out of card board and also cutting out the inner circle and painted it green before gluing the lycopodium or Finescale to it and any other trims you want.

Jeanette in Wauwatosa, WI

Icicles: Haven't tried this, but why wouldn't this work? Lay strips of fine white thread down on waxed paper and with a toothpick drip and drag glue downwards, to different lengths, at intervals along the thread. Let dry and lift off the waxed paper. The flat side would toward the house. For more dimension You could go back and drip more on the first layer that had dried. Let me know if it works, if you try it!

Betti from MS

Christmas Tree: Anne Gerdes has a page on her site giving wonderful directions for an evergreen tree, or Christmas tree.  http://gerdesdesign.com/tree.htm

I modified the directions and used as a base one of the "bottle brush" trees instead of the foam and it came out great!

Donna in Montana

If your lycopodium Christmas tree starts to dry out, spray it with a mixture of alcohol and glycerin.

Tom Berkner

Christmas Stockings This is in response to a request for Christmas Stockings: I have Christmas Stocking Cross-stitch kits on my web site. I sell them finished as well. They can be found on the Cross-stitch Kits page at http://www.weedarlings.com.

Debra

Christmas Stockings: One way to get a variety would be to use needlework catalogs (Herrschners, Mary Maxim) and make decals out of stocking pictures. Coat suitable pictures with layers of decoupage medium, drying well between layers (5-7 layers, till it's fairly thick), then trim to stocking shape, soak and gently rub paper off, leaving color picture on back of medium. Tacky glue to fabric with good side of picture facing up, whip-stitch on a fabric backing, and make it look more realistic by embellishing with tiny lace, braid, beads, sequins, etc. and a hanging loop. To give appropriate credit, this is another great JoAnn Swanson idea from an old Nutshell

Loretta Sniarowski

Christmas Stockings: Recently at the Hoosier Miniature show there was the most talented family doing needlework. Miss Jeanne's Miniatures. You wouldn't have believed your eyes when you saw the craftsmanship and talent they possess. They also had quilts and pillows, more than I can recall at this time. I do think they also sold them as kits too. She is out of Dover Tennessee. Her email is msjeanne@compu.net. You might email her and see if she has a web site or can snail mail you a catalog.

Lisa Lynn

Fly fishing stores have spools of mini tinsel for your Christmas tree! It comes in gold and silver. The gold one is made by a company named "Danville's" and it's called Mylar Tinsel. The silver one says "Lagartun" Varnished French Tinsel. Unwrap some of this and put it on your mini tree or wind it around a small piece of cardboard to stick in a mini tinsel box for the mini procrastinators. They come in different widths. The ones I purchased are LESS than 1/16" wide.

Annie Olson

Floral Origami Paper: Small origami squares can be used as wallpaper panels if you have a small room to decorate. Cover the walls with a basic pale plain colour picked out of the floral design. Then cut the origami paper into panels paste onto card and edge all around with coving or similar to make a border. Paste the panels onto the ready papered walls and voila! . Oriental design panels were very popular in the C18th.

Karon