Wood Storage / Organization: I keep a good deal of wood around. For my stripwood I have a Housework's display box that has holes already cut out, but a liquor box or similar with dividers works too. I cut down some oatmeal boxes for some compartments, others have paper towels cores. All the like pieces are grouped together. For those small pieces I have a juice can on my work desk to hold the assorted pieces.

Beth

Non-sticking labels: I had the same problems with labels not sticking to plastic drawers, or else sticking so permanently I couldn't blow-torch them off. My daughter-in-law gave me a box of her outdated business cards. Full size or cut to fit, these are great to use for labels to tuck just inside smaller clear plastic boxes or drawers.

Those business cards are also ideal for many other miniature uses. Good backing for posters, paintings, wall plaques. Make excellent small boxes, using a pattern to score and fold, or round containers by rolling a pen or dowel over the card to make it curl. I've made birdhouses and shingles and 1/4 inch furniture; also used them for reinforcing printables that needed a bit more weight. They make good glue spreaders, too.

Wanna

Saving scraps: This is a little tip for beginners and anyone else that is building a slot and tab dollhouse.  I have had mine under construction for a number of years and a few moves (waffling about the wiring) and in the process managed to misplace the dormer roofs.  Tried to measure and cut new ones and there was too big a gap between dormer roof and main roof as I had to cut it on an angle.  Was looking through the box the other day and looking at parts I had not popped out yet when I realized I had the outline/pattern from the dormer roofs right there in the scrap pieces that I, as a life time member in packrat anonymous, did not throw away.   I just laid that on a new piece of wood traced it and cut it out.  Much better fit.  So it pays to keep the outline of parts you used even if you finish the house in case you ever need to replace it.

Elizabeth Cooper

Labels - Purchase plastic self-stick business card pockets (any office supply store, Office Depot, etc.). Then you can change the label anytime you like without removing the pocket for you only have to replace the card label that you have slipped inside.

Marilyn

Organizational tips: Here are a few of my organizing tips, some original, some gleaned from who-knows-where, to add to yours.

1) Watch for daily- and weekly-dosage medicine/pill holders in drugstores and dollar stores. I found clear plastic snap-lidded boxes, with seven tiny daily boxes inside, very cheap. Excellent

for tiny beads and jewelry findings. Also found a handled tool designed to open difficult medicine bottle caps in the same bin, 99 cents. It's perfect to pry open caps on paint bottles and lids on cans.

2) I have a row of those fold-together cardboard boxes in a pretty rose print on the top shelf for things I don't use often and don't need to see into. Rather than mess up the box with a stick-on label, I just take a sheet of paper, fold it in half and hang it over the edge of the box, leaving enough room to write the label so it will show with the lid on. The lid holds it in place.

3) My husband made me a workbench from a piece of Formica kitchen counter top, which cost about $12, with four screw-on legs. Practically impervious to paint or stains, and not as deep as my previous one, which was an old hollow core door, it's still deep enough for a row of those multi-drawer organizer boxes across the back. Under it is a large popcorn can which holds rolls of wallpaper and wood strips in cardboard tubes, as well as a small rolling cart which once held an old Atari game, and a small 3-drawer night stand, formerly our son's. The cart holds all my 1/4" stuff and the night stand's drawers hold tools, paper cutters, mitre boxes, etc. The workbench legs are set far enough back that I can roll easily up to it in my chair and not have my knees press against the night stand.

4) On my workbench I keep one of those self-healing cutting mats at my work area. On the right side I have a small sleeve board, with my iron on it, and a multiple outlet surge protector is screwed onto the table's end, into which I plug the iron and my magnifying light, and other electrical tools as I need them. I also keep a round kitchen turntable, the kind that rotates on ball bearings, close by. (These can often be found at secondhand stores, dollar stores, and garage sales, as well as regular housewares stores.) I place a tall heavy paint or even food can, with a dab of wax or stickum on top, in the center. When I'm making a flower arrangement I press down the small vase or basket or other container firmly and the wax or stickum holds it in place. This allows me to work closer to eye level, rotating as needed. Tools or materials are accessible placed around the can. If I want to work on a different project before that one is finished, I just set the turntable (can, materials and all) somewhere else until I can come back to it.

5) I also cut one-third off rolls of paper towels, foil, and wax paper, using a heavy knife, rotating the roll as I cut. These three small rolls I thread onto an inexpensive paper towel holder from the Dollar Store. The longer portions of the rolls, replaced in their boxes, still work fine in the kitchen. Another inexpensive wooden paper towel holder holds rolls of cellophane tape, floral tape, masking tape, ribbon and some of my small tools.

Wanna

Owl pellets: My child 's third grade class dissected owl pellets and found all sorts of bones.  If you contact an elem. teacher, she can tell you where to buy them or she may the leftovers you can have.

Jennie

Thicker Leather: I read that for thicker leather you can turn it over to the "fluffy" side and attack it with sandpaper, thus reducing the layers at the back - and hence some of the thickness.  Whilst I have some thicker leather at home, I still haven't got around to trying this, but it certainly sounds feasible - and if you can't use the pieces as they are it is well worth a try.

Jan

Wood storage: I use cut sections of 1 1/2 inch PVC drain pipe to store picture frame moldings. They are strapped horizontally under my bench. I band the short pieces together and keep them in the front. I store turning squares, 1/8" square to 3/8" square in the same type pipe mounted vertically to the wall along with some strip wood, metal bars and pieces of dowel. We store dowels in horizontal lengths of down spout attached to the wall which is an idea that came from somebody's posting on another list. The lumber I resaw is usually 2 to 4 1/2 inches wide and is cut 2 feet long. I band it in packs of ten and keep it horizontally in the big drawer of an old drafting table. Lumber rarely bows from being stored vertically if banded together.

Jane Staples was in our class at Ft. Lauderdale and does fantastic painting.Take a look at the site. As I recall, Jane's favorite subjects are horses. Really excellent work. http://tor-pw1.attcanada.ca/~jstaples/

Pete Boorum

Thick Leather: I got a half hide of thickish leather at an estate sale.  I think they'd bought it to reupholster a chair, because I also got the old leather upholstery.   I've used it for shoe soles and stacked layers to make boot heels (but the dolls were about 18" tall).  A few months ago, I made a stone tower, and was trying out different looks for the roof.  I decided on a witch's hat roof, made it up in cardboard, then tried to paint it to look like leather.  Came out looking like cardboard.  Finally realized it would be easier just to make it in leather!

You could use it to build suitcases; you'd just have to hide the thick edge.  Beveling the edges would work; so would finishing them with a narrow strip of thin leather.   I made a treasure chest out of an old carved-leather wallet, looks like carved wood.

Lee Menconi

Organizing: I have some of the clear plastic boxes ($4.99) with compartments from Walmart that have the tab (for hanging) in the fishing dept. I have half a wall in my laundry room full of these see-through boxes, and can spot anything. Each box is catagorized -- trim, flower containers, christmas, etc. But, the neat thing is, I just scan the wall and see things instantly. It works for me.

Barb

Show Tip:  Put your little tote bag full of goodies in a drawer or suitcase.  The housekeeping crew thought mine was trash and threw it away.  I learn something new every trip. 

Also, you know that when you get paint on your fingernails and it won't come off with soap and water? Try spraying them with hairspray then wash with soap and water. Voila!! Clean. 

Loretta Mozley

Thick Leather: Maybe a shoemaker can help with the thick leather you 're trying to "thin out". I've seen them trimming sole leather (thick), so maybe you can get help there. 

Joanne

Organic Materials: What I have done whenever I want a good cleaning and de-scenting is to bury the material in the ground for few weeks and let the little critters do their work. The bones and stuff come out real "stripped" Just a rinse and that should do it.

Bob

Clean and protect Tin: Just read in Dolls' Houses in America Historic Preservation in Miniature by Flora Gill Jacobs page 358: "This tip found in a column about antiques, was in answer to a question from a collector of tin trays who'd had bad luck with warm sudsy water (using a mild detergent).

A thin layer of warm Vaseline applied to the tin, and permitted to stand "for at least 24 hours," with the excess then wiped away with a soft cloth or tissue, was recommended for cleaning "any painted piece of tin--old or new." The writer promised that this method would not only prevent rust, but would brighten the paint. She advised a gentle rubbing with 0000 steel wool for stubborn rust spots."

Debi

International Purchases: In Denmark I go to the bank and buy a special check for the amount of dollars and I just snail-mail it. There is a fee like about 5 $, so if it is only for a few dollars, say like a catalogue this fee is really a nuisance, because there is no fee on the credit card-payment.

Birthe

International Purchases: Well what this British person does is have chums abroad, and they get me foreign stuff and send it to me, and I get them British stuff and send it to them. I nowadays get 80% of my mini stuff that I buy abroad, mostly from America and Australia. How do the finances work? Well, they just do. It becomes an honorable barter system -- you send me this, I send you that. Sometimes, I suppose if one were to sit down with a calculator, one party would have done 'better' out of the arrangement than another, but I have other things to do with my life than go down that route, and happily so do most other people.

Helen

International Purchases: English money (called Pounds Sterling) may seem to go farther in the USA - but the exchange charge added when the money order is purchased, or the dollar rate converted is usually high. Items in the USA are less expensive and if we afford the trip to the US, add the cost of the trip. When a US Hobby shop opens in England (one such Craft World in Swindon went out of business because of the high prices) prices for all craft items are usually double or triple the price of the US. For example, acrylic paints in the US can be bought for about seventy cents or even less each - here they are almost two dollars and sometimes three dollars each. Basswood is double the price, fimo is double, tools are sometimes a good buy at Miniatura. But at Miniatura for twenty or thirty pounds (one pound sixty two to the dollar, figure that price, wonder how many were sold). DAnne Ruff's pleaters are cut in half and the halves are sold for fifteen pounds each! The price for the pleaters is usually fifteen dollars - for the full size! A small piece of fabric (twelve by twelve inches) is usually a pound - in Joanne's or other fabric shop a whole half yard is a dollar fifty at most.

Julia

Mini Decals: If you look in the drugstore by the nail polish you will find great tiny nail decals that work well. I have also used very tiny stickers and then put a spot of sealer over them.

Dorothy

Mini Decals: http://www.microscale.com -- The best decals available. They do decals for all kinds of models - dollhouse, train, car, plane, etc.

Jeanne

Mini Decals: Use clear nail polish in three very thin coats on the item you wanted to use for the decal on a freshly printed copy. You had to let the nail polish dry thoroughly overnight and then the next day using a wet rag, carefully wipe the paper off the nail polished area. The nail polish would lift the ink and make a decal. It would be reversed though if you were trying to copy a name, etc.

Leslie