Blocks of Foamcore - Try the home supply places like Home Depot or Home Base and look at the 2 inch insulation Foamboard used to insulate houses (real ones) it's a lot cheaper and very easy to glue using construction adhesives such as Liquid Nails. A 4' x 8' sheet costs about 20 bucks and you will have enough foam to build Mt. Everest. I use it to build my castle towers it's light, strong and easy to work with. You can cut it with a sharp knife or use a table saw or scroll saw for smaller pieces both work great. I personally find it indispensable in building and scenery ( hills and things).

Rik Pierce

Wood Warping - Solid wood moves with moisture content. In a heated house it will lose moisture and shrink a little, but not evenly. If you could see the growth rings on the end grain of a board they would be curved. As the wood dries out the growth rings tend to straighten. The only way to stop this is either to maintain the moisture content or capture the lumber by force. This is why dovetails on full scale pieces are marked and cut the same day the lumber is milled. This is also why it is proper to have the concave side of the rings on the outside faces of a box or drawer to keep the edges from pulling apart as the lumber dries.

Solid wood is not like fabric.... You can make it flat by ironing it or training an elephant to dance on it, but, unless you stress the wood and damage the structure, it will reassume its original shape.

It may stay flat for a while, but beware... unless you glue it or fasten it in some other manner it will almost always resume its bow.

Pete

Cedar Wood Source: IBEC in British Columbia sell miniature cedar wood- shakes, strips, all sorts. Their catalogue on computer is: http://www.ibecwoodproducts.com

Laura

Plastic polish: Try Blue Magic in the MicroMark catalog. Unfortunately, it's a (comparatively) huge 19 plus oz jar - for 11.95. A club could go together and get a jar and divide it up.

W. Marie

Tiny beads: Fascinating Folds carries several colors of tiny beads. They are perfect for miniatures. I also get my quilling supplies through them.

Sandy Balignasay

A Small Stuff Badge: Tracey Joy has designed a badge that you can print out and make into a pin or sticker, wear it to mini shows and find your Small Stuff buddies! Go to http://www.miniature.net/smallstuff/images/ssbadge.gif and right-click on the picture to save it, or simply click the print button in your browser.

Anne

Pocket Watch Cases: Pocket Watches are sold at: http://www.hobbyklok.nl They also sell the domes.

Marjon de Haas

Loofah: A loofah is a gourd - in the squash family, and grows on a vine. It grows REAL well here in the Southwest as it loves the heat and doesn't need much water. When it is green and on the vine, it is edible. (If you are REALLY hungry!) But, when it dries, the outer shell becomes very brittle and can be crumbled off. Inside is the Loofah you get at the stores (and swap meets), and that structure is full of seeds. Shake out the seeds, and there is a loofah! It just needs to be rinsed out to be ready to use. No part of the loofah is toxic as far as I know. For those of you unfamiliar w/a loofah, it's shaped like a cucumber with an internal structure similar to a sponge. They can be used as is, or can be cut and flattened into a sheet. They are most often used in the bath as they exfoliate the skin. But, they sure have many uses in miniature when texture is needed. They can be used in landscaping, and can also be used in faux painting.

Nicole Walton Marble

Thin Glass: Someone mentioned using microscope slides. They are 3 mm thick. Some have a section of ground glass at one end of the slide. For ULTRA thin glass try using the cover slip for the slide specimen This is optically clear and is much, much thinner than the 3 mm slide, some where around 1/2 mm.

Bob, Hollywood, FL

Dean Jensen/Thin Glass: I'm sorry to say that Dean Jenson is no longer doing miniatures due to poor health. This was in his last Newsletter to me in May. A loss of a very talented man. However, he has sold portions of his business. Thin glass is now being carried by: George Wrisley, 17784 SE Paradise Drive, Milwaukie, OR 97267 (503) 653-2591. He also sold his Roo Glues and Rainbow Design Items in 1"; 1/2"; and Quarter Inch items to other people to continue.

Ruth, Grass Valley, CA

Thin Glass: Microscope slides are not what one would want to use for window glass. They are a bit thick. Cover slips are VERY thin (.13mm to .25mm) and could work as individual panes in a window. I've found them at various scientific supply firms (VWR, Daigger, Thomas Scientific) in various sizes (20x20mm, 20x30mm and 20x40mm). If anyone is looking for "portholes", there are also round cover slips available (15mm and 18mm diameter generally), but these are pretty expensive. I think someone still makes a plastic cover slip, but the ones I used a few lifetimes ago turned yellow. Science-wise they were the pits .... miniature-wise they were worse than the pits. I did use a hole punch to make small circles for mini "spinning aircraft propellers" from them, but was not that pleased with those either. I'd avoid any plastic ones you may find .... unless they're free.

Howard, Concord, CA

Quarter inch stained glass windows: For the leading in stained glass windows try one strand of black embroidery floss and glue. Put the plastic ("glass") sheet over your pattern. (I reduce/photocopy from full-sized stained glass patterns to get quarter scale.) Then using a toothpick or needle-pointed scribe, put a thin line of glue down the black lines (lead lines) in the pattern. Start from the middle of the pattern and work out. When the thread lines dry, you can go in and paint the stain into the various blank spots. I do both sides this way which makes a very lifelike looking window.

Pat

Ronnie Curran Figures: The egg people have Ronnie Curran figures in their catalogue.

http://www.teepeecrafts.freeserve.co.uk

The figures are shown bigger than normal and ...included in the catalogue is the 1/48th scale plastic furniture, so this will give you an idea of how much they have been enlarged. The catalogue has lots of things for using in miniatures. The only connection I have with Tee Pee is that Pat is a friend of mine and I recently did a workshop at her dolls house club

Hazel Dowd

Thorne Rooms: For those who live in the Western US or plan a trip to Arizona for the winter, the Phoenix Museum of Art also has a series of the Thorne Rooms on display. Not as many as the Chicago Museum, but enough to make it worth the trip.

Here is a link to the museum site: http://www.phxart.org/index_events.html

Phoenix Art Museum owns 21 Thorne Miniature Rooms and the rest are in the Art Institute of Chicago (68), the Knoxville Museum of Art (9), The Indianapolis Children's Museum (1), and the Kaye Miniature Museum in Los Angeles (1)

Bonnie Gibson, Tucson, AZ

Wedding cake columns: PCV pipe?? It is available in 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch and up. Find it in hardware stores, cut it to size with a hack saw.

MAP in Puyallup

1/4" Mice and Rabbits: I don't remember who was looking for mice, but I carry 1/4" scale mice and rabbits that are perfect for fantasy settings or 1/4" scale houses. Approximately the same size as quarter scale people, one holding a baby, one serving wench mouse, a mouse on a scooter, etc. Contact me privately if you want pictures shaunpf@centramedia.net. I also updated my web page http://purefantasy.centramedia.com

Shaun Crawford

Small Horses: Hearth Song Toys in California have flocked animals that are smaller than 1/12 scale. I believe they are made in Europe. The horses are charming. http://www.hearthsong.com/

They also have some realistic looking plastic ones (you could flock them yourself) that are 3 to 5 inches tall.

Anne Gerdes

Ghostly Girl: Just a quick note about the ghostly girl. Idea: Put her in a very dark corner. Take a slide transparency of an appropriate little girl. These can be done at a photo shop, or made at a copy shop with a color copier, although the color on these wouldn't be as dark or rich. (Maybe that would be a plus?) Blacken the entire area around the girl with India ink and brush, or black paint. Now you've got a picture that light will go through, and there's nothing but black around her. Put her in a dark corner with a dim light behind her...not just the bare bulb, but with a bit of tape, paper, or something else to diffuse the light a bit. You can add a little curl to the picture, (vertically, not horizontally) by either making a bent "frame" out of black cardboard, or by simply putting clear tape on top and bottom, from one side to the other, but only holding at the end. (Imagine the tape is a bow string, and the slide is the bow...) That would give it a little more roundness to the viewer.

Dave Pierce

Scale and Proportion: I think all things in real life aren't equal. :-) When you scale me down to 1/12th I would look ridiculous in a dollhouse (more like 1/10th than 1/12th scale). :-)

Just measuring doesn't always help, as you said. There's the mass, the proportion, the detail of a piece. What would work in one setting won't work in another. A perfect 1/12 copy of a vase in a monumental hall in a big old house will look out of scale in the hall of the average Greenleaf. :-) There are some cases where a slightly out-of-scale item actually looks better than a perfectly scaled piece. All tables are roughly the same height, but in real life you have dainty tables and tables with course, fat legs, too.

A table that's slightly too big might look just perfect in a log cabin.

I usually just see if something 'looks right'. When I doubt, I take a photograph. Usually stuff shows up on photographs that you don't see when you're working on something.

Karin Langeveld

Scale and Proportion: Most dollhouses are not to scale. We (designers) typically use 9" to 10" ceilings. Modern houses are 7.5' to 8', Victorian were 9' to 13', colonial were 6' to 8'. We make them taller so its easier to see into the rooms and to work in the rooms. Front to back we tend to use 12" to 16" which should be 12" to 14" more typically. Width we use 8" to 12" to keep the houses from becoming unwieldy, 12" to 16" would be better. The diecut people (Greenleaf, Corona, Artply, etc) use even smaller dimensions for their rooms (6" and 8" are common), thereby making true 1" scale furnishings look too large.

Most dollhouse furnishers/collectors put too much into their dollhouses, making the rooms look small and the furniture large. Hey, but what the heck, its all for fun anyway so do what you like. Rather than worry about absolute scale, life will be much easier if you just make it look right.

Tom Berkner