Polishing marble: When I paint faux marble surfaces I use three very thin coats of high gloss poly varnish. I use very, very fine steel wool in between each coat of varnish. It looks like highly polished marble when I am done. This should work for you.

Ann Fisher in Minnesota

Polishing marble: Use either tooth paste or automobile compound. They both are mild rouges (abrasives). It is a labor intensive project but the results are worth it.

DrBob...Delray Beach, FL.

Polishing marble: What you need is a very soft abrasive paste. The best thing I have used to polish any kind of stone, including marble, is polishing paste, one of the best ones is the one that dentist use to polish your teeth, they use another paste, yellowish color to polish dentures, and another one that is red, if you are in good terms with your dentist ask him for a small piece, use it with a Dremel rotary tool, and while you are at the dentist ask him for a rubber cup the same ones they use for cleaning teeth, and because it is slow speed you can attach to your Dremel tool, it is a good idea to use a variable speed, do it very slowly.

If you have scratches in the marble, you have to wet sand first, start with #400, then #600 and finish with #2000. After the sanding is done then polish it with the abrasive paste. If you do not have a Dremel tool use it with your regular drill very slowly, you can get attachments, for polishing for your drill.I have learned all this from my dad as he has a manufacturing company of polishing compounds, wheels and abrasives. I have used the different pastes to polish all kinds of metals and stones, including marble, coral, alabaster and soap stone. and they come out as new. If you need more info please let me know.

Fay Leisorek

Garden Hose: To make your own garden hose, go to Radio Shack or anywhere else that sells plastic covered wire for electronic use. Get the green-or another color if you like. Cut an appropriate length of wire. Either roll it in a coil with the wire for support, or try to strip out the wire.

Martha Simpson

Garden Hose: To make a hose I use wire that has a green plastic covering or you could paint some green. You could probably purchase green wire in the gardening section of a hardware store. To make the nozzle, use the end of a biro.

Karen from Dubai

Garden Hose: Go through your findings or go to the fabric store and get a grommet (those little metal things like a crownless hat that are inserted into belt holes to strengthen them). Then look through your medicine chest and glue supplies for an expired bottle with a very fine nozzle; cut away the rest of the bottle. Paint these pieces a matching brass color. Look around the hardware store to find plastic-coated wire the right diameter to fit inside the grommet, preferably green. Buy about 18 inches. Glue the grommet, quot;brim" side out to one end, the nozzle to the other. Coil around a paint bottle, tying raffia if necessary to hold shape.

If you don't have grommets, they have enough uses to justify buying a small box. Glued to the top of a fancy bead, they make the cup for a candleholder. Cut and paint a skewer slightly less than the width of your bathroom, slide a curtain onto it, put a grommet on each end brim side out, glue the grommets to the walls, voila, your shower curtain has been hung. Punch a paper crown for the grommet hat and use with pompoms or q-tips pulled off the stick to make tiny snowmen with top hats, etc.

Loretta Sniarowski

Garden Hose: I assume that the hose will remain in its coiled or what ever position it is placed in; therefore; Ideas;
1. Very thin rope of clay with "brass" spray nozzle
2. Appropriate thickness of wire, painted garden hose green.
3. Cotton twine (appropriate thickness) wet with glue so it can dry in the position you want and then paint.

Dr. Bob

Garden Hose: Cut bell wire in green or white to the length you want (20 inches looks best) remove green covering with a razor blade for the 2 ends (about 1/4 inch.) Using the barrel clasp from jewelry cut the jump rings off with wire cutter and glue end of wire through the tiny hole in each end of clasp with crazy glue (one side is a male and the other female fittings.) Let dry and roll hose around a medicine bottle and voila - Garden hose!

Gail

Flooring: A member of club wanted a stone floor for her kitchen. My other hobby is lapidary (stone) work and I have a 16" diamond saw I use to slice my rocks. Anyway, I took a wax 1/2 gallon milk carton and filled it with stones of the size that I wanted for the floor, then filled the carton with cement, not concrete - to much sand in concrete and wears out the sides of the blade. Let it dry for a few days then I placed it in the saw and sliced it like ham. I can cut some rocks down to 1/16" (break a few). Once cleaned of the saw's oil, I broke the stones out. Most of the stones I use are flint rocks and are harder that the cement The cement usually breaks first.

For wooden floors, I bought a 10"-100 tooth carbide tip blade from company that makes tools for pen and pencil set for $35.00. I can cut wood thinner than 1/32" with it but my flooring planks are usually 1/8" or more. Some flooring can be nailed but I glue most of them. Using glue requires a lot of attention since the board tend to lift up with glue on one side only. I have to wait for the glue to dry before adding 4 or 5 more pieces. It usually requires sanding since the planks cut on a table saw vary in thickness. I have built gazebos and a few doll houses and planked my floors using red cedar, walnut,oak or pine, the oak looks the best. I use the left over planking to shingle the roof (at 2500 shingles or more per roof) then clear-coat everything.

The biggest problem in wood flooring is finding fine grain wood. Some wood grains, like soft pine, is too course and throw the scale off. Some floors can be made using 1" wood pieces, turning each one 90 degrees to the next block. Different color wood makes a checkerboard floor.

Dan B.

Glove Pattern: There's a full-size glove pattern online at http://www.glove.org/site/default.htm, which you could probably scale down and use (or just use the thumbnails). I'd cut it out, not cut out the thumb hole, fold and glue together, then cut out the thumb and glue its two sides together and glue it on the body of the glove. The double thickness of the leather or cloth would make the glove look real.

Alternately, you could glue thin leather to itself, then cut out the gloves and thumb pieces and assemble. Of course be sure to make the right and left gloves different ;)

Maura Bass

glass jars with corks: whoever was looking for small glass jars with corks, they have them at From the Heart Miniatures: http://www.miniature.net/FromTheHeart/sale3.htm

Graceanne

Bottles in Light Bulbs: When I read the article about using burned out light bulbs to get little bottles, I was all excited and had to go right out and gather up all the light bulbs that might be lurking in multi bulb fixtures and try it. Unfortunately, I cannot remember where the article was. My first thought was an old NutShell News but I was getting several other books on minis that were available at the time so I am not sure and I also cannot begin to remember what decade it was in let alone what year. Anyway, in the article it said to first, use eye goggles and working gloves (not thin latex). These are not optional!!!. Then you take needle nose pliers and grip the "bottle" near the base where it is attached. Hold the screw part either in the other hand or a vise. Then give the pliers a strong, but gentle snap (now isn't that an oxymoron?) The bottle should snap right out. Then of course, the base need to be filed. A tip from Chemistry class here - we used to heat our test tubes to smooth out the rough top edge before use. This might work for the bottom of the bottle too. I hope this helps any one who is determined to do this. As a final note, I have no little glass bottles made from light bulbs. Every so often, I try again but I think my gentle snaps are too strong or something.

Mary Lou in Portage, IN

Mini check book: I was shredding old personal papers and stuff yesterday when I came across an ad selling decorated checks. An idea struck me about using this ad and now I have a mini check book wish it had real money in it but it still turned out cute. I scanned the ad into PSP and then cut the five checks out resized them and placed them on another graphic with a white border at the top of each check. After I printed them out I cut them apart and glued them together at the top where the white border is. Next I made a leather cover and glued it to the top of the checks. It turned out real cute although you can not read the checks you can still see enough detail to tell what they are.

Sclarise

Paper Plates: A fellow club member made me a set of paper plates using dh wallpaper and chrysonbon plastic plates as the mold. Just talked to her and here are her instructions.

#1. Cut as many circles "plates" that you will need + 2 or 3 extra for booboo's a bit bigger than a chrysnbon plastic plate from desired wallpaper. (Birthday, Holiday, patterned, or plain.) If you are working with a paper with special design, center the design in your circle. She cut hers by hand but you might find a hole punch large enough to speed the job along.(Or cut small squares instead and trim after shaping, and before removing from the forms.
#2. Soak your circles (or squares) in warm water for a few moments.
#3. Layer your circles between the plastic Chrysonbon plates (Plate, paper, plate, paper, plate, paper, plate. Always starting and ending with the plastic plates.
#4. Clamp with clothespin or other clamp and let dry overnight.
#5. Trim edges if needed before removing all the "sandwiches."
#6. If you want a finish just tack them to a board with blue tack, & spray lightly with a gloss or matt spray. Enjoy!

Diane in SFBA

On making bees from rice: I painted each grain of rice yellow & added black stripes with a thin tip marking pen. Then I cut tiny little wings out of plastic wrap & glued on the top of the grain. That was the hardest part - the plastic wrap had static and wanted to stick to me! I was able to find a cat whisker or two (thanks to Lucy & Simon) but you could also just use a paint brush hair to cut two little antenna - glue to head of bee. Make little dots for eyes. I glued mine onto a lilac bush. I have to admit they were quite time consuming & I threw away several. But they do look cute on the bush. And we all know, cuteness counts!!!! My daughter said that this project proved that I had lost my mind and do not have enough to do!!! I guess painting grains of rice does seem kind of strange. Let me know how your bees turn out. I bet you could even hang them from real fine fishing line so your bees could be flying about.

Carbomax

Cutting Eggs: To cut a hole in a chicken egg, lightly pencil the shape of your opening. Take ordinary white glue and apply a thin bead around the penciled line. Let dry thoroughly. Drill a tiny hole in the center of the area to cut by rotating the tip of a sharp Xacto blade around until you get a small hole. Then, you should be able to cut with those curved cuticle scissors. The glue will prevent the egg from cracking beyond that line. You should be able to lightly sand your opening smooth. Put the egg into a bowl of water with some bleach. This will kill any bacteria and remove the white glue at the same time. You can wipe it off with a damp towel.

Bonnie Gibson

Cutting Eggs: Thought I'd jump in on the egg discussion to tell you about the breed of chicken known as the Araucana, also known as the "Easter Egg Chicken". These hens lay various shades of green, blue, and sometimes even pink eggs. We raised several varieties of chickens and I can tell you these are also the hens with the sweetest personalities. Now if you take care of your little hens properly and feed them good food and let them in your garden to eat the bugs they will all have eggs with nice hard shells - not at all like the eggs you get from the grocery store. I made a little house in one of the Araucana eggs. I used a drill to put small holes in each end of the egg, then blew out the contents. I outlined the area I wanted to cut out with a pencil line and drilled a starter hole just inside the line, then used the smallest Dremel router bit to cut out the hole. The scale for the egg (in order to make a two-story house inside) worked out to about 1/8" (1:96) but I suppose if I had thought about 1:144 I could have put in an attic too! Anyhow, if you want to have a look at the egg it is on my web site http://www.minimotion.com under "Miniatures". The green color of it is the actual color of the egg as it came from our Araucana (well, after the egg was washed of course)! I did coat the inside with several layers of acrylic paint to help hold it together, and also touched up the outside where I cracked it (not saying how many times).

Tori West

Cutting Eggs: It's Science Fair time in Virginia. Last year my granddaughter did a project with eggs. She soaked an egg in vinegar for about 2 days. The shell becomes soft and rubbery. She used whole eggs, but you could use blown out shells and weight them down in some way to stay under the vinegar. Or you could just let it float. If it stays in the same place, you would have a soft side that you could cut. When you leave it out of the vinegar, it hardens again.

Martha

Tile Sealer: You might try using Deft Semi-Gloss spray on your tiles to seal them. Cut the tiles to fit your room then spray them before you glue them in. The more coats, the shinier they will be. I use two coats on the tile floors in my Southwest room boxes. Spray evenly and not too heavy. Several thin coats are better than 1 heavy coat. Let dry completely between coats. Sealing before grouting prevents the grout and water from penetrating the tiles and it also eases clean up of the grout. When the grout is completely dry, usually about 24 hours, you can spray one more time to bring the shine back to the tiles.

Spencer

Card Models: This site has links to free card models from all over the world you can just print out and use. http://www.cardfaq.org/

Whui in SF