Mini's with kids:  My great-niece who is 8 was checking what I was doing and I am working on the Debbie Young 1/4" cottage at the end of the lane.    She said that she wished that she had something to make and I remembered that Print Master has workshops of little houses and shops to glue and put together.

I have printer paper which is index size so printed down some for her to do.   So far she has done a house, church, pizza place and pet shop and I have printed down the school, farm house, gas station and bank.    She wants more!

The nice thing about them is that they can read the instructions and do them themselves which she was so proud of doing.

Isabel-CT

Coloring Book: Here is a Dutch site with 1554 printable 'things' to color:
http://www.kleurplaten.nl/

Marjon de Haas

Eileen

Does Microsoft Paint make you want to scream? Do you want to learn to make your own printies? Go see my lessons at:

http://www.geocities. com/microsoftpaint/Microsoft_Paint_Lessons_Home. html

Sarah in Iowa

50’s Food: This is for everyone looking for food items and their packaging from the 50's.

http://www.hometownfavorites.com

They have lots of pictures you can save, resize and print out, and you can even buy the real thing. This isn't a mini site, but is a great resource for anyone recreating that era in miniature.

Lorrie

Blue Willow: If you can find plain white ginger jars, you can print off several copies of the blue willow plate pattern from one of the china matching sites, then spray with acrylic to seal and use nail scissors to cut the motifs and decoupage them onto the jar. Or if your jar need not open, stack beads to get the shape, paint, and decoupage. I had a fine time this way making "china" for Olivia's house -- used button plates and saucers, with cups made from the tiniest size of bells painted to match with alphabet pasta D handles, then decoupaged with bits of the china pattern.

Don't know what your fruit juice packaging is like over there, but in the States it comes in half-gallons with a screw-on cap safety-sealed with pull-tabs attached to slightly cupped white plastic circles that make dandy bowls decoupaged the same way. The pull-tabs have plenty of other DIY uses - wreath bases, hanging loops for scarf-type curtain swags, cut in half to use as bead-vase handles, etc.

Loretta. Sniarowski

Blue Willow: An option, if you have a scanner, find a design in catalog, magazine etc. or draw one. Scan, reduce and print on decal paper. Transfer onto a solid white plates, etc. and there you have your willow design! Fimo plates are also an option using the same method. If you are applying a design onto a colored plate, jar, canister, etc. you can print out on light tracing paper, apply to plate and Modpodge for a finish.

Brooke, Wa

Printing Rugs: This may be old news to some of you, but I just discovered a way to make quick, easy and inexpensive rugs. Using free printable rug images I just printed them on flocked "velour" paper. I set my HP printer on "Special Paper" and selected the "Best" quality setting then printed them and cut them out. They look great....nice detail, realistic, vibrant color and they have a nice fuzzy feel to them. They certainly don't rival the beauty and craftsmanship of a hand made rug, but in a pinch and on a budget, they might do the trick. I got a nice big package of velour paper online at Bender-Burkot School Supply. Here is a link to the paper:

http://www.bender-burkot.com/

John Medeiros

Printing Rugs: I have been printing rugs using fuzzy paper which I am sure is the same as suede paper. You can find fuzzy paper at the following site. I haven't had any problem with my printer. http://www.paper-paper.com/fuzzy-paper.html

Phyllis

Printing Rugs: When I print paper rugs, I dry mount them on poster paper or card stock. Use rubber cement to paint back of rug and top of poster paper. When it's dry, stick 'em together. Then I use a fabric fringe. I have been using a piece of cloth from inside an old necktie. It is beige and coarse. Very easy to glue to the edge of the rug and pull out extra threads to fringe.

Linda in Leroy, OH

Rugs: I am probably the last person to figure this out, but I found a nice way to make a rug last night. I had a leftover piece of cream-colored suede scrapbook paper that I had used for carpeting in one room. I printed a rug from Eileen's printable site onto T-shirt transfer paper. In spite of my doubts, when I ironed the transfer onto the suede paper, it turned out beautifully and has a nice weight to it. Just what I wanted.

Judy

Robert Redford: Ladies. . . I have heard your pleas about Robert Redford and have made you all a St. Pats day present. . . here is a whole page of Robert Redford printies I put together this morning for you. . . just print out the whole page and cut em out. Enjoy!

http://www.wishbooktoys.com/dollhouse/redfordprints. jpg

John Medeiros

Holidays

Easter Printables: Someone was asking about Easter printables - I have found this site, which has two pages of them: http://printies.homestead.com

Jan, Rethymnon, Crete

Chrysnbon Plates: About using the reducing method and patterns from the china-replacement site, I left out a couple of things that might help. I used the luncheon-sized plates.

For my project, I reduced the images I obtained from the china-replacement site. The one thing that made it easy for me was that my china is made by Nikko in the Christmas pattern and has a tree in the center of the plate with no pattern on the rim. After getting the proper reduction and printing on photo paper, all I had to do was use a round hole punch to cut out the tree, glue it to the center of the plate and put a final coat of nail polish on to give it a shiny china look.

It also helps to put down a strip of double-sided tape and set the plates on it while working on them. That way they won't slip and slide away from you.

Dolores

Printable party items: Mini's by Mel   http://www.efn.org/~variscom/ has a lovely printout page with party plates and cups project.

Jean

Mini Aquarium....I had the nicest thing happen a while ago. Chris who has a printables web site e-mailed me to let me know I was the "think tank" for her new aquarium printable. I had made a printable for my site of transparencies of fish for a tank and Chris made a tank with nice fish too. Chris's site has some wonderful printables and is called Dollhouse Miniature Printables

http://members.tripod.com/~cwoolse/miniprintables/index.html

Jean Day

Oriental rug: I've been pining for a beautiful mini oriental rug for a long time. I checked out a stunning Oriental rug book at the library and scanned some of the rug photos. I scanned at 400 dpi and converted the colors from RGB (red-green-blue) to CMYK, (cyan-magenta-yellow-black) for even more intensity. (I did the color conversion in CorelDRAW 9.) I printed the rugs on light-grayish cardstock with a bit of rag content and it looks great. I'll add fringe. But the killer result happened when I printed the Oriental rugs on the new art canvas paper available at large computer stores. Words cannot even describe how realistic this looks. The art canvas paper really gives the texture this look needs. Since this special paper is meant to go through your printer, I like this much better than putting fabric through the printer. I'll put a finishing spray on the Oriental rugs and display them proudly.

Leslie Ann, CA

Brodnax Prints: Just wanted to let everyone know - Jean Brodnax sent me an e-mail today to let me know their website is up and running.  They have wonderful one inch, half inch, and quarter inch scale wallpapers (just in case some of you don't know about them :))  Anyway, the website is http://www.brodnaxprints.com

Mary Lynne in Huntington, WV

Printable Bible: Barbara's printies site has a bible cover with a two page spread with words from an open bible.  She also has many other wonderful things.  Her page takes a while to load but it is worth the wait. http://www.printies.homestead.com/

Parisa