Resources Page: 7 |
Spool-bed: get some Tiny Turnings (from local shop or one of SS's on-line dealer-members) and make your own. Most of the DIY books have bed patterns and instructions, and TTs are scale versions of spool work, so cut the head and footboards, side rails, and then substitute lengths of TT for the pattern bedposts. Loretta.Sniarowski |
Colonial Homes: You can take a tour of Mount Vernon online by visiting: Click on First Floor, Second Floor, etc., then you will get a floor plan of that floor, click on the room you want to see. You can click on the pictures to see a larger version to get more detail. Rusty in Ky |
Colonial Homes: The best book I know on Colonial House is American Colonial By Wendell Garrett. ISBN 3-8228-8278-X Brian Long |
Toile and Colonial Williamsburg: Yes - Toile and Colonial Williamsburg go together like peanut butter and jelly! We visited C.W. this past September - and loved every minute of it. It was very well organized, very lovely, very interesting, educational -- and we got a LOT of exercise walking the 'old streets'....and shopping in all the wonderful 'old shops' nearby. Toile was usually combined with a very large check fabric - about 1-1/2" square checks! - in a matching color (blue toile, blue checks, for example). Red/white checks were also 'in vogue'. They used some pretty wild colors in Colonial Williamsburg - things we'd consider a bit 'much' now - green and purple walls and woodwork, for example. We stopped and chatted with the weaver for a long time while we were there - you can interact with all the craftsmen/women and find out some fascinating things -- and learned that during the Colonial period, cotton fabrics were MORE expensive than silk! The reason was quite practical: The cotton gin hadn't been invented at that time, and in order to get cotton fabric, you had to sit by firelight (after a hard day's work) and pull cotton seeds out of the fluff....and they're hard to pull out! It was common practice to give unruly children this job - especially during long winter months and rainy days when they couldn't go outside and grew restless. Probably where the phrase 'make work' came from..... Mama just had to 'make work' for the kids to do to keep them out of her hair! The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has a nice web site, and there are LOTS of books, pictures, and more information on the period and the area. Search for 'Colonial Williamsburg' - in Virginia - and I'm sure you'll find all sorts of references. The C.W. Foundation is a wealth of information on all sorts of things - and responsible for a great many reproductions of furniture, fabric, wallpaper, etc., from the period. Additionally, you can search www.amazon.com and find a lot of books on C.W. -- as well as your local library, more than likely. You can get the best prices on books, I believe, at www.bookfinder.com - where you can buy nice used or new books through smaller dealers, through one large book buyers/sellers system that referees the whole thing. Linda Gale |
Shaker style: For Shaker style references, check the library for life-scale interior decorating books (Milton and Emily Rose's Shaker Tradition and Design or Scott Swank's Shaker Life, Art, and Architecture). If you want period authenticity, remember there was no such thing as a Shaker home. Shakers lived in celibate religious communities, with separate men's and women's dormitories (dependence on converting new members rather than "growing" their own was a major cause of the sect's extinction, somewhat analogous to today's shortage of young Catholic clergy in some areas). The Shakers had communal kitchen, dining, and work areas (livestock barns, smithy, mill, furniture, broom, seed packing, tool factories, etc.). An accurate 19th century Shaker miniature homestead would be a small village, not a solitary dollhouse! For an on-line overview of Shaker life, check out http://www.shakervillageky.org/ dedicated to Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. Most US Shaker heritage sites are on the web; unfortunately few include many interior photos. In miniature, Jessica Ridley's Decorated Doll House has a Shaker-inspired bedroom with commercial furniture customized with DIY Shaker accessories. Peter Westcott's miniature furniture pattern books include Shaker Furniture volumes #1and #2; check your local shop, or Tom stocks them at Earth and Tree. Barnes and Noble's Out of Print section also lists How to Make Shaker Furniture for the Dollhouse or Miniature Rooms by Pat Midkiff. Both authors' pattern books are priced moderately. Loretta.Sniarowski |
Discount Dollhouses: Another site that has a large range of the UK dollhouses at a discount price (as well as discounted Doll House Emporium items) is http://www.small-sorts.co.uk They are based in the UK and they do ship overseas but you would need to contact them for prices. They carry the full range of houses, both ready built and in kit form, both MDF and Plywood, at substantial discounts from even the manufacturers. Even if you don't see what you are looking for on the site, email them as they can more often than not get it for you. I just recently purchased my Sid Cooke "The County" house kit from them. Sid Cooke is one of the top, highly reputed dollhouse makers in the UK, and they use a combination of MDF and plywood for their house kits. Mine went together like a dream. Another great maker is Anglesey who use only plywood BUT from what I understand their houses only come in ready-built form, which I think would be hard to ship inexpensively to the US or elsewhere. Marja |
Resource for tips: Just wanted to let you all know we added our mini makers Tips From the Pros for October page to our website. Also tips pages for the past eight months in our archive. http://www.spencer-little.com Judy, Spencer-Little |
Installing Plexiglas on Back of Dollhouse: I use small earth magnets to attach a Plexiglas sheet over the front opening of my dollhouse. The small magnets (about half the size of a baby fingernail) are VERY powerful. I countersink them into the woodstripping of the house, hold the plexi in place, and pop another magnet on top of the plexi and countersunk magnet. Everything holds in place very well. To remove the sheet, the magnets must be slid off sideways instead of being pulled off. Hopes this makes sense. They are very inconspicuous. Earth Magnets are available from Lee Valley Tools, http://www.leevalley.com/ If you do a search for "earth magnets" from their site, you will have a number of results. Select one of these results (I selected the first result), then select the currency you'd like to view the information in, then you'll get to a page with an image of the magnets along with an explanation as to how they work. J. Strobel |
Soda Fountain Stools: You might also check out the diner stools that American Girl sells with their diner counter set: http://www.americangirlstore.com/icmo/plsql/minis.catpage?catid=78514 John Medeiros |
Stickley/Mission furniture: If you like kits, Fernwood Miniatures makes a number of pieces in these styles. She will send you a free catalogue if you send her a large SASE. Fernwood Miniatures, 12730 Finlay Rd NE, Silverton, OR 97381-9535 Beth |
Rubber Wood: Rubber Wood is common in Asia and used in furniture making. Here is a site with info and pictures: http://www.seamlessturning.com/ Anne Gerdes |
Quarter Scale: Information on Debbie Young's Town Square projects.....I haven't done them myself, but I know there are several members of the Quarter Connection who have written about them. You can subscribe at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/QuarterConnection And here's another group that you might want to check out. It's not a new group, but has recently sprung to life with the addition of a new co-moderator, Bonnie Lavish. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MSATQuarterScale Jude in ND |
Town Square: I have done 9 of the 12 of these buildings. Mini supplies are not available where I live, so I just bought the kits. They are very nicely done and go together fairly quickly. Waiting for paint and glue to dry takes the longest! I think the directions tell the type of wood to use if you are going to cut them out yourself. She uses the plastic windows and doors like from Grandt Line. It was much easier for me to just get the kits and have everything at hand when I needed it. I have really enjoyed doing them. It's my first experience in 1/4 scale-but it won't be my last! Martha Simpson |
Carved Toothpicks: I have the carved toothpicks on my web site, as well as a lot of other do-it-yourself type supplies. You wouldn't believe all the things my customers use the carved toothpicks for. They're very inexpensive and quite versatile. These are the wooden ones with a small bit of carving at the top. If you live near a Cracker Barrel restaurant, they have them there. I carry them on my site for those who don't have easy access to them. Here's a few ideas and hopefully someone will post more: - They are used for bed posts for 1:48 scale 4-poster beds. There are other fancy carved cocktail picks out there that miniaturists use, but they are more like a two-pronged fork. There's also toothpicks with cellophane frills, but I don't know what use they'd have in mini. The toothpicks are under Misc. Tools & DIY supplies/Other Neat Stuff at: http://www.minikitz.com (click on online catalog). Debbie Jones |
Wiring diagram: I have received a lot of requests for a diagram on the wiring technique I recently described on SS. I made one up and if you promise not to laugh at my drawing, you can see it at http://www.spminiatures.com/tapewire.jpgFeel free to print it and share it with anyone. I did another diagram showing how the tapewire is done throughout the house. That diagram is at http://www.spminiatures.com/tapewire2.jpg Carol |
Paperclay Brick/stones: I took close up digital pictures of the class I took with Rik Pierce this past summer and put them on my website. There are pictures of my bricks, fireplace stones, and stratified rock. My experience with paperclay has been that you can play with it and play with it and play with it and play with it some more! If it gets too dried out, I just dip my fingers or a brush in some water and dab it on the paperclay to add moisture. A few times I even added a ton of water to a semi-dried paperclay section and kneaded the paperclay completely back to life. The secret to my fireplace rocks was that I used a stiff stippling brush and I "attacked" the paperclay over and over until as much depth and interest that I wanted appeared. Sometimes I'd add blobs of extra clay to random sections so there would be more paperclay to mold. My rate of speed in class was one of the slowest - simply because to create that much diversity in each fireplace rock required that much more poking! The stratified rock was created by experimentation. Slashing horizontally over a lump of paperclay with a clay tool - and then pouring a small glass of water over it and seeing how it smoothed and mooshed together all the lines - letting it air dry a bit - slash some more - pour more water - repeat. Laura Isabella |
Stable: For the person who wanted information on equipment for horses for her stable, have a look at this great web site: http://www.riorondo.com/products.html. They make all sorts of tack such as saddles, bridles, halters etc. Being a former horse person myself, I bookmarked this site as I liked their products very much. Cheryl from Brampton, ON |
Remodelling book: The new Hampstead House catalogue is here and contains a book which some of you might be interested in: Maureen in St. Albert AB Cda |
Decorating Magazines: I also like to get magazines for ideas that aren't mini related and wondered if there are other magazines some of you like that are terrific that I'm missing out on? This magazine is not mini related however if you like to dream and duplicate those dreams in miniature then this is the magazine that will give you ideas. The name of the magazine is Veranda, they have a web site, http://www.veranda.com Marilyn |
Hobby Lobby catalog link: http://catalog.craftsetc.com/browseGroup.cfm?item_group_id=28955 That goes directly to dollhouse-related stuff! Kitty |
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