Acrylic Circles for tabletops and other plastic:

www.usplastic.com

Alice Zinn

Bulk Coffee Stirrers: I paid $16 for 10,000 wooden stirrers, including shipping. They also have the Starbuck stirrers, although they're much more expensive - $35 with shipping for only 5,000.

http://catalog.goldmax.com/shop/

K wong

Christmas trees: here's the link to the Lemax website. You can order online if your local store is not in stock:

http://www.collectorsite.com/lemax/

Kathy in TX

Christmas trees in August - You probably have tons of suggestions by now but here's 2 more: http://lincsminiworld.bizland.com/USAGEpics.chtml

for some decorating ideas, http://pb.quik.com/ikelleher/minikit.htm

Miniature Christmas Ornament Kit - Hand Craft your own Ornaments: These are neat, check them out. Just slice off as many angels or gingerbread men or whatever that you want. "CHOP-m-STIX" tm are SHAPED (angel, gingerbread men etc) POLYMER Sticks (sometimes called canes - although most CANES are USUALLY ROUND) which can be sliced with a single edge razor blade, or if you're really brave - a "tissue blade" - INTO EXACT DUPLICATE SHAPED SLICES!!!!! Then the slices (between 40-120 per stick - depending on the shape) can be rebaked, painted, placed on, added to, built-in, etc. to whatever your Polymer Clay, Miniature, Egg Decorating, Bead, or misc Hobby, etc., Project might be...

They can be found at: http://lincsminiworld.bizland.com/

Jean in Maine

Crochet Pattern site; http://www.seafore.com Go and try any pattern there that you like just use a size 16 hook and tatting thread.

Dana

Shopping Guide: Have been noticing all the questions about stores in different locations and have a suggestion: take a look at the CIMTA site, http://www.cimta.org and click on the Shopping Guide. You will find all the member stores and it is a great way to check on who is where. The listings are by state.

Ann Hendricks

Las Vegas Store: There's a miniature store out by the Liberace museum. It's several blocks off the strip but if you're young and healthy, you could walk it. I took the bus, the last time I was there because we were staying downtown. The name of the shop is Kimberly House and it's at 1775 E. Tropicana #10. Phone 702-795-2276. You might want to call before going all the way out there. It's a pretty nice shop and the home of the publication, Kimberly Corner.

Gail Dillard in Lompoc

San Francisco Stores: I got a terrific list of stores in San Francisco from my dear, dear Grace Shaw, of http://www.virtualdollhouse.net, here it is:

Olde Victorian Miniatures
724 main Street
Half Moon Bay, CA
Phone: 650.726.6915

Elizabeth Baxter, Ann Arbor

Removing Adhesives: The best thing to use to remove labels is De-Solv-it. I purchased mine at the local Wal-mart. It will take off labels and just about any kind of sticky residue. I've used it on glass, wood plastic, etc. I even used on an old kids desk where the labels had been on there for many years and they all came off easily with now scratching of the wood. If you can't find it in your area it is made by orange-sol household products. Their web address is http://www.orange-sol.com phone number 800-877-7771.

Terry

Oriental stuff: With all the talk about oriental projects I was surprised nobody mentioned the museum catalogs that come almost every week this time of year...absolutely beautiful 1"scale photos of Japanese and Chinese wall screens, paintings, photos, etc as well as some great ideas for dishes and such. Slipping them onto appropriately sized mat board and tape edged possibly the wall screens would look like the real ones I have on my wall. I have Boston's, the Met, and Smithsonian to name a few but I'll bet other museum gift shops put them out too (as well as big estate house museums like Winterthur).

Other sites would be Kowloon Traders and El Rastro (both on the web).

Ana Gerard

Gypsy Caravan: For the person looking for the book, "Making Model Gypsy Caravans" by John Thompson...(on for anyone looking for books on how to make practically any wheeled old vehicle, here is a site that sells them:

http://www.ruralheritage.com/plans/booklist.htm

The Gypsy Caravan is a fantastic book...complete interiors and exteriors for two types of caravans. plans, how to's...plus history. Very good book, one of those...'if I only had the skill to do this! things.' But, I at least have the book.

Kaye in L.A.

Holeless Beads: I have the holeless beads in stock, but only the small size.

Dolly's Mini Dry Goods Emporium
55 B Street, Northumberland, PA 17857-1260

fiettao@cs.com http://ourworld-top.cs.com/fiettao/myhomepage/business.html

Dolly

1/4 Scale Teapot Walls: Imagine a little, white box of Chinese food. Turn the box on it's side, remove the top. Now, if that were unfolded, it would be easy to wallpaper wouldn't it? Blue Teapot 2000. I used this method to do the interior. It creates space under the lid to put surprises?

Laurie Sisson

1/4 Scale Teapot Walls: To paper or not to paper: I've been working on a gourd teapot and the round shape has been a challenge. I used wallpaper from a printable site and printed it on cardstock. I dabbed some Goop here and there on the walls, rolled the cardstock into a tube, unrolled it once it was inside and then positioned it. I'm not sure if I like it or not. It looks kind of lopsided to me, but I'm "stuck" with it. Hopefully some furnishings will help.

Jude in ND

Here are some URL's to use to give the address you're starting from (motel, your home, whatever) and the address you're going to. These online websites will print maps for you and even print exact driving directions from your front door to your destination.

http://www.mapquest.com/

http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py

http://www.mapblast.com/myblast/index.mb

http://www5.MapsOnUs.com/

Wilma Kinder

Keeping track of digest info: As a relative newbie, I'm still printing out the digests. For anyone else who does this, you might consider using Post-it mini-flags to mark things you want to check out later. They are reuseable coloured tabs that come in a pack of six colours. So you can mark off things: for example, red - want to reply to; green - site to check out; yellow - tip I want to track; etc.

Maureen Heuchert

Wicker Ideas: This Bend, OR, firm makes dollbuggies and related toys in Victorian styles, wicker and iron. Apparently authentic designs; could be a great pictorial resource for wickerworkers..

http://www.newsom.com/buggies

There are also some iron hatstands. Look at them and you'll immediately start thinking of contriving your own from assorted jewelry findings, etc. We often think of hatstands as having head-size tops, but these don't. As I recall a wonderful Illinois shop for cheap hats in the 1940's, theirs didn't either. (This shop would be fun in a mini version. You bought your hats and trims separately, cafeteria style. A feast of ribbons and flowers. Probably feathers too, though I don't remember them.)

2. There's also a picture of a glass and iron bistro table. A bit flimsy-looking, but the legs are trimmed with iron cutout leaves. If you have those oak or maple leaf box punches, you might get some additional mileage out of them this way. It wouldn't have to be that particular design. You might need to thicken the leaves by layering two or three together. Or maybe the acrylic gel recently mentioned by Mary Kinloch would do the trick here? (These and other punches can be used for stone work too.)

Mary (Oregon)

Camping Articles: I checked thru back issues of Nutshell News (now Dollhouse Miniatures) and found some articles for the lady asking for ideas for camping/beach scenes. So here goes.

Aug/95 - lantern, campstove, ice chest

Aug/94 - sleeping bags

Oct/82 tent, campfire, coleman lantern, canoe

Also in Miniature Showcase:

Summer/91 - hot tub, deck and accessories for the person who asked about this in a previous digest.

Spring/87, Summer/91, July/93 - all very good landscaping and perspective issues with tips from experts.

Donna

Scrimshaw: Art Werner's miniature ivory scrimshaw has to be seen to be believed! He has whaling tools and other ships items too. You can contact him by mail:

Arthur F Werner,172 Louvaine Drive, Kenmore, NY 14223

Leslie, in Buffalo NY

Wallpaper Source: Some really great wallpapers can be found in the scrapbooking section of any store. I get mine at Hobby Lobby. There are great patterns, many of which work in different scales. Even better there are solid matching colors. Also, many of the scrapbooking stickers and page and photo borders make great room borders and decorations and are very near correct scale. I decorated a kitchen wall with a blue and white criss cross "plaid" for a sort of country look and used some ivy stickers along the top for a border. There are baby themes and holiday themes and sports and whatever.

Krista, Ft. Smith