Pirate's Bar: A plank across wooden crates or barrels is perfectly fine for this period and milieu! Bars didn't become really fancy until the Victorian era (you should see some of the ones here in Prescott--woo-wee!).

Molly/StormBorn

Gashlycrum Tinies: This is why I suggested a series of vignettes--Desmond, thrown out of a sleigh? Maud, swept out to sea? Victor, squashed under a train

Molly/StormBorn

Detective's Apartment: I love the idea of a detective's apartment! Tell us more please! Is it going to be a modern type setting or more of the "Sam Spade" era? I can just visualize that bottle of booze in the partially open bottom drawer. An ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. A shoulder holster with gun hanging over the chair back. A fedora and trench coat on the halltree and, of course, a beautiful blond sitting in the client chair with tissue in hand and a big picture hat! :-) What fun!!!!

Reva Losiewicz

I loved Marjon's ideas for the detective convention. How about some feet sticking out from behind sofas and under beds! Look out Laurie Sisson..a whole new use for your "The Foot"! lol (Laurie sells weighted feet in many sizes and styles perfect for making your dh people stands without help.)

Alice Zinn- Pt. St. Lucie FL

Detective's Convention: you didn't mention what period detectives you were thinking of, which would make a difference -- Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey? Sam Spade? Nathan Heller? I've always thought Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone and Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone ought to run into each other on a case since they both work in California. Or in a medieval house you could have Brother Cadfael, Sister Frevisse, Feste the Jester, etc. Or a Roman villa with Gordianus and Falco...so many detectives to choose among!

Loretta.Sniarowski

Detective's Apartment: Speaking of detectives, wouldn't Kinsey's new apartment make a really neat roombox. Does anyone remember which letter book she got her new apartment that had the really good description of the whole thing?

Rusty in Ky

"Borrowers" scene: A while back we were listing projects we were going to do someday - and I just thought of two more I forgot to add to my list - found a box of little household items for a "Borrowers" scene. One of the mini mags did an article some years back with scenes from the Borrowers story, and it was delightful. I've bought 2 movies on the Borrowers (Little people who live in walls and under floors in houses, and they "borrow" whatever they can find to use - they are about dollhouse size and actually use dollhouse furniture if they're lucky enough to live in a home that has a dollhouse) One of the movies was made in England, and the other here in the US with John Goodman in it. The grandkids love those movies, and it occurs to me that this is the perfect project for the grandchildren! - Because it's so imaginative and doesn't require special intricate work. Household items become mini goods. Ideas are endless.

Paulette in IN

The Borrowers: Paulette was talking about doing a 'Borrowers' scene, and I immediately thought of Joan Steiner's Look-Alikes books. If any of you have not seen these, they are worth a look, if not for anything else, just to see the ingenuity of this artist. They are actually children's books, and all of the scenes are made up of found objects. (for example, in one scene, she's used a disposable razor as a vacuum cleaner) While most of us might consider using "parts" of a household object (with much sanding, scraping, and painting), Ms. Steiner just puts the whole thing in there, and the results are really delightful. She does use miniatures in her scenes as well, but not very many, mostly she uses just things you might find around the house. I think she is the ultimate "Borrower"!

Deena in Miami

The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe - I have a pair of old high top ladies' boots or shoes. I think it will need to be in 1/2" scale, to get a lot of children in it. But I do fully intend to do that scene one of these days. I'm going to mount the shoe on a piece of plywood, which will become the yard - and cut windows and door in the shoe and put frames around - and I'll have to have a roof with a chimney pipe. Wish I could work on it today, but I'm working on dolls for a July show coming up. Business first, fun later.

Paulette in IN

Right now, my local True Value hardware store is selling Stanley Cup keychains. They are $2.99. I don't have one in my shop yet, but I do have one. The Red Wings have a sales catalog, so I got on the mailing list. The catalog provided me with team photos and other photos I could use. Here are items I was able to make or buy: The catalog had pictures of post cards. I scanned the post cards and resized them. Then I saved the scan and cut and pasted it several times into my word program. This gave me a page full of postcards to use. I made a makeshift post card holder out of plastic, but you could probably do something better.

I traced a large Red Wing logo onto shrink plastic and baked it. I then set it inside a plastic report cover end piece and had an art object.
A smaller logo was shrink plasticked (is that a word? LOL) into a doorknob. Stanley Cup champion t-shirts were sold all over the place with a shiny round holographic sticker on them. I used that on the front door for a sign.

I had bought a roll of Red Wings gift wrap. I took a photo of it, scanned it, and then printed a bunch to roll into mini gift wrap. I rolled the paper over a toothpick and when done, pulled the toothpick out.

A picture of the original Red Wings arena was cut out of the catalog and glued onto a Formica sample from Home Depot. It made an impressive poster.

A large honey container became my TV. I painted it glossy black and then inserted a photo (I had taken pictures of my tv when the Championship parade was on.) I inserted the photo into the hollow of the container. There was enough edge to glue on 4 black beads for knobs.
- A shoe lace became my Red Wings border around the top of the shop.
- Two hockey player keychains became figures on the top of a shelf. I just removed the keychain part.
- A lapel pin became a sign.
- A championship ring that was sold at Little Caesar's became a shelf ornament.
- Another key chain became another sign.
- A picture in the sales catalog of a puck and player photo became a display. I cut out the tiny photo and the picture of the tiny puck and glued them onto a piece of clear plastic and bent back the bottom a bit for the stand.
- I took photos of the various magazines I could find with the Red Wings on them. When developed, I carefully cut them out and glued them around a piece of matboard. Gave me lots of mini hockey magazines to place around.
- Hockey sticks: I was able to cut out small hockey sticks from the catalog and glue them to posterboard. Colored the posterboard as needed and I had the little souvenir hockey sticks.
- Newspaper: I took photos of the newspapers that had the Championship all over them. These I printed on an off-white paper and then bundled them together with extra paper to make a "full" newspaper.
- Dustpan: (for the sweep!) bought a mini red dustpan and just glued a tiny logo on it.
- Waste Cans: Used small ovals of some sort and glued logos on the sides.
- T-shirts: Cut squares of red fabric and glued them to look like folded t-shirts for the shelf. The top one has a logo glued on.
- Hangers: took mini wooden hangers, painted them white, and added a tiny logo
- Found a hockey goalie mask charm to hang on the shelf.
- Used red pots and pans from the mini store and glued tiny logos on.
- I had window decals that I took pictures of the full sheet and then cut them out and blue tacked them one on top of the other on the wall to look like a bunch on a rack. I couldn't get anything to work at the time as a "hook" so I had to improvise.
- Also took pictures I could get of notepads, stickers, keychains, bumper stickers, etc and then reproduced them in scale to give the feeling of fullness and lots of souvenirs.
- I had pictures of posters to make glossy posters.
- I used red buttons to make clocks with the logos and clock faces cut from the sales catalog.
- I found a calendar on the net that showed the current months Red Wings schedule. I just saved and reproduced it.
- I also took pictures of tiny cupcake picks. These I was able to glue to a small piece of tin (from a lid of some sort) and I had a bunch of mini magnets.
- I painted a wooden train red and white and added a logo for the Red Wings train.
- I took white flocked bears (in abundance at craft stores) and added a logo to their stomach.
- I also found a kid-sized plush hockey puck to make into a "chair" in the shop.
- I painted the floor to look like a hockey rink.

Carolyn in MI

Psychic's Shop: I don't know yet if I'm going to do it in a particular period. I've got a crystal ball, mini tarot cards, an incense burner *remind me to tell you how I did the smoke*. I'm wondering if any of you have any particular knowledge of where to get mini printables of things like astrological charts and maybe a chart of the palmreading symbols. A dear mini friend gave me a kit of a beautiful brown-skinned doll, but I think I'll use her for some other project -- it would be too tempting to try to do a voodoo queen, and I know absolutely zilch about that. Any suggestions at all will be hugely appreciated.

Vicki Horiuchi

Needlework Shop Names:
One stitch At A Time………………………………………Diane in San Francisco Bay Area
The Magic Needle…………………………………………………..Marilyn, MI
Fabulous Fabritique, Little Patterns, Sew Small, The Thread of Life, Threading the Needle, Pins and Needles, Sew and Sew ………………………..Alice Zinn
Threaddy Bear………………………………………………………..Rhonda
The French Knot, The Eye of the Needle, Fiber Arts or the one I called mine, which is The Needle Nook…………………………………….………………Jeanette in Wisconsin
The Flying Needle, Needles 'n Pins, Art of the Stitch, Art of the Needle, Just Sew, Mrs. Stitches………………………………………………………………….Molly/StormBorn
And Sew to Thread.." (aka "And so to bed") for your shop? …….Susie, from Scotland
The Needle-Works, The Needle's Eye, Keeping in Stitches, The Stitchery Palace, The Flying Needle, Threads Galore & More………………………………Paulette in IN
Happy Stitching House, The Stitching Post. ………………………..Paulette in IN
SEWING MAGNET or you could spell it SEWING MAGNATE ……Dolly Kay
'Little Sew and Sew', 'Stitches', 'Snips', 'Fat Quarters' (could double as a name for a weight loss clinic!), 'Frivolous Fabrics', 'Fabric Fancies', 'Material Girl', 'Material Matters',
'The Fabric of Society' …………………………………………………..Trace
Following The Thread ……………………………………………Jacqui from Hampshire U.K
On Pins & Needles, The Pin is Mightier Than the Sword……………Graceanne
Sew What………………………………………………………………..ZanneFrannie

Needlework Shop Name:: I named my needlework shop "Just Needlin' and my Quilt shop "Under the Covers". I think I found the names in a stitchery magazine or something.

Roberta, Wisconsin

Toyshop Names: I made a toy store and named it Toys for Tots. A number of friends have commented favorably on the name. You are welcome to use it. Used small wooden letters from Hobby Lobby.

Ruth Morey, Corpus Christi on Padre Island

Retro-1940's style: I found this link you all might enjoy. It has a lot of ideas from the 1940's, (20's and 30's also) if anyone is looking for info on that time period. Even has a link to Colleen Moore's dollhouse. http://www.retroactive.com/tiptray.html

Kim R Lee

Regency Era: I was playing around on the net today and found this site about the
regency era, great reference for clothing and accessories and tons of links to other like minded sites. http://austentation.tripod.com/webrings.html

And as an added bonus the lady has some dollhouses! Her name is Laura Sauer - is she on this list? Very enjoyable site and very readable. Thought some of you other history buffs may enjoy it.

Yvonne - NZ

Dutch Interiors: I found a new book on Dutch interiors at Cosco yesterday. It is called "Country Houses of Holland" by Barbara & Rene Stoeltie. Taschen publishers. A very good book for those of you wanting to do a Dutch house. I also found it on Amazon, for those of you without a Cosco.

Kaye in L.A.

Tents: Scala has a really neat tent. If you are interested go to http://lugnet.com/ check out set # 3143 to see the tent.

Diana

Petite Princess Furniture: I recently found this website for Petite Princess items: http://www.yesterdaystoys.com/petite.htm

Stacey-Marie Torres

49ers: I live in the bay area and the Niners changed their colors to a goldish brown and maroon, used to be red. Try their site at: http://www.sf49ers.com/ Just to name a few things you could put in there, because there could be a lot: "signed" football, mini football trading cards, banners, make wallpaper and border from their colors as well as rugs, mini 49er posters, stuff to take to a tailgate party, tickets, big screen TV, if you are watching it at home, jerseys. You could do a lot. A tailgate box, someone watching it at home, and office with memorabilia (sp!). This is just a start.

Kendra

Toy Store Names: Small Wonders, Little Things for Little People, Play World, Toy Cottage (was a real store in Phoenix back in the 60s--long since out of business)

Molly/StormBorn