Drive-in Theatres:  I remember people going in pick up trucks and the parents sitting in the front and the kids in folding chairs in and around the truck bed.  I also remember people taking blankets to put on the car hood, lay back and watch the show.  Of course there were always empty spots with those dangling broken speakers.  There was lots of crunchy gravel to walk on to the popcorn stand and restrooms...where all the girls went to have a look see and say a prayer that they didn't have a hickey.

Kathy Henry

Drive-in Theatres:  how about a car who drives away with the speaker hanging out the car window and a security guy walking around from car to car shining his flashlight in the windows. Also various pieces of garbage (cups, candy and popcorn containers etc.) on the ground around empty spaces  where cars were parked. You could also have some kids pushing a car (with dead battery) out of the parking lot or having the trunk of a car slightly open to reveal someone attempting to sneak in for free (shame on them!).

Brooke, Wa

Drive-in Theatres:  don't forget to have for sale at the concession stand a batch of those circular mosquito repellant coils that you lit to keep your car bug free for the movie.

Pat

Drive-in Theatres:  For your drive-in movie scene you might consider a high board fence to surround it.

One of my high school friends lived next to a drive-in.  We used to perch on her roof, in a tree, in an upturned two-wheel trailer in the back yard, even hanging by our elbows from the fence - all over the place - trying to watch the movies without being found out and scolded by her parents.  They were very strict and thought it was sinful to watch something we hadn't paid for.

Wanna in El Paso

Saloon/Gambling Hall: I'm just finishing up a saloon/bordello and have found that gaming supplies, etc. are sort difficult to find in miniature. I found some darling diecast slot machines which are actually pencil sharpeners, as well as an old time safe in the current Dee's Delights catalog which my mini shop ordered for me.

As far as other gaming supplies, I know Stockton's carries some poker tables and things appropriate for a gaming parlor.

http://www.stockton-miniatures.com/

Here is one other source in California that I found when I lived in the L.A. area.: their business card proclaims the wife to be the "brothel specialist" with corsets, hats, shoes & negligees, while the husband's specialty is "saloon originals" with bars, slots, gaming tables, and the wheel of fortune."

Ernie & Nancie Loscar
Nancie's Millinery Plus
746 West Upjohn Road
Ridgecrest, CA. 93555

(619) 375-8159

I don't know if the Loscars have an email address and you might want to check the area code to this phone # since the catalog I have of theirs is about 4 years old.

Kathy in TX

Drive-in Theatres:  I remember the Sunrise drive-in also.  I lived in Brooklyn too and my parents would take my sister and I in our pajamas there.  We would play in the playground until the movie started and then try to find our car, hoping my dad didn't move it. lol.  I remember the popcorn, candy, pizza, and sodas carried back to the car in a cardboard tray with a cup holder in each corner and room for the snacks in the middle.  I also remember going there as a teenager on dates, steamed windows and all.  It was a sad day when they closed it

Spencer

Drive-in Theatres:  Don't forget the lawn chairs that the grown ups used to take so we could sit outside of the cars. Oh what memories this brings back. Here in Vegas when I was younger we used to have a lot of drive ins, now i think there is only one left and its just not the same.

Rhonda in chili Las Vegas

Gaming supplies, tables, maybe even slot machines in 1" scale - I purchased my crap table & blackjack table from Nancie's Millinery. They don't have a website.  You can call or write them for a brochure:

Nancie's Millinery
Saloon Originals
746 West Upjohn Rd.
Ridgecrest, CA 93555

(760) 375-8159

They are very nice people. They were at the Tom Bishop Show in Burlingame, CA last summer and I placed my order. I was all set to pay right then and there and Nancie said "No, wait until I send you the items!" Talk about trusting!!

I should warn you that their items are not inexpensive. I paid $200+ for the two items I purchased. I loved the bar they had but decided to make my own - the bar was $300.00!!

Marsha

Drive-in Theatres:  Before you get too far on your concession stand building, the projection part was usually on top.  The reason being, to avoid people walking in front of the lens of the projector and their shadow appearing on the screen.  Have you thought of making your building of foamcore or matboard?  After all the building were usually just rectangles with flat roofs, not too many windows or doors.

Shirley C

Drive-in Theatres:    Don't stop with the senses of sight and humor. Appeal to smell by putting a bit of that awful popcorn "butter" on a lightbulb in the display.  Overdrive a cheap earphone with recorded dialog to remember  what those  miserable cardboard speakers sounded like.

Finish the exterior of your box like a striped popcorn box or with mohair seat cover material and a bit of chrome trim.

Direct focus to the center of your display and let the edges of your display sort of "fade" from view rather than a sudden cutoff at the edge of the box: How? Install a windshield wiper on the middle of the front glass and "steam up" the glass outside the area cleared by that wiper.

Inside the concession stand, remember those awful "keep-in-line" railings with nasty green paint chipped mostly off or scratched away with hearts and initials. The ceiling should definitely be well endowed with chocolate dipped paper sleeves from soda straws. If you "people" your setting, there has got to be a toddler with an unbuttoned pajama "back door"  I don't remember if anyone has already suggested the "Next Week's Attractions" sign and some sort of acknowledgment of the local High School mascot.

Mel

Drive-in Theatres:  Now to decide on a structure for the Drive-In concession stand. I would love to build it from scratch, but I don't really have the tools yet to attempt that. I think I can use the two-room duplex box kit from HBS and add a flat roof and a small base . I would like picnic tables and a small playground outside of it. For the two rooms...the larger could be the concessions area and the smaller room the projection room...maybe break it up and have rest rooms too.

John Medeiros

Theme suggestions; Go here for the theme lists:

http://miniatures.about.com/hobbies/miniatures/library/weekly/topicsubwhat.htm

Marilyn of Michigan

Book Roombox: I found an old set of encyclopedias at a yard sale for $5. We have chosen #23 for one teacher, cause that is also her room #. I haven't started yet but was thinking about this process. (promised the li'l one we would start this weekend.

1. Open the hardback cover

2. Mark where you want the 4 corners and drill a hole through all pages. Make sure you don't drill through the back by masking taping your drill bit to the depth you want.

3. Slice with a SHARP blade from utility knife or x-acto.

4. Now that the pages are cut flip through them and spray with glue as you flip

5. Gesso the front page and inside you have cut.

6. We have been collecting school items for ours and will be making a shadow box effect display of their favorite things. Some like science, math, biology, etc. We will be cutting matboard and tonguing it together by cutting a slot 1/2 way thru each piece. If anyone has a better way, mine hasn't been started yet, so am open to suggestions and undoing my mistakes before I do them!

Lisa Lynn

Book room: The borrowers made their home with books in one of their tales. The lounge room was the first room and then they added a roof. I think with them, their home was in a windowseat box, and after a long corridor was their kitchen which they walled with a book and cut a hole for a door. So perhaps, for a bit of fun you could make a roombox with book walls and cut a little door from an inner book, and have the pages as wallpaper as the borrowers did. I think it was the last book, they moved to near the Hendreary's Church after flying by balloon from an attic where they were captured. For those who don't know the borrowers, they are wonderful books of wee people by Mary Norton. I have read them over and over and they are just great.

Robbie

Borrowers: I just love the books, and have read them many times. I have the whole series. The Borrowers Afield, The Borrowers Afloat, The Borrowers Aloft, and The Borrowers Avenged. I believe it is "Avenged" that you are talking about.

This family is one reason I love minis. I imagine them everywhere. (Some people really believe in them. A friend's senile grandmother called them "The Trickers" because they took all her stuff and hid it. LOL!)

My dream someday is to build their house under the floor at Firbank.(?) Or under the window seat at the Church Rectory. The boot would also be fun, but a real challenge. I'm glad to see I'm not the only "adult" (47) who loves the Clock family. If you've read all the books, there is one where Homily has to share a house with Lupy. Did you see the illustration of the dollhouse furniture? It would be a fun thing to use all the furniture, accessories, etc., that don't quite look right in a real doll house. Kind of mish-mash. Not all the same scale. Sorry to ramble, but the Borrowers do that to me.

Cindy from MA

Borrowers: One of the first mini-projects I ever did was a Borrower-house on a little shelf under my desk when I was about eight years old. I made the floors out of cardboard and let the change of fabric floor covering suggest where the next room started (no walls). I made the dolls (Homily, Arrietty and the dad, whatever he was called) out of skin-colored fabric with thread hair and carried them with me everywhere. Of course I had no real sense of scale, but I think it was about 1/12th. Oh, I have to look for them in my parents' attic, maybe they're still there in a box somewhere, borrowing the things they need.

Asa from Sweden in Fairfax VA

Dirty footprints. The reverse could be done for footprints through the dust: make templates, place on floor, sprinkle with dust, carefully remove the templates. I'll have to add that to my tips to save for future use! No haunted house is complete without footprints! Thanks.

Rita Pierce

Fairytale Book Room - Find a book that has a two or three fairy tales that you like in it (or you could use a book with one fairy tale as long as each chapter has a different title). One of those thin kids books would work great, if you could find one with an interesting cover that isn't so busy it would take away from the exterior. Set it on a circular turntable, open it so that there is a right angle between the outside of the front and back covers (this will be the garden or outside of the house.

Open it to one of the stories (that you'd like to do vignette of) so that the title shows for that segment, then open it so that a different story title shows for a second segment. You want to divide the book into 3 or 4 segments and each with a different title so that each can have it's own scene. Glue the unused pages together and add a piece of wallpaper covered mat board against the untitled wall for support.

Smallstuff Member

Containers: I have two 10 gal fish tanks, which house miniatures. One a Holiday Shop with many gift exchange items and things I have made myself, all Christmas related. I have a sheet of quilt filler on top to resemble snow and a few larger items like Santa and Reindeer.

The other is an Asian antique shop. It looks just fine on the inside, but I wanted it to have a more Oriental look on the outside. A friend gave me a pair of very heavy black "temple dogs"? which I have on each side of the lower roof.

Bought DH some socks the other day and was about to toss the black plastic rod hangers in the trash, when I took a better look, they have curved back ends, and those are staggered. The effect is like the pagodas in the Orient. I glued them on with tacky glue. I like it, I like it.

There was a water line mark in the fish tank I got at a garage sale, which has been impossible to remove. The tank is plexi glass. I didn't want to scratch it. I found in DH's car stuff box a bottle of Dura-Shield, a vinyl and plastic cleaner. It felt very smooth to the touch, so I put a dab on an old handkerchief and rubbed the water mark away. So far it hasn't come back, the way some water marks do, when you think you got rid of them. I guess DH got it at Shucks or in the auto dept. of K mart.

MAP in Puyallup

Walnut shell scenes: Curious as to what else you can put in walnut shells? See the "In a Nutshell" articles I wrote for Nutshell News/Dollhouse Miniature magazine:

Dec., l995 "Waiting for Santa"
March, l998 "Artist in a Summer Garden"
March, 2000 "M'Lady's Boudoir"

Marilyn - Wisconsin