From: Lynne, BC, Canada
Date: January 23, 2004
Subject:

Family Fun Site has instructions and good pictures for creating an entire dollhouse with a cardboard box and building all of the furniture and accessories mostly with things you have around the house.

Go to the home page http://familyfun.go.com click on
Activities and Crafts, then Building and Modeling, then the Perfect Dollhouse.

From: Laurie Sisson
Date: January 23, 2004


I teach a class in miniatures for kids at the Smithsonian with Denise Pritchett for a week each summer. We teach girls (so far) to make a roombox using one of the premade roomboxes. I have put the last two years of the girls' work on ofoto.com so will send you the ofoto invitation to see the results. The girls are ages ten to thirteen. They do individual work and it's wonderful to watch them innovate. The class is called "A Room of Your Own".

From: Kim G. in Las Vegas
Date: January 23, 2004


I've beeen teaching monthly miniatures classes for kids for my homeschool support group for about 2 years now. We began with just making a miniature project each month. My group is for ages 8 and up due to the fiddly nature of some projects and the need for patience and a degree of maturity. Cost has been a factor with our club since the 14 regulars are from diverse ecomonic backgrounds. For our regular meetings, the girls pay $1 into a class fund which is used to buy any special supplies needed for our projects. They each bring a shoebox "tool kit" with scissors, tacky glue, ruler, toothpicks, and paintbrush. I provide lots of things for the classes from my horde of mini supplies and have made some headway in decluttering my supply closet. We do some original projects and some from miniatures magazines. I usually have project materials pre-cut and sorted into sandwich bags. I've had to offer the class twice monthly in order to accomodate all the interested kids.

We did a special Saturday workshop this summer where we assembled roomboxes from Hobby Builder's Supply. We used basic roombox #9053. It costs $11.99 and has openings for a door and a window. This was a reasonably priced kit and gave the girls experience learning the skills needed to prepare and assemble a slot-and-tab style doolhouse. We used wood filler and sandpaper to prepare the wood, learned to dry fit pieces and glue them in place with masking tape to hold pieces together, and the basics of wallpapering and flooring. HBS was very helpful. I placed our order using one of their special discount days to drop the price of the kits by 25% , and they sent a box of catalogs with discount coupons attached. The girls get ideas from the catalogs and have an idea of what the things they want to buy might cost.

We are lucky enough to have a miniatures shop- Dansey's- and the girls know they can save themselves shipping and find most of what they want locally. One girl has a house on layaway and they know that any optional extras like hardwood flooring are available. We held a HBS House party in November since those orders are shipped free. The free dollhouse sent as a hostess gift went under the Christmas tree for a pair of sisters from a family who has a financial hardship. I regularly leave my name at the wallpaper counter of Home Depot to get their discarded wallpaper sample books. This way anyone can find wallpaper or fancy "linoleum" regardless of the family's finances.

I have a club meeting this afternoon. The kids are decorating those wooden trunks (69 cents each in December!) from Michael's to look like student trunks from Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They worked on swaps over the Christmas holidays so they will have lots of things to put in their finished trunks. At my first class this month there were Bertie Bott's beans, wands, spell books, scrolls, brooms, and invisibility cloaks to fill the trunks. Next month we are making a bouquet of roses and a stack of love letters tied with satin ribbon. Thanks to the Small-Stuffers who refered me to Kim Hill Jr. and his fantasy glass vases. I got lovely vases for our roses without blowing our budget.

Working with kids has been very rewarding. I hope you have lots of fun playing minis with your kids. Perhaps we can exchange club project ideas sometime?

From: Gail In Orlando
Date: January 23, 2004


I taught a class as an after school enrichment program and took my paints, clear acrylic spray, brushes and a toaster oven. I made a salt flour water dough and divided it between the kids, then taught them how to make breads, roast beef, turkey, pies, etc. It used a minimal amount of materials and they could buy sculpey or make more bread dough at home. Of course, my specialty is foods and accessories so that's what we made.

From: Mary Ann F.
Date: January 23, 2004


I feel that teaching a whole doll house might be too industrious for a first project for kids.

Why don't you try a room box or small vignette first?

June Schuette, from the Tri City Miniature Makers miniature club in Saginaw, Michigan,
did a project in several schools in our area during an entire school year.
She did vignettes in classrooms and formed miniature clubs after school hours.
The cubs were the ones that did the room boxes.

Our club then had a display at our local museum for one month. Tri City Miniature club members also displayed our creations in the museum.

There were prizes given to the kids for their creations. Everyone received a prize, but they had to come to the musuem to receive it. (This got more people to the museum to see all of the creations). Most of the prizes were donated. Miniature stores, craft stores, MacDonalds, Burger King, and Seven 11 all donated prizes. (From coupons for drinks, coupons for food and miniature stores donated discounts or small mini treasures. Some money was donated by our club to buy some prizes.)

If you want to see pictures of the students' work go to the Tri City Miniature Makers WebShots albums:

http://community.webshots.com/user/tricityminiatures

Click on these albums: (The room boxes are scattered in the albums)
Castle Museum Student Vignettes SAGINAW CITY SCHOOLS
PATTERSON SCHOOL ST. CHARLES 3RD, 4TH & 5TH GRADES
PATTERSON 5TH GRADE, MILLER 4TH GRADE
MILLER 4TH & 5TH GRADE, ST. CHARLES
HEMMETER & HEMMETER CLUB -SAGINAW TOWNSHIP
WEISS & WEISS CLUB - SAGINAW TOWNSHIP

From: Bill Hudson
Date: January 25, 2004
Subject: Books_Procrastination Challenges_The War of Art

Ever have a mini project that you are having problems getting done. Things
just keep getting in the way of it? Procrastination got you down? There's
help.

I just finished reading a book titled: "The War of Art", by Steven Pressield. He authored "The Legend of Bagger Vance".

It is about helping the artist overcome procrastination or Resistance. Fairly easy to read. It turned out I got the 24 flu bug so took advantage of my down time to read it. Some of you may find it very interesting and maybe even a help.

DR. OFFICE EXAM TABLE:

This is 1" scale.
Supplies:
4 pieces mini lumber...1/4th by 1/4th square, 21/2 in. long, for legs
1 piece lumber --2" wide, 5-6" long...1/8th to 1/16th thick, for table

Fine Leather or imitation polyester *leather* folded onto itself or a flat piece of foam in center. All folding on bottom (padding for table)

Very fine white cotton for pillow which needs to be almost flat, so just a pinch of cotton inside. Pillow about 1" long and 3/4" wide. No need to sew, just glue neat seams.

Piece of tissue paper, white. 13/4ths" wide and about an inch longer than table.

Glue legs to underside of table, let dry ..or stain first. Use flat sealant, paint whole table. Glue padding to table. Make pillow and glue to top of table, place tissue over pillow and glue to underside of table. Let the foot end of tissue just hang over.

Mary Ann
17 Jan 04

If you want to solder you might be able to use the heavier metals that rio grande (see resources) sells.

If you don't want to solder or are working in very small scale or are in a hurry and don't have time to beat the heavier metal (remember as you beat metal you are actually hardening it and it can come brittle) into a hard mold, use the foils.

If you want to make it look like foil metals and have it be really inexpensive I would imagine that there are papers available that would work.

Toni B in Nashville now
tonib144@aol.com

12/3/2003

Screen doors.

I would make the door out of wood strips. The left and right sides full length of the opening minus about 1/32" for clearance. My choice would be 1/16" cherry wood by about 1/4" wide.

Make top and mid strips also of 1/16 X 1/4 and just a shade under full width of opening. The bottom crosspiece should be a little wider; maybe 1/16 X 1/2 or 5/8. Overlap the top, middle and bottom pieces in place on top of the side rails and mark those rails.

Now, saw half way through the thickness of the side rails at the marks and shave away the thickness with a sharp knife (I am assuming you don't have a router) Likewise, mark the ends of all the cross pieces and reduce them to half thickness where the overlay the side rails. These overlapping joints (cleverly referred to as "lap joints") have a larger glue area than simple butt joints and also have a cross grain reinforcement to help minimize potential for curling warps. Use a good glue, clamp securely and let the glue alone 'till FULLY cured.

Now, on one side of the door, carefully score the wood about 3/64" (just a little less than a sixteenth) from the edge of all the openings. Create a notch slightly less than half the door thickness deep. This is where you will fit your screening.

For copper screening, I use a product called "WireMesh woven metal fabric" from local craft stores (Made by Paragona - UPC 3967250080-8) It is real copper and has a much finer mesh than real screening.

Carefully cut the screening to fit. Paint or otherwise finish your wooden doorframe then glue in the screen. If your local DH shop has 1/16" half round molding, use this to cap the edges of the screening being sure to ever-so-slightly overlap and cover the notch line. Be sure you also paint this before putting it in place. You don't want to do any painting around the screen mesh as the tinniest drop will wick across the surface and look awful. Even the glue used for installing screening and the half round (or other verrrrrrry thin tack cover) should be allowed to slightly thicken before use. Add hinges, a tiny brass hook, and install on your door casing. Be sure to leave a pump sprayer of bug juice next to the door for when unruly children like me forget to close it securely.

Mel K.
15 Jan 2004

Futon Bed: I don't have the issue number info but a few years back Mary Lou Nancken had a
DIY in "Miniature Collector" for a futon chair/single bed. I've made it a couple of times using full-length craft sticks to get a scale "Hollywood" width bed. I use wee little nuts, bolts & washers to make it fold & unfold more easily.

Havana (FL) Holly
12/29/03