BriJohn

https://www.etsy.com/search?q=spoke finding

I went to Ron's once. Amazing place. I thought I read last year it was closing down though -- is that not right? I also went to the one in Cocoa Beach, the Toy Box. The Toy Box is a nice store indeed, but it's not quite like Ron's. The Toy Box had a lot of building materials, lots of Pewter to paint, some nice stuff, but Ron's was just loaded and packed to the seams! The Toy Box has other giftware items also.

Les Chinoiseries and Allison Davies both make wallpaper that look just like some on the Paul Montgomery website in case you are interested. https://www.alisondaviesminiatures.co.uk/murals-wallpaper http://www.leschinoiseries.com/epages/tienda_leschinoiseries_com.sf/en_US/?ViewObjectPath=%2FShops%2Ftienda_leschinoiseries_com%2FCategories%2F%22PAPEL%20PINTADO%20MINIATURA%22

I've painted it several times. Recently, on the Victoria's Farmhouse I'm working on. I went over mine with oil based Kilz first. Then I sanded that with very fine sandpaper. It's pretty smooth like smooth enough that I can run my hand over and it feel any little spot I missed in the sanding and fix it. I haven't painted it yet but have painted the Painted Lady using primer first as well on that one, and I feel it came out well. The primer is maybe more liquid than the paint so I think it might make a better first coat but I realize you are beyond that point right now. I'd keep sanding on it.

I looked up my order history and I ordered many of these: 721012 - 7/16" CANDLEBODY SOCKET W/12" WHITE WIRES from miniatures.com that was quite a while ago so not sure if they still carry it.

I scrapbooked for years before i got into dollhouses. I have tried so many papers to print...my very favorite, that has the best color, is untextured scrapbook cardstock that's high quality used for printing out your design after you've made a digital page (and bonus acid free). I can't remember what it was called specifically but the color is right on - just as bold as you see it on your screen, no fading, rich colors. I would experiment with that and with some of the nicer weight HP or Epson papers - had another from them that wasn't scrapbook paper that was almost just as nice..I might be able to find the name of it tomorrow but it's bean so long since I've ordered those papers.

Yes, I agree, I did the same thing and she helped me and reprinted some older styles for me.

Les Chinoiseries has incredible paper. They're in Spain so shipping is higher, but the fine fine texture, oh, I love the paper. I just collect it without a specific purpose sometimes.

We’ve booked a room with me and husband a kids but I’ll be the one going gown and doing the buying. Last time i let each of the older kids go down with only me one at a time and select a few things to purchase. We were at the Bishop show. This year I also want to go to the miniature show in Schaumburg and the museum where the Thorne Rooms are. Anyone going?

Woohoo, Miranda, victory indeed! That's so good! Dontcha feel great? This is a nice style, I agree.

I thought "buy desperately," I sure know how that feels! It's like when you have an idea of what you want buy you aren't sure exactly and you buy stuff just in case. That was funny.

You can email her directly and order. I did not too long ago.

I always thought this lady made some cute chandeliers and her method is very do-able. She just uses the single bulb on a cord. Most of you have probably already seen this video.

So the idea was to separate each of the double wires of each bulb string set, strip them, then if my memory is correct you take one from each set of two and combine all those into a group. Take the others, the remainder, and combine into one group. Then you can take these tiny heat shrink tubes and my plan was to fuse it all onto two final wires and that wire would come out the top of my chandelier. It's been so long, and stripping the wires and twisting was hard for me, they kept breaking but going to use the solder gun next time to try and strip the wires. If you can get the wires simplified into two final wires, an in current wire and and out current wire, you could definitely put them on a plug. Getting the wires through the tubes is a small challenge no matter what. My curves were pretty big so it was not a huge deal. Like the others were saying, if you had any smaller curves than what I have here, or fancy curves, I'm guessing you'd need to bend the brass with the wire fed through already. I was using the smallest diameter of brass that could physically hold those two tiny wires. Used 1/16 brass tube. My bends were 1"

Okay, good advice, thanks!

How are you going to cut your rod? My method wasn’t the best but it worked okay. I scored mine with bead pliers and applied even pressure while rotating and it snapped off but barely bent inward around the cut end. That’s why I used an awl to bend outward at the hole. It was okay but I’m sure there’s a better way. I bought the tube cutter but I didn’t like it.

The brass I was using seemed solid enough that It never kinked it but I wAs making pretty big curves. Bending the brass was the least of my problems so it didn’t occur to me to try to thread it with wires first and since I had several brass do dads between my candle and the end of my brass rod, those would’ve been jingling around in my way before I had had a chance to get the body all glued up. If my curves had been any smaller I think I would’ve had to insert the wires first though because it takes some finesse to get them through on the bend I did manage. I may try to thread the wires first in my next attempt tho, maybe that would be better.

I was bending mine around a glass test tube and it worked well. Agreed on making sure you’ve got a clean opening on the cut brass ends. Mine kind of bent inward at the cut spot and I took a little awl and went from the inside and bent outwards a bit to clean up and re-open that end. There’s probably a better way to do that or a better way to cut it than I was doing but, anyway...

This resource is incredible!! They even have the glass globes you might want to use for a definite Victorian chandelier (like you've shown in your example pages, ha). I've always wondered where to find those. They have the brass banding like you see on the Ni-Glo lamps, wow, all kinds of stuff! They have the great unusual shaped beads for the center of the chandeliers, I just can't believe what a great resource. Thank you again!

Oh my, yes, thank you Karin and Miranda! I didn't know about JAR/JAF and the videos are helpful. Thanks so much for your detective work I wonder if I could work one of those torches.....

Oh cool about the welding, yeah, no problem for you. Sweet!! I bought candle sockets with the wires attached from miniatures.com. But the wires are just so fine that I kept breaking them when I was stripping the coating. Maybe I should try something else next time because I wasted enough money breaking those that I could've bought a reasonably priced chandelier. I often wondered if there as a heavier gauge out there I wasn't aware of. Added: thinking back, I believe the colored crystals only came in 4mm, smallest, if my memory is correct. I think they look at little large and that was one thing I changed on the clear one also. The teeny tiny crystal at the top of that drop pattern is the 2mm or maybe 2.5mm.

I thought about soldering too but then I read it's very difficult to solder brass and you have to use a small torch. I used Elieen's the Ultimate which was a clear glue. Here's how close I got. The second picture wasn't finished at the top, I was just so proud of my progress up that point. Never finished either of these, makes me sad. It was getting all the wires from all the candle bulbs condensed into two cords that kept throwing me. Those wires are just so tiny, they break so easily when you're stripping them and trying to get them all on the same circuit line or whatever. I told myself once I got one of these to work with the brass tube arms I would never do one again! I was going to use the spoke findings from there on out because feeding that wire through the brass is tough also. But I firmly believe where there's a will, there's a way. Added: yes I remember I tried to solder that brass and when it didn't work I went online and watched videos about how to do it and they were using little torches to get it hot enough to fuse. If you're using the spokes for arms and the beads down the middle, which I was going to do some like that also, then I don't think you'll have to use anything more than glue. I wanted to solder my brass tubes together at the top because the design I was after, it really needed it there, I felt, so the darn thing would stay together.

I recommend crystals 2 to 2.5MM for the most part (not the bugle beads but for the rounded beads). I went through a chandelier phase, made a darn good one too, then broke a wire and had glued the findings down around the wires and had to scrap the thing then got so mad I put it away for another time. I got mine from fire mountain gems.

I've bought kids from Paula Gilhooley and Jeannie Lindquist. Paula uses the special crepe paper also. Her laser cuts are similar to Mary's on the little white sheet - think the sheets are about the same size but not sure on that. Paula paints hers first and Mary leaves that to the buyer, I believe. Paula's have the wire, mustard seed (for buds on delphinium for example), etc.. Jeannie Lindquist is a little different. She has a degree is botany and her flowers are already printed onto thin, untextured paper, front and back sides both printed so what you have to do is cut them at the tabs, shape, and glue together. She has some very nice lilies. I recently made her daffodil kit and that papery piece on the back where the stem connects to the flower was already printed with lines and it turned out pretty. Karin is very, very, skilled in making her own flowers and I will be listening to her pointers also. She has a great tutorial here for a certain flower, which variety it was escapes me right now. Added: it's an Iris. Added: I was just thinking about it, and I think it depends on Paula's kits which flower it is whether she uses the crepe paper or cardstock type paper. I know her tulips, iris, and hollyhocks use crepe and her tiger lily uses smooth paper that she's punched with punches. So some of her kits are created with punches and some are laser cut.