This lavishly color illustrated paperback concentrates on the author's collection of houses, scenes, shops, etc. of 1/2" to 1 foot scale or smaller. As the author points out,
" Most collectors and modellers swiftly discover that in an average-sized house (including full-size humans), three or four 1/12 scale houses are delightful. Twenty is an embarrassment of riches and suggests it is time to open a museum."

The author writes with a sense of humor (somewhat British) as well as a great deal of enthusiasm, though one could merely page through the book and marvel at her creativity.
" I have a completely unique distressing system for furniture: I just leave it in my studio (the garden shed) for two of three months, and the combination of damp and pottery dust usually does the rest. This only recommended if you want real Victorian/Dickensian dirt."

The author makes many of her own scene houses and dolls, though she also uses a generous selection of purchased items. Sections of the book include Making minature people & animals, furnishings, building your house, minature gardenign and landscaping, interior decoration, accessories, pottery houses, paper mache houses, cold porcelain projects, Shops (of 1/12, 1/24, and 1/48 scale size), period projects, outdoors designs, and complexes. Her take on making minature gardens is especially intriguing; I've long wanted to make a model medieval garden and her work gives me a place to start. The Grocer's shop and the Alchemist's house are likely to appeal to history buffs and herbalists as well.

Unlike some of my other favorite doll's-house books, this volume gives merely verbal directions and ideas rather than patterns, but it covers a much wider variety of materials, and is the best kind of 'idea book'. The tools and materials section and the section on making dolls are more detailed. The list of sources and magazines in the back will be dated by now, but the book benefits from a good but simple index. ( )