This is a great thread. We all love what we collect and isn't it wonderful that most of us collect something different? I collect blue and white Staffordshire Transferware from England, early to mid 1800's. I have over 100 Cup Plates, a little more or less than 4" diameter. They were used as a coaster with the handless cups with bowl shape saucer of 6" from the 1820-1850 period. Often confused with a child's plate from a toy tea set. I also have many patterns of dinner ware pieces of a specific potter E. & G Phillips, Longport England. American butter stamps, butter churns and English cream pots with dairy names stamped or transfered on the pot and numerous other things too many to list. I am just addicted to antiques and collectibles. I also clean and repair and resale and upgrade my English china. So my life is a constant buy, clean, repair, resale, collect more upgrade..etc. I tell my husband I am recycling and being green! I love,love, love what I do. I cannot imagine not ever being able to buy and also resale to share my knowlegde. I also have an extensive library of reference books and love researching everything.

Maybe dumb question but are the fixtures on top of the cake edible? Are they dollhouse miniatures? My mother would have loved this cake being that she was a dollhouse enthusiast who built 6 dollhouses and made miniature furniture and linens. Isn't it amazing how talented people can be!

I have my soapstone as my backsplash but we went with stainless steel behind the range. I wanted the same material up the whole wall (under the hood and above it). I had planned on oiling my soapstone and did not want to worry about a section under the hood being darker than the section going up to the ceiling. I am trying to attach a picture but it's not letting me....have the rules changed? It's here if you want to see it http://s1057.photobucket.com/user/TexasPenny/media/oven%20backsplash.jpg.html

Dave's Garden has a nice section on edible palm fruits at http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/3242/ Here's a quote: "If you want to be absolutely accurate, almost all palm fruits are edible, though I would not really recommend eating most of them. Some are toxic however, and have high levels of oxalates in them so these are palm fruits that definitely should be avoided" unfortunately, the king palm isn't listed there one way or the other. http://www.junglemusic.net/Palm_Seeds_and_Fruit/Palm_Tree_Seeds_and_Fruit.html has a list of edible palm seeds near the end of the page, but also doesn't list the King Palm. They point out that some edible palms produce "fruit" where you eat the fleshy seed coating, like dates; others produce "nuts" where you eat the inside of the seed, like coconut. http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/edible-palms.html lists edible hardy palm fruits, but doesn't mention King palm. So, not sure if they're edible. I would guess that they're probably neither pleasant nor toxic to eat, or there would be more info about them.