I started another scene last night while I’m making some decisions to finish my previous scene and just wanted to get everyone’s opinions so far.
Still have a lot of work to do on the mouse.
Oh and the mouse is the first time I’ve tried modeling a living creature.
Nice work so far. I assume you’re going to pose the mouse? 
Texturing is good. I’m working on a similar scene, and yours easily looks better:)
However, the lighting needs a bit of work . Make a definte light source (window, lamp), and make the main light/s come from there. Add some fill lights to make the scene a little more realistic. (get rid of the hard black shadows )
Remove the sharp corners (they look they could remove someone’s kidney), and the huge blow-out of specularity at the lower right hand corner. maybe lower the spec a bit on some of the books as well??
Hope I’m not being too harsh. It’s a good scene, with that little bit more work it could be great. Keep on it.
Sam
Yeah the mouse will be posed once I finish modeling it and get it rigged so I can pose it
All the lighting is currently just work lights.
Had the books looking better and the glare on the desk gone but my computer crashed before I could save it so I have to figure out what I did again. 
did you try autosave?
I can never seem to get the auto save to work
This is a bit too dark, lighten up your sene a bit (especially near the flame/candle)
Second that. I would also turn the flame innter purple to the outer color and then turn the outer color more orange… unless it’s a candle that is burning gas. Candle temperature won’t be hot enough to produce anything above yellow to white-ish light.
A link to a very good tutorial on making a candle flame using the new smoke simulator:
Here look at these images. All have only one source of light…the candle. See how much light it generates? Try to replicate that in your scene.
However, i dont think you should only have that one candle, have another light source in another place, otherwise the scene will be too dark.
Also notice the wax, see how it gradually blends from bright to dark?
Just search some candle references on google.
Actually just go light a candle in the house and turn off all the lights! Or if you dont have a candle, just light a lighter to see how much light it generates and how the desk is lit.
Have a look at this (download the blend) : http://www.blendswap.com/3D-models/misc-objects/sintels-shelter-candles-v-2/
I tried following this tutorial and even if I have the same settings as far as I can tell my flame looks more like a firework while his looks realistic
I’ll upload the .blend file and if someone could take a look for my mistake I’d be very appreciative.
http://www.mediafire.com/?rht0xbg9afge9w5
Hmm i couldnt get the flame to show up from ur .blend, but the screenshot looks ok, i think you just need to do a bit of compositing on the flame and you will be set. Maybe do a color correction and increase the saturation?
You just need to go to the physics panel of the domain cube and click free all bakes then bake all dynamics to get it to show up.
