Monday 17 May 2010

Dolls and miniatures


One of my favourite dolls' house miniatures stores on Ebay, Highland Dolls House Miniatures, is sadly having a closing down sale due to family illness. I will be sorry to see this store go as I have bought a number of nice things from them. I recently bought a few more items to add to my bulging dolls' house "stuff" stash!
The little geese above will make admirable door-stops don't you think? I bought one for me and two others are presents for friends :-) Considering how small they are, the geese are surprisingly heavy!

This handpainted desk and chair set is so sweet ~ when I finally get one of my three (!) kits built, it go in a child's bedroom.

I love this handpainted side table; the design is quite simple but very effective I think. This is destined for a hallway, study or library.

This is yet another handpainted piece ~ and I just fell in love with it as soon as I spotted it! This dresser could be used in many different rooms ~ a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, dining room. I will have a hard time, I think, making my final decision as to which room I put it in LOL

Here is the detail on the very top of the dresser ~ isn't it pretty? As it's likely to be quite some time before I get any of my dolls' house kits actually put together, I am thinking that it would be nice in the meantime to display some of my more decorative furniture on a shelf somewhere. That way, I would have the pleasure of seeing the pieces rather than just leaving them in storage for who-knows-how-long!

I saw these blank books and immediately had the idea of making them into miniature journals. After all, we can buy very pretty, decorative journals for ourselves so why shouldn't our 1/12th scale dolls have the same opportunity ;-)

As it is likely to be some time before I build any houses, I decided to give myself some practice with this market stall. I had a dry-run with the pieces a couple of Sundays back and eventually worked out where each piece went ~ the instructions were obviously not written with folk like me in mind! I haven't quite decided what will be "sold" on this stall yet but as I have lots of bits 'n' bobs in my stash, a bric-a-brac stall is looking to be a good option.

This is Edward, the latest male fashion doll in my quest to find chaps that I like! He isn't too bad, actually, although he doesn't look too bright does he?? A wee bit nice-but-dim perhaps LOL He needs cleaning so he will have to have an appointment in my dolly spa soon. As you can see, he has moulded plastic hair which I'm really not that keen on *sigh* Oh well, he will just have to do!

One of my Flickr friends sent me the link to this little sweetie on Ebay ~ I took one look and was hooked! Lucille is lovely but extremely grubby as you can see.

I fully intend to blame Simon (the Flickr friend mentioned above) for this one too hehehehe

Sylvia was listed by the same seller as Lucille and I thought it would be nice if they stayed together. Poor Sylvia is just as grubby as Lucille but she also needs a lot of TLC ~ I have a feeling she is going to turn out to be quite a project!

Jacqueline is a gorgeous little dolly, made by Simba. I don't usually go for the more modern dolls but she was so pretty that I just sort of fell in love with her :-) She has lovely hands and feet, very finely detailed, and super hair. When I first looked at her, I thought that she had some lashes missing from her right eye. On closer inspection, though, it seems that half of them have been sort of pushed over to one side. I very gently, and carefully, ran the tip of a pin over the lashes against the eyelid and they have more or less slid back over again. Her lashes look much better now. Jacqueline is in lovely condition and really looks as if she has hardly been touched, let alone played with!

I have been knitting for Grace again.

This outfit is meant for a Barbie-type doll and the pattern is an old one. It called for 3-ply fingering yarn and no 4 (English size 9) needles. I used double-knit yarn and 4mm needles and just hoped for the best ~ as usual LOL Anyhoo, I'm really pleased with how it turned out and have started on another of the other three patterns which came with this one. So all being well, Grace will soon have four new outfits ~ hopefully she will be nice and share them with her sister, Gloria!

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