Clare Bell light

I am not sure if this is a show-and-tell or I am still just looking for absolution.

I am not even starting with forgive me, I have sinned....  not with this one.  When I very first began with minis we used to snow-bird in Naples Florida and it had the most glorious mini shop called Nancy's.  (Sadly no more)  One of the very first things in that shop that I ever fell in love with was a collection of Clare Bell lights and the one I loved most was a five candle Georgian candelabra.  It was beyond my budget and, anyway, my project was a modern house so of no use whatsoever.  That did not stop me from visiting Nancy's over the years to drool over it.  I have even checked it out now and then, online, in the years since then.

So on my recent spree I thought I would leave it in the lap of the gods and see if I could find one - they are almost as rare as hens' teeth.  If I could, I would have it..... and the gods were smiling and here it is.

I need to straighten the candles a little and it will be brighter when using electricity rather than a battery

It came from the USA.  It was pricey, plus huge postage, plus the risk of paying customs duty on it over here.  Luckily all that worked out OK once I had stopped blubbing about the hole in my bank.

Then...... dramatic drum roll....... this is what I unwrapped.  Four very winky-wonky candles and the fifth had no bulb

Flip! hate the idea/cost of returning it to the states!!

You're British, Don't panic....  I lifted the light and this was underneath.  

No idea what the bit of wire is for

So, with just a bit of fiddling around with the two-wire-plug-in nightmare bulb and we were good to go.  Ahhh, woops, still a bit of a problem as my music room hadn't been expecting a floor standing Georgian candelabra and it would make even less sense in the other two traditional rooms.  I decided it could go in the precarious corner sort of behind the door.  The (invisible) doorstop prevents it being knocked and it would be brought into the centre of the room any time the  quartet sets up to play.  I would tell myself any story to validate this piece. 😊

Masters Miniatures

About three posts ago I confessed to having the equivalent of a shopping-at-a-show spree, but on line instead.  Since then my thinking has been....  

For a few years I was lucky enough to get to six or more shows a year, in the UK and the States.  Admittedly I did not spend lots of money each time, being on a somewhat restricted budget.  The shows in themselves were much of the pleasure and we always turned the trips into little mini breaks of a couple of days or so.  I can't get to shows any more so it seems OK to spend what I would have done there ..... plus a bit more as we aren't spending anything on travel, accommodation, meals etc;  so my initial order with Masters Miniatures became two.  I only owned one of their pieces which I bought as a bit of a treat some years ago.  The haul that follows is quite a bit beyond naughty.

That said, I think their prices are excellent for those of us who can't afford Beith, Escutcheon,Tarbena et al, all of whom are the stuff that dreams are made of.  Masters Miniatures make many fine pieces and it is lovely to have something which is that bit above the ordinary.

The box came this morning and I was truly like a kid with a new toy (or toys).  I promise you my photographs do not do them justice.  I have made them look a bit clunky and they are certainly not that.  They are dainty and their finish is excellent.  I am thrilled.

I ordered four, then two..... so yes, I have six of these.  The braid trim is a row of exquisitely teeny tassels.

This is a Canterbury and was originally designed to hold sheet music.  Perfect solution for my music room.

I have a nice House of Miniatures kit for a music stand which almost cost me what this cost but their finish is much nicer than I can achieve.  This one also has little three little brass bars in the centre, so sweet.

Same again, I have a similar HOM kit for about the same price as this but this has been made for me to just drop in place and, again, made so much better

There is a lovely inlaid top to my wine cooler

The actual finish on this wine cooler is so much better than this photograph shows.

It has perfect little hinges and even the inside is finished beautifully

My Regency square piano

I need to add a little colour over the indentation for the stick to support the lid.  

Complete with tiny castors so my little people can keep it against a wall when it's not 'in concert'

If you happen to be worrying about such dainty things arriving safely

Bit of a breather

I currently have a lot of RL commitments to various things so I didn't want to get stuck into adding the many window frames which I've decided to do but, now I am back in the game, I find I am itching to get back to the house.  When I have some moments (in the evening) I am trawling the web for ideas and some occasional shopping.  I have also been through my stash in hopes of finding any very quick projects to crack off when I have the odd half hour here and there in the day to play.

Purchases

I was disappointed with my Jim Coates Trumau mirror from the States (for me an expensive buy).  The idea was to match the one I already have in the hall.  This is a completely different colour - I realise it is likely to be slightly different from a different batch of paint but this one is waaaayyy off.  I am very wary of having to repaint both of them to make them match as they are fairly complicated when it comes to a repaint.  Additionally the moulding seems to be bordering on 'crude' - its partner is nicely done, hence my original and subsequent investment.

For four years, now and then, I have been searching for a House of Miniatures Hunt-board to match the one I made back in 2017  One extremely kind mini contact sold me one of hers and the very same day that it was mailed I came across one in  Hobby's   Most annoyingly, it had probably been lurking there all the time I was looking elsewhere.  Being me, I decided on belt and braces and now have the two of them.  If I make a mess of making one I do have a fall back position.  This photo shows my 2017 make and one of the proposed ones.

I love, love, love this.  One of Elizabeth's super-dooper creations from Elf Miniatures.  I bet you are all looking and (a) wondering what the heck it is and (b) why is she so excited.  Well, it is a pan rack which I love in its own right but the plus for me is I had a single miserable looking open shelf (over the sink area) between my cupboards in my student's kitchen and I kept putting this and that object on it and each time deciding it was too boring to stay.  I actually risked being able to get this in the space but committed to it before its arrival by gently tugging out the offending shelf.  It is such an exact fit it will almost stay in place without glue.   I even have the set of pans to go on it.

The bundle beside the rack holds modern door handles - I will show you where they are going when I get to that task.

Mmmm, yet another disappointing expensive purchase.  I paid £30 plus postage for this as it was the exact mirror I wanted for a particular place.  When the desire for a Girondole mirror arose I couldn't for the life of me remember where I had seen one of them - years ago!  So I was pleased when I fell across one via Etsy.  I spent some time talking myself up into another extravagance but bit the bullet and off went my pounds and back came this broken and bent version of the Girondole mirror I craved.  I am leaving the 'repairs' for now and just hoping it will be OK after a bit of glue and gentle reshaping.  To add insult to injury I have, of course, since remembered that this very mirror is sold by Pheonix Model developments in a (very easy) kit form and I could have had that for £12.60 with less postage and the same amount of assembly (of not bent pieces) plus a little paint.

I also bought some silk fabric for curtains  to match a Brodnax wallpaper which turned out to be absolutely not a match and managed to look like someone had been smoking in the house for the last thirty years.  My sitting room wallpaper is an almost white background to pale pink cherry blossom and pale green leaves.  The silk arrived with a cream/beigy background and very undefined pattern of flowers and branches.  Most decidedly not the vendor's fault, just a rubbish product.  I am hoping some of it might make cushions as my chairs are a cream silk.  Again, fair warning if you are using Brodnax wallpaper.

This fabric shown below is from Les Chinoiseries and is a perfect match for their wallpaper.  I also got a lovely little free bonus included which unfortunately I can't use as this fabric is for the library and I only have one chair int there which doesn't need a cushion.  There is printed fabric for four different pattern cushions with plain matching backs.  It is a nice weight cotton and will work well.  If anyone can use them please let me know and I am happy to post them to you.

Mini makes

My first little make was a great kit by Jane Harrop.  A shopping basket.  One of the things I love about Jane's meticulous work is her spot-on scale and this was no exception.  There are gorgeous baskets out there in mini world at a price but the budget end of basketry that I have found is a bit clunky.  I have made some quarter scale baskets using a fine hessian and they looked good but I hadn't attempted anything for 1/12ths.

This is a simple matter of weaving some beautifully cut paper strips presented in a way to help you manage them accurately and easily.  I honestly loved doing it and considered mass production on this one.  The kit had extras in case of any mishaps and easily made two lovely baskets.  I love them and wish I could think of reasons for having more.  Don't be put off by the idea of them being 'just paper'.

By now I was on a roll - what else would be quick to do - a kit from The Craft pack Company

First things first I needed to find all my other Christmas decorations to see what I might want to put with what.  This entailed clearing out the bogey hole under the stairs in Dalton House.

You can't see the poor light fitting in real life as you can't get your head through the doorway; unlike the camera.  Mental note - when fitting a light in a deep, dark cupboard make sure it has some oomph!  This is a bogey hole I would decidedly not go in.

The decorations were duly made and packed away with the other Christmas stuff.  I decided the bogey hole would only have a ton of Christmas decorations in it.  This is a big house and it needs a Christmas decoration cupboard.😏

In clearing out the (now) Christmas cupboard other things were unearthed.  

Ah, those blessed chairs.  I made them from a couple of House of Miniatures kits and their first incarnation was a mahogany finish which I thought looked poor.  They hung around for a good long while and then acquired what was to be a shabby chic cream finish.  Decidedly shabby and not at all chic.  I was going to just add them to someone's parcel of goodies but am too ashamed of their awfulness.

How about I paint them gold for the music room?

Done.... and they looked even more dreadful - completely patchy all over and another thick gloopy layer of paint.  Perhaps I would I like them better the next day?

New day and the dried paint still looked dreadful; out came the Super Hero of my kit....

Wonderful, wonderful gold leaf Krylon pen went on like silk and covered every blemish.  The 'ugly' now is the gazillion layers of paint, which is never a good look.  Why oh why didn't the god of minis give me that fabulous solution when they were bare wood?

Not content with almost bringing four scabby chairs back into the world with some paint, it was time to find fabric for the seats.  One huge box of fabrics later and the only one I liked for the chairs was already on four chairs in the dining room.  That's OK I was thinking of recovering those any way.

It was not so OK when I discovered that whoever had made them had used heaven knows what glue and a gallon of it.  I pulled and prised and tore it off the chair and then discovered I would have to cut most of it away to remove the stiff unyielding glue covered pieces. I was left with only a few threads to roll over the edges of my gold chair seats.  It is a very close call and I haven't done all four yet but I am now sort of committed.  I have also dislodged a chair leg in the process so far.

Apologies for the hideous finish but, after such a hellish birth, they have become the screaming baby that I love.  They can be 'got away with' as they are only glimpsed in amongst the other furniture.

Back on track

I hope I am back on track and I have started to settle down to getting the mini house sorted now the big one is ticking over nicely.

Crossed fingers I can produce the old Saturday edition of the Dalton house blog each week, again.

I am still putting back rooms and looking in my storage boxes for tiny things to see what dressing I may or may not have for said rooms when they are settled.

Today (14/06/16) I got four rooms back in place.  They are all on the ground level and are the formal part of the house which is mostly used for entertaining visitors.  It has been refurbished and furnished to echo the feeling of the house's original rooms.

The sitting room - the lamps at the back need holes drilling for the wires to go through to the back and I want two paintings for the sofa walls.  the wires will go through two pretend wall sockets and I may add another on a side wall.  I have a lovely Elizabeth Causeret (I think??) green bowl on the right hand table and a clock which won't go on the mantle on the left.  It was intended for in front of the mirror but the mantel is too slim.  Georgian mantels didn't hold loads of 'trinklements' like the Victorian ones went on to do.  The walls won't need radiators as there is underfloor heating on this floor of the house to help keep the feel of the original building.

formal sitting room

The hallway - I have no idea what I will dress the hall tables with; all I have so far is a plant and a bunch of keys.  Again this is the ground floor and free of radiators but it still needs some wall sockets, an alarm, and a doorbell box.  I also need a painting for the left wall.

The dining room - I would love to find and make another House of Miniatures huntboard (like the one on the left wall) for the right wall rather than the too small demi table  - I do love symmetry.  In the loooooong meanwhile whilst waiting to find one the demi table will have to do.  I actually have far too much stuff to dress the dining room with - lots of silver and glass and china.  So, very soon, I will be getting on with that and wondering what to do with the leftovers.  Yet again two more wall sockets are needed in here.  I also need two very grand paintings for each side wall.

The music room - again I need several paintings of various sizes for this room.  There is a bust of Mozart so the paintings will be part of a celebration of the baroque - as that extended from 1600 to 1750 I should have enough to go at.  The pair of black pots are lovely.  They have lids which actually come off and the bases are paper thin and so pretty - I don't really have a good place to show them.  They may end up on a windowsill.  I need two pretty chairs one for each side wall and I will be making a chaise/bench seat for across the centre front (between the two left hand windows)  The room could seat a dozen people and for a larger gathering it can have the furniture moved around and others chairs brought in.  It is a music room which is used by the family but occasional recitals are also given here.  It doubles up as a card room too and card tables and chairs are brought in for the occasional game of bridge after dinner with friends.  One table is always left in place for the family to use.  Someone has left an unfinished solitaire game on it right now.  On a more prosaic note it needs wall sockets. (but no radiators!) 

I am having a hard time dressing the rooms as they lack suitable surfaces.  I intend to try to make windowsills when I come to work on the fourth wall so a few things can be dotted about there which will help.

Dolls House and Miniatures Fair - York

Dolls House and Miniatures Fair
(Established 2002)
York Race Course
Sunday 3rd June

 I managed to get to the York Show at the eleventh hour.  With current health issues and moving into a new house/garden and wanting to be around to help the family I wasn't able to make a decision until the last minute this year, but we made it.

When we do this show we go to York for two plus days, especially for the Spring Show when the weather is usually nice as York is such a lovely place to visit.  I commend it to anyone who could take a mini break there (or even an extended holiday) just remember to build in the June or November show!  It is on the 18th this year.

We go on Saturday arriving in time for lunch at our very favourite restaurant of all time - Trinacria .  It is not at all posh but has the most wonderful cook/chef.  They do arancinis to die for and I have never eaten anything there I didn't love. 

On Sunday I go to the show and my other half tootles around on his bike seeking out various ice creams (home made Italian, or in Trinacria's case Scicilian) and cakes and coffee - so he is one happy man.  Not sure he takes in much of the fascinating scenery.  By the time he picked me up from the show he was ready again for cake and coffee at the lovely Goddards.  As a miniaturist and somewhat passionate about beautiful houses this is high on my hit list.  A modest (by grand houses standards) Arts and Crafts House once belonging to the Terry (chocolate) family.  If you are doing an Arts and Crafts project this is one to visit for sure.

we had our tea and coffee and cakes on the terrace at Goddards

I am afraid I was very forgetful about taking photos but I do have this one through the car window as we were leaving York for our trip home - you get a glimpse of the Minster.

We also squeezed in a quick flit to Beningbrough Hall but I confess to not doing the house or gardens as I was bone weary from the show.  We have been there before and, again, another trip worth doing if you are in the area.  This time you have 300 years of house to go at and on a grander scale - but still not overawing. (is that a word or did I make it up?)  We stopped in at their Farm Shop and I bought a couple of white foxgloves for a little empty corner behind my Buddha.  In the twenty four hours or so behind a car seat they managed to bend their stems to accommodate it!  I promise you they will be lovely when fully grown and open.

Beningbrough foxgloves

So to the show itself....

It is a bit naughty of the organisers to claim 'over 90 vendors' year after year when the numbers have steadily declined to 72.  Yes, I know there are folks out there who would sell their souls to be surrounded by 72 traders all selling their miniatures.  Part of the loss this year for me was a bit significant in that there were two vendors missing I had particularly gone there for.  Hey Ho.

I did see a lovely display by a family group called Raven Miniatures.  I googled them but without success.  They had created a lovely scene of our 1/12th friends looking at their very own model railway which was actually happily chugging round its lovely little track.  I have an email for them if anyone wants to follow up for any reason - fluff48@zoho.com

They had a second display of a BBQ complete with smoke rising from the grill - a light bulb and some oil it seems......

As I mentioned I am not super fit right now so maybe I was under par in general - all I know was I couldn't find anything I really wanted.  This has happened every time at the last few shows that it worries me - am I just not well, jaded as far as the project goes or just come to a natural end with the hobby?

I love coming up with an idea, researching it and doing the actual build of the house.  I enjoy some basic furnishing but every time on the previous four projects the enthusiasm peters out when it comes to endless shopping around for bits and bobs to dress the scenes.  With every build prior to this I had another project waiting in the wings so I felt OK about not quite finishing and passing the story along to someone else.  This time I am determined this is my final build and it will be carried through to the end and kept by me...... BUT..... I confess to being less than enthusiastic when it comes to looking for  things to finish the story.

Here's what I bought....

A bowl of eggs - I am not sure if I got rid of the one I had that looked like this or if I still have it

sort of tells its own story!

 I did like this buy - some things from the Luggage Lady (Sue Popely)  Beautifully in scale and made of leather.

 Talking of scale I also managed to get some liquorice all sorts, also spot on with their size.

 This is where it all goes wrong.....

I have seen these musical instruments many, many, many times on the web and at shows and have always decided I didn't like them enough to buy them and I would wait until I could afford some 'better' ones.  Stopping by a stall and desperate to buy something I spotted these on musical instrument stands.  One was a very nice metal stand which really gave the violin a boost in its appearance and for that reason alone I asked for a violin and a cello and two matching metal stands.  After saying she wasn't sure if she had any the vendor picked out two stand boxes and carefully opened both checking their contents (so she knew they were plastic?!) and voila I now have two instruments I am not fond of on two plastic stands which don't fit either instrument properly and I am over twenty pounds lighter in cash.

I bought my French post-grad student a very nice espresso coffee maker for her apartment.  I am sorry the photo doesn't do it justice.  It is a piece by Delph Miniatures and, as always, nicely done.

Finally I bought a cat only to discover when I got home I have the very same one!  My excuse is that the house has been empty now for about three months and I don't have a clear mental picture of each room any more.  Hey ho, we now have two cats.

So for me not a fabulous trip BUT do not let me put you off, it is a jolly good show for anyone with stamina and optimism - I know of a couple of ladies who had a whale of a day.