Pudsey, 13th April

I was destined to go to Edinburgh this weekend,  taking in a dolls house fair up there which I have never been to. The trip got cancelled.  Never fret, my 'regular' Pudsey one was held yesterday (13th April).  For those not in the know this is at Pudsey Civic Hall (Leeds area) and  is run by Doreen Jeffries.  With about 70 stands there is enough to go at.


We got there half an hour before it opened as I was 'working' (doing a review for DH&MS magazine) and needed to check in with Doreen.  I was very well-behaved and waited in the foyer (after speaking to her)  so I was out of the way while people finished setting up, but the ladies running the charity stall said it was OK to buy from them.





The next three pictures show my treasures from the Children in Need stall.

I snagged these great little plates - nine of them in a bag for £2.  I am trying to pick up all my dishes for the shop whenever I see a bargain.  Mostly they will be stacked so they need to be thin to look right which is the problem when you want to pay as little as possible for them.  These just fitted the bill.

As you can see from the photo, the anti-macassars (I just love the word!) were £1.50.  They may go in Chocolat.  I know they were around in my fifties childhood but is it a very English thing or did the French have them too?  I am sure macassar oil would have been replaced by Brylcreem by then, but I  know my mom always had them on my dad's chair.





The little turned cake stand (?) was also £2 and made by the man helping on the stall.  He was described as 'the muscle'. It is thinner/daintier and straighter than this photo suggests!

The two saucepans set me back 30p!

I don't feel guilty about snaffling these bargains as I do always take a bag of stuff for them to sell and I saw some of it up for sale and then saw that it had gone when I looked in to say goodbye, so I helped a bit.


Here are some of the treasures I bought.  You will have to check out Bentleys and My Quarter Life for the others.  Most of my finds turned out to be for Chocolat.  I won't post every picture here; you can always see them in the Chocolat purchases album if you want to.  A lot of the stuff consists of the basics needed for building, such as skirting, coving, windows, door handles and doors.  But to start you off on the rest .......... here's a little sweetie....

It is a very tiny set of scales.  I suspect it would have been used in a chemist shop but as chocolate was sold in apothecaries originally and this shop would only be selling such fine chocolate in small 'doses', these scales are perfect.  Not to mention that anything larger won't fit nicely where I want them to go! 

This is a very poor photo and makes this gas fire look really rough and ready whereas it is an excellent reproduction of the sort of fire I had in my bedroom in the fifties.  I only remember it being lit on Christmas morning when my sister and I had got up pre-dawn to open our presents in the presence of our parents who had been dragged into the bedroom to see what Santa had brought us. 

The vendor sells 'used' items and there were just two of these - why oh why didn't I buy the other one!!  One of these days I am going to want two of them.

This is destined for Chocolat's bedroom.  I have my eye on a lovely Belling fire for the sitting room from Truly Scrumptious which I will pick up from Miniatura in September if I can resist that long.  Nothing like planning ahead.

I know this looks like general hardware but it is unusual (ish).  The coat hooks are not that easy to find: the black lift up-the-latch-and-walk latch, even less.  I bought the five brass, strange looking things as wall switches, but they look more like chunky door bells?  They are perfectly in scale and therefore super tiny, so they may look right in situ but, right now, I am struggling with them.  I assume the stump is so you can cut a piece of wood for a pattresss and drill a hole for them to go in.  This seems like overkill when a bit of glue would have done?

These four bells might seem a strange addition, but Vianne will have brought her French traditions with her and in France the Easter eggs that children search for are brought by the flying bells.  No church bells are rung from Thursday to Easter Sunday when they then ring out for Easter.  Children are told the bells are not ringing because they have been sent to the Pope and will return on Easter Sunday and drop eggs as they fly over back to their steeples.  So, Chocolat will have bells with wings as decorations and also chocolate bells.  Not sure which these will be just yet.

Vianne has inherited her shop fittings with the shop/bar premises she is renting and must make do with what is there.  There is a small bar with a shelf unit behind.  This is the shelves part of the duo.  Unfortunately I couldn't get the right size bar to go in front.  I can get Matlock to make me one.  Meanwhile I bought a too small unfinished bar to go in front.  I also got a display counter and the shelves and table I need on the other wall.  I am not too sure about any of those as yet but at least I know this is a piece I do want.

Again the photograph doesn't do justice to these little hand-made resin pieces.  I bought 1/24th rather than 1/12th because, like the scales, I wanted small pieces.  The vendor is Halls Miniature Clocks.  As you can see from the photo stand he does things other than clocks, such as lovely fireplaces.  Some periods really suit his materials.  The hearths are really lovely.  Check them out.  The clock, incidentally, is just 5/8ths inch tall, less than half the size you are looking at here.

The other thing I was happy to get was these lovely little knitting pins.  I had done Naples to death searching for a size 19 (UK) 1.0mm pair of needles.  I was greeted with disbelief, even in a very snotty knitting shop, over there when I asked for this size.  These were on a very eclectic stall and I spotted them at the eleventh hour, just before I left.

I knew I could order them when I got back to the UK from Lion Brand or Buttercup but that always entails postage and so bumps up the price considerably.  Happy find.

I hope to succeed in knitting a couple of shawls to hang on hooks in Bentleys.  Daisy's rough one in the kitchen and Ellen's better one in her bedroom.  I may even revisit childhood and knit potholders and dishcloths, who knows.....


I did OK on my two very long shopping lists but there is still a stack of stuff to get.  I didn't manage to get a single light I liked.  That was disappointing because there were maybe three people selling a range of lights and looking at them reminded me that their selection was the usual selection so how am I going to find what I see in my mind's eye?  Bottomless pockets would send me to Ray Storey and no problem but, as it stands, finding lights may prove difficult.

Buying furniture this early in the process was so I can establish exactly where the lights are going to go as the holes and grooves need to be settled very early in the build.  So, some time in the week I will be having a dry run with what I have and will be marking up what needs to go where.  There is a chance I can get the very small LED bulbs that are around now into the gas fire and light that too.

Photo album: Minis - Pudsey, 13th April 2013