Petwood and panic mode

I am just a bit in panic mode at the moment and here I am writing a post for a blog!

I have correspondence up to my armpits - snail and 'e', three articles with deadlines to finish (like yesterday!), a ton of research for a two-year project, little things like friends and family to keep in touch with and all the normal chores of day to day.  None of this is creating the panic (well not much) the voice in my ear is telling me I haven't started my August tasks for the series I am writing about Chocolat.  I am writing eight pieces in real time and have a schedule of jobs to complete each month to ensure it is finished before I decamp to the US for winter.  August is all about making and displaying the sweeties, cakes and chocolates in the shop.  Underpinning that I have to actually make some of the display furniture as well.  Truth is I haven't lifted a single chocolate as yet and it is now the 21st.........ah well, it is a 31 day month, that gives me another day.  See how I think!

Meanwhile we sailed off for a week away last week culminating in a visit to the Petwood show in Woodhall Spa.  Cracking little place in Lincolnshire and worth a trip in itself.  Strangely enough we were there last year on a short break and missed the fair by a couple of days.

This year - thanks to my travel agent (aka PK [Poor Ken]) I made it.

Like Woodhall Spa itself, the Lyndsey fair at Petwood was well worth the couple of nights stop-over in The Hideaway.

The fair is held at a great hotel called Petwood - the home of the dam buster squadron in the war.


It is a lovely setting and often all sorts of other things going on at the same time.  On our Sunday there was a beer festival!  Sadly no use to PK as we were driving home that day - bit of bad planning on his part - he needs to have a word with himself.

Open 10am - 4 pm, £2.50 to get in and drinks for a pound - what's not to like.  There are about 35 stands to go at.  I saw a handful of ones I knew which is normal now I do 1+ shows a month but I also found half a dozen or more that were new to me.  

I have written about the quarter scale chap in my QS blog (http://inquarterscale.blogspot.com) so I won't go over it again here, but here's a sample of his work to make you go and have a look. 


There will also be my usual review in DH&MS magazine in a month or so but, as not everyone gets that, here's some stuff I saw at the show.  The rest of the photos are on the web album site as Minis - Petwood.

 Here's just a couple of photos of great things made by Jacqueline Crosby.( njflcrosby@havisham.fsnet.co.uk)
 Again go to the web album for more.

It is hard choosing what to photograph at the time and harder again to choose samples from those.  Everything she does is lovely.

Nicely done jewellery from Marman House Miniatures. (amanda@freemantle.fsworld.co.uk). This is always hard to do in scale and these were delightfully dainty and accurate.

Again she did a load of other stuff including the radio I bought.







I think my favourite of the day was Little Pieces.  I am dotty about Mackintosh and Arts and Crafts style; these so rang my bell.

Those who know me know I do a project each Summer and 2014 and 2015 are lined up - I hope they around and still in my price bracket by 2016 because I want to do an arts and crafts house full of this stuff.

My own purchases were modest

Too much magnification here - it looks terrific in real life 

 An assortment of knobs - I keep finding I need them.

 Almost as cheap as a magazine and lots of lovely pictures to inspire.

I needed to replace one of my door handles - I broke it when gluing it in place.  Yes, I know there are 'nails' - do you know how tiny these are - compare them to the staples in the bag!

I also bought a wind-break for Starfish Cottage but realised it was 1/24th when I got home.  Some people just get giddy at shows!

Introducing The Miniature Craft Room

I don't think I ever 'advertise' folk other than ones I mention in passing when I buy stuff but I thought I would nudge you to have a look at a brand new lady appearing on the web today.  I mentioned her in the Pudsey review I did for DH&MS and she is now up and running on-line.

I am especially fond of her bags and have made a note to buy one of her beach bags and knitting bags at Miniatura.  She will be at the September 21/22 show.

The Miniature Craft Room

Can't escape it!

We have just been on a five day break in Lincolnshire and 'all things mini' was pretty much banned.... I can attest that going 'cold turkey' like this does make you a bit twitchy.

On our way home we visited Nostell Priory, an NT place near Wakefield, for lunch and a bit of a mooch in the sun.  I had a sore foot so declined the hike round the lake with my companions and retired to the house for a tour of that.  Guess what they have an eighteenth century Dolls house.













This has led me to seek out other doll's houses in NT properties - I'll let you know

Support small shows

On Sunday I went to Brentwood Fair's show at the Mecure Hotel in Blackrod, Bolton.  This is pretty much on my doorstep being only half an hour away, well worth 'checking it out'.  I had been to the previous two so I knew it was a small show (maybe 20 vendors?).  I needed a couple of 'practical' things and thought I would pootle along again and pick those up.  I am so glad I did.  It was a gem of a show.  There was loads of things to look at for inspiration and just sheer pleasure.  I never managed to find either of the things I wanted but I did get three things I love and I have found someone who can make my chocolates at a price I can afford.  All of this was totally unplanned and unexpected.  

I already own the basics for Fimo chocolate making - three blocks of the stuff plus tools, so I might still have a go and see what I make of it but it is a relief to know I have a ton of chocolates on the way.  The other thing I wanted when I was doing Bentleys was a string bag - the same vendor had those.  Hers were stuffed with groceries so I have ordered an empty bag. This means I am now working umpteen projects ahead!  I think, somewhere down the line,  I want to do the house of my birth/childhood set in 1955 and the string bag is for that!  talk about be prepared....

I found some lovely stalls to write about for the magazine so forgive me if I don't go through that again.  Suffice it to say.  If you CAN get to any show, even if you don't want anything, go along to it - shops and shows need support or they will disappear.  At this one I spoke to my nearest/only shop lady who told me she had closed the shop and would only be doing another three or four shows to offload stock and then she'll be finished.

Here is my Chocolat purchase, you need to visit Starfish Cottage for the other two:

This is a new Vianne who badly needs a repaint, so that should be interesting.  At £3.50 I can afford to make a ham's hock of it.  

I was recycling 'me' from Wentworth for that role but she is blonde, pale and miserable looking (perfect as me!).  I am hoping this one has the potential to be a sexy Juliette Binoche.

York Show

Last Sunday (9th) I went to the Warners' Dolls House Show at York race course.  It is a favourite of mine as it is a good size show in a comfortable venue.  I shan't blather on too much about the show here - I have just written the review for DH&MS magazine so I feel all written out about it.  Besides which, unless there is something momentous to share,  there's not a lot to say about a show if it is a good one!

I got there half an hour before it opened to meet the organiser - pretty much as always this is just to show your face and reassure him/her that you know what you are doing and won't bother people or do stuff without permission.

I don't get any privileges from being 'staff'.  With the exception of one show I always pay to go in and don't go in until everyone else does.  On this occasion I was first through the door just slightly ahead of the other folk who bought a ticket in advance.  Generally the tickets are cheaper and usually give you access to the show earlier than the general public.

York, like most shows, is a scrum for the first couple of hours and then calms down after lunch.  Everyone is worried about missing that special one-off piece that will be snatched up in the first ten minutes.  I work on the principal that if I don't know it exists then it doesn't!

So, for me, doors open and I am off to do my stuff..... working and shopping.  

First stop was to do a swap with Matlock Miniatures.  I had bought a couple of pieces at Pudsey because I was too keen to wait for the ones I really wanted.  Lynn was really kind and let me take them back and swap them for the real McCoy.

They had made me the right length bar and brought me a prep table which is narrower

than the kitchen table I'd already bought.

The bar was finished for me but the table is ready for me to do.  I don't really mind which way I do this but, obviously, the unfinished piece is loads cheaper.  

This photo gives it weird proportions.  I promise you it is an excellent piece.

The other thing that was waiting for me was the working latch from Sussex Crafts.  Here it is in bits and pieces out of the packet, but I also got the see the thing in action on a lovely privvy door on their stand.

If you want to see that and the other 68 photos from the show there is the usual web album; just click on this link photo album

These packets were all from a vendor whose name I never noted.  To be honest it was a stall I wasn't all that interested in but, you know how it is, you just have to have a look.  The first thing I found was the little statue which I have wanted for a while but didn't want to pay the postage for.  It costs 20p more from Pheonix plus postage - this cost me £2 and it has been 'finished' too.  In Chocolat Vianne makes a similar figure in chocolate for her window display.  Mine is probably destined for that.  I also got some door furniture, knobs for some cupboards and a sliding bolt - all for better than usual prices. 

I love these slightly tatty chimney pots for £1 each.  They just need some smokey insides and they will be great.  Two are to go on one chimney and one on the other for the three fireplaces that used to be in Chocolaterie Maya.

This, I hope, was the good find of the day.  It is supposed to be a cutter for my not-Dremel for cutting grooves.  This cost the princely sum of £1 from my favourite tool supplier - S & M Tools.  Maybe not a great name if you have to Google it?

Any way they are my favourites because - they appear at shows here and there, they are cheap and, best of all, they know their stuff.  Just tell them your problem and they have the tool.

I was told three times (with the added instructions to take notice of what he said) that it needs to be pulled not pushed.  His eyes did roll when I told him I had made grooves with the diamond burrs, so he knew he was dealing with an idiot.

This is my pathetic purchase of the day - 60p worth of red cotton.  

I am hunting for a 'wool' weight fabric fine enough to make two red riding hood type capes for Vianne and Anouk.  The cloaks seem to be very symbolic and memorable in the movie and I want them to hang at the foot of the stairs and/or in the bedroom.  I cannot find any soft, easy to drape, in-scale, warm looking fabric so, in desperation, I bought this but I know I won't use it.  Why do I do that?  I think it is a sort of comfort when you can't find what you want - you have to have something.

In six hours that was all I bought.  Incredible.  I took a wodge of money and spent £26.60! 

The wodge was to buy nine lights for the project and flooring for the shop.  Neither of which I found.  There were tons of lights there on several stands but they are all the same Chinese made stuff.  The exceptions being Small World Products and Ray Storey; both of whom make lovely lights but they are beyond my budget.  On this occasion, though I haunted their stands a dozen times, even they didn't have what I wanted.  I eventually got into conversation with Ray Storey and he said he could make me the simple lights I wanted for about £7 each.  I was doing cartwheels and have ordered them for me to pick up at Miniatura in September.  This does screw up the order in which I intended to work on Chocolat but I really don't care if I get the lights I want.

In the same vein I also asked Kathy Holden at Delph if she could make me a single ring hot plate like the one in this picture.  Not a problem other than I was worrying that it was going to cost a lot of money and I was being just daft spending a lot on a piece of room dressing.  She reckons she can do it for around £8.

Aren't these people just the best!!!

I did buy some not-happy-with-it-as-it-is floor paper.  It is at least a mucky brown and cream colour rather than the spanking black and white you generally get offered and very cheap at £1.20 a sheet - so I can shove it out of sight in the stash if I don't use it.  You can see it roughly in place in the following shots.

As soon as I got back I had to reassemble stuff to see how it was all going.

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