York, Snow and some new dolls

Well, we managed to beat the weather and get to the York dollhouse fair ...the weather however decided to close in towards the end of the day and I thought we may be sleeping at the venue! They closed the fair around 30m earlier than advertised because it was getting so bad!

I was amazed at how many customers ventured out and although not as many as would normally attend this show it was still fairly busy all day ;)

We were so happy Julie, Ruth and Julie made it to the show and I am very happy you all arrived home safe and well...Aidy said it was very bad taking you to the train station so I thought you may miss the train!

We had a cold but good show although the journey home was very eventful and a tad bit hair raising at moments. It took us over 3 hours to do a journey that usually takes a little over one hour! But we did get home, poor Helena of Solway Miniatures had to call the AA out and spend a night in a B&B and only got home at noon today!

Now we just have to hope we can make it down to London at the weekend for kensington ;)

Me trying to clear the car of snow outside the venue
It was falling faster than we could clear it

Aidy and me looking cold and ready for the job at hand!

Other news...

One of our customers is making a Christmas street scene...it did start off as a nativity scene but each year it grows and grows so now we are working on the street scene ;) We were commissioned to make four dolls who would fit such a scene and were allowed to come up with our own ideas! So here are two of the dolls we made (we also made a little girl having fun in the snow with dad)

A lady all wrapped up for Christmas shopping

A Chestnut seller - the stove lights up

Some new dolls for York/Kensington


Another Candy wizard

Ivy the Christmas witch - witches love Christmas too you know ;)

I have wanted to make this for ages - I made a mouse version last year and now here is the cat version!

We have also launched a very exciting range of tiny characters from cats to rabbits to mice lol all very very cute and they almost sold out at York - pictures to follow soon!

Hope those of you who also have snow keep safe, warm and well ;)

Back from Madrid

Long post alert and lots of pictures!!!

Okay we are back from our trip to Madrid. Tired, cold and a little bit stressed but safe and well ;) Cold because our boiler has decided to quit :( so lots of jumpers, hats, gloves, cardigans - I hate being cold -so you get the picture, until the nice man comes to fix it! Tired because we have not stopped for what feels like months and stressed because we have 3 more shows and nothing to sell - okay maybe a bit dramatic but it feels like we have nothing left to sell ;)

Madrid was cool but not as cold as here, for me it was perfect I hate being too hot too lol I know, I know never happy! We managed to get the best seats on the plane thanks to Helena's determination and we got them on the way back too - I hate flying at the best of times so happy pills and the best seats were the way to go!

We went on the Friday and settled into the apartment and then trundled along with all our suitcases to find the hotel where the show was being held at. We found this easy as we all remembered where it was from the May trip. Although we were all very tired we were pleased we set up on the Friday as it took the stress out of the weekend.

Helena was in the first room and we were in the larger one - good job too as the room Helena was in was like an oven and everyone looked like they may melt half way through the show! The show was very busy on the Saturday and had a great atmosphere. The first thing we sold was the wizard sweet seller - I was sad to see him go so now have to make another version! Sales were good and steady on the first day although we sold more dolls than fabric which was different to the last show we did - no two shows are ever the same. Sunday was a slower start but still got fairly busy and this time we started to sell the fabrics and it was a slow doll day!! But we had fun, it was worth doing and we shall be back in May!

A new look for Aidy? We saw this wig in a shop window and just had to share ;)

Aidy looking very tired after a long weekend!

Me looking relieved it is all over!!

Our wonderful friends Grace and Mel who are always happy to translate for us! It was so good to see these two again ;)

Our stand on the Friday set up - all ready to go!

Now, those of you who know me well will also know I LOVE Shoes!!! So how could I walk past this beautiful stand? I couldn't lol I had been passing it all weekend and admiring all the wonderful shoes and hats and wondering if my life size feet could somehow be shrunk to 1:12th scale alas this did not happen no matter how hard I wished for it so I settled for a lovely chat and a picture instead!

This was a delightful stand full of such beautiful old fashioned toys - I just had to buy one ;)

We finally got to meet Jesús who follows our blog and we follow his ;) http://loutrec112.blogspot.com/ please take a look! He makes such beautiful characters full of life and joy - you can see the love he puts into each creation! Although we spoke very little Spanish and he spoke very little English, with the wonderful use of mime we shared the admiration for each others work ;) We also should have had him on commission as he kept bringing people along to see our stand all weekend - Gracias Jesús, esperamos verlos la próxima vez!

These next two pictures are us being daft in the apartment - I think we were on our way for day two and the excitement had made us slightly madder than we are already!

I promised we would take lots of pictures - so here they are!

Madrid by day

Madrid by night ;)

And finally hello and welcome to all our new followers ;)

More new dolls and a very scary witch

Well, we were asked at pudsey why all our witches were nice, happy and friendly so we decided to make this scary witch for a change! So here is Lilith, she looks fantastic but I wouldn't like to meet her on a dark night lol
Alberich, the sweet selling Wizard. He has a very friendly and kind face

and all the little witches and Wizards love a visit to Alberich's sweet shop ;)

Dumbledore

Annie, she looks so sweet sitting on her bench ;) i love how Aidy has captured the look on her face and the little twinkle in her eyes!

Full shot of Lilith

We were asked to make another doll like the one we made while in Arnhem and we wanted to make one to take to Madrid so here she is with the pram the first should have had lol - this one is for sale but we are making one without a pram for the commission too ;)

All these dolls are packed and ready for the trip to Madrid - I will be back soon with lots of news and pictures - I hope!

Madrid preview

Tudor lady

Gwen

Agnell

Here are some of the dolls we have made to take to the Tom Bishop show, Madrid, this weekend. We have some more on the way :)

Agnell was such joy to make, our good friend Helena from Solway Miniatures found us the green vespa in a local shop and knew we could have fun with it.

We couldn't decide who would own such a thing but Agnell soon told us it was hers ;) It is a pull and move bike so she looks like she is really riding it!

We just need to finish a few more dolls, pack and we are ready to go! Really looking forward to it, the show in May was great and all reports indicate this one should be even better. I will take lots of pictures to show you when we return!

Arnhem Show

Hello All, we just got back from a weekend away in Arnhem - we had a stand at the show http://www.arnhemshow.com/ We had a great time! We sold 5 dolls in the first 30 minutes of the Friday night preview. As the show went on we had a problem of not having a huge range of dolls left - we have Pudsey this weekend and Madrid on the following weekend - so I dressed a doll behind the stand (pictured above) but as soon as we put her on the stand on the Sunday, she sold! The ink was not even dry on her price tag lol so she is officially the quickest ever selling Lilyelf doll ;)

These are some great witch/wizard items we bought or received as gifts at the show. We met a lovely couple Bianca & Leen http://www.hetdroomsleuteltje.nl/ as you can see from the small selection above they have a great talent for making all things spooky! we hope to work with them in the future.

As you can see their stand looked great too!



Another view of their stand.

We finally met Christine from cw poppets http://www.cwpoppets.net/ Christine was also invited to attend the Dubai show so we became friends through our blogs as we got ready for the show - sadly it never happened but I was delighted to meet her at the Arnhem show. She had a wonderful stand with unique characters who you just had to smile at! The picture above is of her husband Alexander having fun at the show!

I am sorry that this was the only picture of the cw poppets stand we managed to take :( but at least you can see them both having fun! They are from Germany so it was good to meet them both at last. We had a great time with them and some of the other British miniaturists at the buffet meal on the Saturday night we got strange looks not only for our topic of conversation which included having body parts in the oven but because we were all laughing so loud!

This picture is of Bob from Country contrasts running away from the camera! He really didn't want his photo to be taken lol http://www.countrycontrast.co.uk/ He was actually in a lot of pain during the show and could hardly stand for most of it - he has a trapped nerve in his leg and really was suffering by the end of it all.

This was Doreen having a mad moment - she had a difficult show as she had to set up and run the stand mostly on her own, plus she had a very bad head cold - they really were going through the wars! Now they have to get ready to run Pudsey at the weekend.

Their stand looked good enough to eat and I had to buy a couple of things as props for dolls so watch this space!

http://www.doreenjeffriesdollshousefairs.co.uk/index.php

This was Herdwick Landscapes stand. It was Kate & peters first time at the show and their stand looked great as you can see. They make some of the best 1:24th houses and furniture on the market. All the tiny furniture is made out of wood not the like the flimsy cardboard alternatives you sometimes see. The attention to detail is incredible!

They were staying on a houseboat on the river Rhine while at the show ;) it sounded like a lot of fun! They also came to the buffet meal and we had such a good time - we can't wait until march when we get to do it all again!
http://www.herdwicklandscapes.co.uk/

We caught this snapshot of Peter ;)

And this one of kate at Helena's stand! Helena had come across to Arnhem with us, we all squeezed into our car and shared a cabin on board the ferry. We had a really nice time with lots of laughs along the way.

Helena was having the same issues we were and had to make moulds behind the stand to keep up with demand - she kept selling out of them! She is also just as mad as we are as she has another 5 shows to do before the end of the year, as do we, including doing pudsey and Madrid!

These two pictures were taken on the way into Arnhem on our last day - it was such a beautiful autumnal day Aidy had to stop and take them ;)

This was in a shop window and the following picture is a close up - it was amazing!

Aidy, me and Helena outside the hotel, we had just come back from a day out shopping to pick up all our luggage. As you can see we are all wrapped up against the cold - I had 3 jumpers, a full length coat and hat and I was still freezing!

We headed to Rotterdam to meet the ferry and had a nice night with some of the other brits traveling home - we ended up with just us three and Bob & Doreen - some very strange pictures were taken involving Aidy's hat and scarf but they are on Aidy's phone and I may not be allowed into any of Bob and Doreen's shows if they are published lol and Helena may never speak to me again!!!

And finally, as soon as I arrived home I had to dress this little chap for a very overdue commission! Luckily i managed to get him done in time for the post! So, now you know what us and some fellow bloggers have been up to...I need to go and dress lots of dolls for pudsey and Madrid!