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!

Cotswolds Miniatures Weekend

We have just got home from a great weekend away. We were invited to instruct at the first Cotswolds Miniature Weekend - and if you didn't come along I would recommend it for next year! There were many different workshops going on and everyone had a wonderful time and went home with lots of new creations and minds crammed full of ideas of what to make next ;)

Aidy made me take part in day one - sculpting - Not my area at all and at first I was very reluctant but I grew to really enjoy myself. My character changed throughout the day and ended up turning into an elf type! I will try to get him finished and dressed so you can all see my first person sculpt - Don't worry I will not be taking over Aidy's job any time soon!

One of the finished dolls

A doll well on the way to being finished


A grumpy butler in the making

Getting things right!

What should I wear?

We had a wonderful group of students who were more like old friends by the time the weekend came to an end! We were sad to leave lol. We would like to give thanks to karen and Gillie and all the others involved in making this event happen - they all worked so hard and it showed - Thanks guys!

Concentration!

Time for a natter!

This picture was when we all worried - Our precious heads were going into the oven! We had all grown very attached to our little people by this point!


Also I would like to say a huge thanks to Wendy, Pam, Jo, Kazumi, Sheree, Janet, Sue, Sabina and Pat who were all wonderful and such good fun! You all helped to make our weekend one to remember!

I would also like to say a huge thanks to Sally Watson and kathy Brindle who made our night on Saturday - we were lucky enough to sit next to them at the meal and we have not laughed so much in years - You could not ask to meet two nicer or more fun people - I don't think they exist! thanks again you two!


Get ready to watch out for next years event and book early - it is going to prove very popular!

http://www.cotswoldminiaturesweekend.co.uk/

Miniatura

We are back from Miniatura ;) The pictures above are of me (even though I tried to avoid it - and why is it always me having pictures taken?!?) and of my great friends Bev (Beverley Read) and Lesley (ooakdiddydolls) who were sharing their first stand at the show.

A lot of people thought the show was very quiet compared to other years and in some ways I would have to agree that numbers did seem to be down on both days. The weather was very bad on the Sunday not sure if this had an impact or not?

We had a good start to the show as we sold all four preview witches as soon as we put them on our blog (it was also really nice to meet fellow bloggers at the show ;) ) and then we had a very good response to the ones we made to replace them! We also sold our show piece in the first few hours and we were asked about it by lots of other people who fell in love with the silliness of the concept!

A lot of customers also remembered Battish Airways from last year so it looks like we are now getting recognised for making strange moving contraptions lol but we had a lot of fun with both and are already thinking about the next piece as we would like to have something on display at Arnhem, Madrid and kensington.

We had a very good show all in all and sold a lot of dolls this is good and bad lol as now we have so much to do for Arnhem at the end of the month!?! I know, I know never happy :p

I am also pleased to say that Lesley had a very good show selling lots of dolls and taking just as many commissions - it was so great to see her doing so well and getting the boost she needed - I have been bullying her into doing fairs for years!!

Bev also sold some of her wonderful cakes and dolls and while she was at the show her son got her website up and running please take a look http://beverleyread.co.uk/ It is always great catching up with these two and we don't get to see each other as often as we would like.

We stayed in the same hotel as Lesley and her sister Tracey and had a nice meal with them and my mum and dad who had also travelled down for the show. So at least we had lots of time to natter and put the world to rights =)

I love Miniatura and would say it is one of my favourite shows to do, the atmosphere is always great and you get to meet lots of lovely people and catch up with friends and customers so now I can't wait until we get to do it all again in spring! A huge thank you to all of you who did take the time to stop by and say hello it was so lovely to see you all =)

More witches!

These first two pictures are our first ever 1:24 scale witches - they really are adorable in real life and are around 2.5 inches.

Lucinda - The puppeteer witch - she has a little ghost and death puppet in each hand both sculpted from clay.

Hope you like the last of our Miniatura preview - the car just needs to be packed and then we are ready to go! Looking forward to meeting those of you coming to the show ;)

Miniatura show piece - Witches Flying Machine

In traditional Lilyelf fashion we decided to make a moving piece for this years Autumn Miniatura! It is not the easiest thing in the world to photograph though so if you are at the show please come along a take a look.

The bat wings move up and down and the oars rotate to look like they are helping to fly the balloon. As you can tell Gertie, Bernadine and Crandall have all the possessions they need for the long journey ahead - although Crandall was lucky to make the flight!

This will be available for sale at the show and is of course a one of a kind piece. We hope you like it - more preview pictures of other dolls to follow...