Spring cleaning & Madrid

Sorry I Have not been around all week - we decided we needed to spring clean and decorate the spare room and our bedroom. Needless to say we are in a total mess! We both wish we had not started!!

We now can't wait until we head off to the Tom Bishop show in Madrid next month! Sun, Sea, Sand, Cocktails and Miniatures what more does anyone need? We are going for 6 days and the show is on for two so we feel like we are having holiday as well as working lol

We are going with Aidy's dad, Helena of Solway Miniatures (who also has a stand at the show) and Ev her daughter. We are all sharing an apartment so it should be great fun ;o) If any of you can make the show please come along and say hello!

We have friends booked to house and cat sit lol so no guilt in having some time away!

I promise we will have a witch to give away in the next few days :o)

I also want to show you all a fabulous little dormouse I won on ebay we just need to get finished with all this cleaning and find the camera ;o)

Happy Easter

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter, I hope you are all having a lovely day! I am off out with mum and dad for a meal so no washing up ;o) I think we are having a curry which is a bit strange for Easter Sunday but it will taste great!

We will be having a witchy blog give away this coming week - just need to take some pictures - so please check back for details.

We would also like to say hello to all our new followers on blogland and facebook, it is so nice of you to join us!

Back from Miniatura

I am so sorry we never managed to preview our new dolls before Miniatura, we were just frantically making them and most were headless until the day before the show!!!

We had our best ever Miniatura and we sold more dolls than we have ever sold in one go at any fair so we were delighted by the end of the weekend. We had a lovely couple who bought five of our dolls to take back to Germany including the Obama's and our CDHM competition witch so that was lovely. Another lady bought five dolls as well and we sold out of Seth's and had two Maggie's left by the end of the show. We also had a few commissions and lots of other sales of one or two dolls so really a fantastic weekend.

My mum managed to get to the show and was staying in the hotel right next door to the venue, she really is not very well so I was really happy she made it as I know she always feels left out! I picked up a beautiful Georgian house for her after the show which she had won on ebay and it is HUGE - good job we hired a van! She had great fun at the show buying dolls, wallpaper and light fittings for her new house. I am delighted as I have been trying to get her into the hobby for years! She is our biggest fan lol

Sadly I was very tired from working so hard in the run up and my legs were playing me up so I was glad to get home by the end of the show ;o) But now feel ready to do it all again!

It was lovely to see Mrs Parnell who is one of our first customers and she even brought us Delicious chocolate orange biscuits which went down a treat with a cup of tea when we got home so thank you Margaret!

Our Porcelain dolls were a huge success (the picture above are all porcelain dolls) and most people could not tell the difference between them and our one of a kind dolls. So all that hard work was worth it!

We were lucky to be next to so many DAMES and all of them had fantastic displays but I think Jenny Kelm stole the show! She had such wonderful characters as always and her hubby Mike had made some truly fabulous items.

Lesley also had a fantastic reaction to her mad Hatter and a Sweeney Todd working display she had loads of pictures taken and had lots of interest in her work.

Helena made a beautiful tea party on top of a top hat - mad Hatter style and that also got a great response ;o)

A very warm welcome to all our new followers =o)

Right we had best get back to work as we have a lot of shows coming up over the next few weeks, although we hope to have one day off so we can go and see Alice in Wonderland!

Countdown....

Well, not long to go now until Miniatura! Not panicking just yet but we still have so much to do ;o) We are very excited to announce the launch of our very own porcelain dolls sculpted, moulded, cleaned, fired, painted and dressed by us so you can only get them from us!

Aidy has really managed to keep the detail in the faces and they really look like a Lilyelf doll except in porcelain so we are delighted as we have been asked to give it a try by quite a few people ;o) We are still making our one of a kind dolls but they will be more special and a real collectors piece. We still take commissions in both mediums.

We have been so busy experimenting with different faces and expressions and now for once we will be able (hopefully) to have a full stand of all types of dolls!

When you hand sculpt each doll it takes so long that stock is always limited and there are two of us working at them! We just can't make dolls quick enough and we only had around 10 dolls for sale at our last fair!!! So we hope that our very detailed and high quality Porcelain range will allow us to offer a larger selection at a very competitive price, as I can get on with pouring and cleaning them while Aidy makes one of a kind dolls ;o)

We have a very special offer to Launch them at Miniatura - We are offering a limited edition run on two characters based on two of our most popular dolls (we always get asked to make them but it is impossible to get the exact look as they are ooak sculpts) Seth (pictured above) and Maggie (Pictures coming soon...)!

Both dolls will be available at the incredible price of just £39 each - Supplies are very limited and we have already had a lot of interest so get to our stand early or get in touch by email.

The rest of the porcelain doll range will be priced at around £49 - £89 per character depending on the complexity! No two will be dressed the same as I find this very boring, so you will still be getting a ooak costume!

We will launch two new characters at every large show at the price of £39 so you can really get a good collection going!

I will try to post some previews of new porcelain dolls everyday so you can see what a wide range we will have - wait until you see the witches! We just did a witch workshop using porcelain witches and everyone not only made a fantastic witch but they loved them! I will tell you all about it later... I best get back to work!!!

Workshops 27th and 28th Feb

A quick note to remind people of the workshops taking place in Glasgow at the end of the month. You only have two weeks left to book places! Please check out this previous blog post for more details http://lilyelf.blogspot.com/2009/11/details.html

We have some news of new dolls and Miniatura previews coming up soon! We are also going to hold our first blog give away so check back for details ;o)

Also, we have a long waiting list for commissions at the moment so if you want something special and quick we can't make any promises but we will do our best to fit you in!

Missed opportunity ;o(

Wanted by the BBC and we missed it! Story of our lives! We switched Internet providers last September and one result was an inbox full of missing emails which we only discovered last night. Besides the commission orders and emails of thanks there was a very unexpected email from the BBC asking us if we would be interested to appear on a new series!!! This was sent on in November so sadly we have now missed the deadline - we are both gutted but cheered by the fact that the man from the BBC thought our dolls were 'Brilliant'. Maybe we will be considered again in the future - we can dream lol.

We have decided to start over with our website so it will be a few weeks before it is fully up and running again with all features!

Dolls House Storage System
Designed by Lilyelf Miniatures

Coming soon in DollsHouse and Miniature Scene Magazine, (April #190 and May #191, available 25th Feb and 25th March 2010) this fantastic project to build your own dolls house themed desk tidy!

Inspired by a gift dispenser for the Christmas table from Aidy's childhood called 'the galleon' (you'll have to read the magazines to find out why!), this project is intended as a fun and functional desk tidy for all those little bits and bobs that haven't yet found a home; but would be ideal as a seasonal centrepiece or even a first dolls house for a child, which they could make themselves (with a little help with the cutting!)



The project is simple and fun to make from easily available materials following the clear step-by-step instructions with photographs of each stage printed over the two issues.
Keep checking back for some sneak previews of some alternative designs!

Available Soon: Dolls House Storage Project – The Kit! Exclusive to Lilyelf and Dolls House and Miniature Scene!