Gifts from Flora

My Christmas swap parcel arrived in mid December and was placed under the tree

I knew it was the only mini gift for me this year, Flora, what a lovely box.

Inside the contents were delightful, items for a mini Christmas,
and other things for my projects.

Flora you were so very generous, so many things.

My favorite thing is this tray, not the normal item I would choose,
but the shape and colours are so beautiful
my kitchen room box is calling for it,

I hope every one who took part in this swap enjoyed their gifts,
it was great fun and a big thanks to Caterina for all here hard work.

We are now getting ready for our New Years party here,
not the normal thing we would do, but after last year,
we thought we would herald the new year with friends here.

I wish you all a Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas

America's Doll House and a give away!

My daughter Fliss is doing a guest post for me today, she also has a giveaway for the dolls house book she has reviewed, details at the end of her post!

I Started to read this book at three in the morning with a gurgling wide eyed baby on my lap, intending to read just a few pages until Sammy gave in to sleep I began. As the pages turned in my hands and my eyes grew heavy I realised I had been reading for well over an hour lost in the history of Faith Bradford and her miniature collection.

At 69 years old Faith Bradford without a girl in her family to leave her collection to decided to donate it instead to the museum she often visited as a girl. The narrative winds in and out of miniature fantasy, museum politics, and both the museums and Bradfords personal history, bringing together photographs and typed manuscripts of the doll house occupants and their scrapbook of soft furnishings. Peppered with nostalgic musings anddescriptions about Bradford such as 'her favourite colours were lavender and grey...' also ' ... Cutting a grandmotherly figure on the floor of the museum, she wore her hair pulled up under a hat fixed with a pin!'

I enjoyed the notions of Faith as a girl her interests, parades, soda fountains and ice cream parlors and like so many miniaturists the eternal hunt for miniatures, seeing an object as something to be used and cherished within ascene, a thimble could be a waste paper basket, Bradford explained 'Everything looks like something else to me.'

I think Bradford must have been an eccentric soul, never married she described her and her sister as 'not very attractive', during the summer she stayed at the back of her sister and brother-in-laws property in a converted chicken coop! these little details stack up throughout this little book adding charm and insight and for me a little bit of dottiness that I found endearing.

The second half of the book is choc filled with coloured photographs of each room, each tiny detail, from the lamp with its missing globe in the attic to the faithful family dog sat by the fire in the library. Concluding with Faiths typed scrapbook filled with tiny fabric remnants of used textiles.

In summary this book works on many levels, not only does it show readers a history of the museum, and an insight into Faith Bradfords creative dream, but it also showcases through text and photographs (deliciously tactile in the scrapbook section) an inspiring room by room account into a magical vintagedollhouse. Letting the reader decided to delve into the informative text or forgothe descriptive museum history and just sit wondering at the miniature marvels in each glossy image.

This lovely book is available here. or if you leave a comment here before Monday 20th I have a spare copy which would love a new home!

Christmas ornament swap

Beth from Lainies Little Things, send me the following items for our swap.

The post man took ages to deliver them, but they are well worth the wait.

Beth, thank you for being so kind with your gifts.

Tomorrow I am going to decorate my real house for Christmas, with the snow on the ground it should look very festive. My tree will go up over the weekend.

Bleak House

I have been following loads of your blogs and you are all thinking of how you are going to decorate your houses and projects this christmas, well I am having a bleak time here.

Somerset house is set in 1810-1820, thus before the christmas tree was place in the home, and The Georgians had very little decorations.

My toy shop has no room for a tree and decorations, I have tried in previous years.

My childhood kitchen, my mum would never allow decorations in here.

So I'm stumped, I think decorations here will have to be on just the big scale, unless I come up with a plan for another project, or should I just ignore the period of my house and put a tree in there anyway, I did have a tree the first christmas, but realised it was Victorian not Georgian and I have always checked the timeline of items to ensure everything is right.

Day and Night

Last weekend the clocks went back, so it now gets dark here an hour early.
I love this time of year, you get home to a bright warm house.

This includes my office, I love to light my projects,
I often sit in my office whilst on my computer with the main office light off
and just the mini lights on.

Below I have all the lights on but with my remote control lights
I can choose what to have on at any time, click on this link to see how I managed to create this.

This photo below does not show how good the house looks in the dark.

I am going to add bricks to the side of Somerset house today, a job which should have been finished along time ago.

I also want to move my shelves down so my rooms boxes are eye level, at this time they are a bit high, I will have to search for another place to keep my Xyron cutter which I use for my card making.

A mini day at last....

Yesterday I was feeling really good, 1st time for a while.

So I spent the afternoon inside Somerset house, I was able to plug in all my lamps, in each room I have placed a socket in each corner, this enable me to change lamps and to add things without having to go to the lighting controls at the back of the house, since I brought this system I have found this very use full. The rooms are all tidy since the house move, I have not changed anything around, just took out a few summer things. I am also pleased since the move I have resisted using this area to dump things and it's staying tidy.
One job I have to finish is putting the card bricks up the side of the house, I did get them out yesterday but did not start them, but I'm not going to pack them away, I have a plumber in tomorrow and will have a go whilst he is working in the sitting and dining rooms attaching our new radiators to our system.