Memories Are Made of This....

Childhood memories, old family homes, past times - are all favourite nostalgic themes and often inspire vignettes, dolls houses and room boxes and I'm fortunate in often being asked to provide a character doll for one of these special projects.
Market Town Miniatures - our dolls house club here in Thame likes a challenge.........

It will come as no surprise that members of this club as well as many others up and down the country create the most amazing and beautiful, accomplished pieces that we are all lucky enough to see at exhibitions and fairs from time to time. Our club exhibits every year at The Thame Dolls House and Miniature Fair and it always draws a crowd. So the challenge this time is to produce 'A Childhood Memory' or 'A Nursery Rhyme' in a cardboard box...any cardboard box...any scale!
I've seen some as they begin to take shape and I know there will be some wonderful scenes and all very different.  If you  follow Celia Thomas on her journal, ktminiatures.blogspot.com  you can see the beginning of hers - 'Twinkle , Twinkle, Little Star'.  In odd moments I've been working on mine too.

If you have been reading my blog you'll have gathered that I've not got as much miniature work done as usual in recent weeks so new and commissioned dolls have been very thin on the ground - real life and all that has rather got in the way.....
However when time (and energy) is in short supply, it's surprising how many weeds you can pull up in the odd ten minutes in the garden to cheer yourself and recharge the batteries and even ten minutes every now and again can eventually create a whole field of poppies!

 

'Childhood Memory - The Poppy Field'.  Growing up in The Vale of the White Horse, looking towards the downs, poppy fields were a stupendous sight and meant summer was here.

The blue cardboard box is 4" x 4" and approximately 2" deep and the three dimensional poppy scene is in 1/12th scale.

The lid is finished with a reproduction of a vintage family photograph and trimmed with a little red braid. 
It's a little difficult to photograph right inside the box but hopefully you can see that the poppies and field do go all the way to back of the box.

It's raining today after a nice sunny Bank Holiday weekend but the Aquilegias (Granny's Bonnets, Granny Nightcaps) are looking terrific in a variety of colours and crosses, so I took a pic. anyway.
I think this one looks like little fairies, their frocks glistening with raindrop jewels.

Thank you for looking
Robin
 

On Being Inspired....

Last weekend, Kensington Dolls House Festival was certainly inspiring -  so many fabulous artisans in one place, and so many difficult choices to make when it came to deciding what to buy to take home.  If ever there was a day to win the lottery surely this was it!! All my chums there as traders were very cheerful so I hope that meant everyone had a really enjoyable and profitable couple of days.

Let's start on a WOW!!! Couldn't resist taking a picture of these fantastically flamboyant tulips!!!!

O.K. Now back to work and a photograph of a recently completed  1/24th scale Edwardian group - both upstairs and downstairs. I featured the lady of the house and the nursemaid in my last 'blue blog' but here  are the whole 'family'.

Going up a scale to 1/2th I've just finished a little girl in her pink pyjamas....a very special little girl who is having a lovely room box created specially for her.... 'Twinkle , Twinkle, Little Star....'   If you click HERE you'll find my mate Cellia Thomas of KTMiniatures who is taking time out to recreate a little childhood memory in a cardboard box. Read all about it and.....Enjoy.

 

 Thank you for looking.
Robin
 

All In Blue....

I really didn't set out to have a blue-themed blog but the elements just kept presenting themselves and it IS bluebell time so  perhaps I should just go with that...
It's not a great revelation if you've read my blog for any length of time,  that I love gardening -  flowers, wild plants and spaces...so picking a bunch of bluebells, wallflowers and random leaves is a good start to any morning.

As a gardener I do have a love-hate relationship with the bluebells in my own garden but at this time of year they are in flower and look GLORIOUS and  I love them ALL. I have tried to dig up some of the invasive and non-native bluebells  as they swamp EVERYTHING and are diluting the native stock (I have natives too) ....and replant  my wilder corners with native bulbs. However they're all out in bloom now and I have the most glorious blue mixture of bluebells - with just a hint of white bells and an odd rare pink, to add to the brew - I might as well give up the unequal fight and enjoy them all.

The place to see bluebells for me is Badbury Clump, just outside Faringdon in Oxfordshire. A very special, timeless  and ancient place. In another week the buds will all be full out and the scent will hang in the air - even this week the colour was intense, the scent just on the air, and the leaves of the beech unfurling with  the sharp citrus colour of first-opening making a striking contrast.

In case you've wondered - there has been some work going on  -  a  1/24th scale  group Georgian characters is getting ready to move out. In keeping with 'blue' - the nursemaid in her plain blue uniform cuddles the new baby and the lady of the house dressed in the new  fashionable hobble skirt in fabulous blue silk.  It was an interesting period (not only in fashion of course); with the onset of war hemlines rose and women became valued as essential workers. I'll bet that parlour maid went off to be a bus clippie!
I'll show you the other characters in the next Blog - by which time they'll  be in their new home.

Just a little more blue - a lovely blue sky above this super plane which appears to hang in the air near Wantage marking Grove technology park and commemorates R.A.F. Grove a wartime airfield. It's always a surprise as we drive up to it and just for once I had the camera with me.

Thank you for looking
Robin