Here we are again, happy as can be
Four weeks to the Min and jolly good company.
It is, it’s quite amazing, I have no idea where the time goes. I don’t usually work from one Min to the next without stopping, but I have done this time and the six months went in a flash and all I have to show for it could nicely fit in a shoebox.
Other exhibitors have been similarly focussed. Josephine Parnell will not be demonstrating this show but she does have a new rabbit kit.
The kit will be £5 bought at the show or £6 by post, which price includes the packing and postage. Josephine’s website is in the links. This bunny would be a lovely toy in your 12th scale nursery but I think smaller scalers might want to give him a burrow of his own, or possibly a hutch with all mod cons.
As readers who follow this column regularly will be aware, there is an emphasis on 48th scale at the show. In the brochure there will be a page listing the exhibitors at the show who specialise in this scale. Previous brochures have featured 24th scale artisans but future issues will detail a revolving menu of specialist artisans. This makes the brochure a must have and your most up to date reference to all things good in miniature. If you have not seen a brochure I should tell you that entries list a trading name, a phone number and a website and email address if there is one, a snail address, details of what the exhibitor is offering and whether they are a retailer, a supplier or a craftsman. It’s just the hottest information around.
Just in case you missed them here are some of the Templewood minis furniture kits.
Utterly ace and budget priced too, you could get 20 kits for £50. Where else could you fill a house with proper wood furniture kits for £50! Amazing, fine, detailed and easy peasy.
Other scales are catered for as always. Long time miniaturists may well recall J designs dolls that were fairly revolutionary dolls with twisted wire limbs that made them ultra posable. Now Kate Pinsent, daughter of the original doll maker, who is trading as K designs, has some new versions of her own.
These 12th scale dolls have porcelain heads, metal bodies and limbs made of twisted steel wires. As you can see entire families are available, just waiting for adoption…………
and shoes.
One of the features of Miniatura is beginning to be miniature craftsmanship handed down in families, though it’s always been a part of the hobby that parents and children make things for the dolls house together. It’s inspiring to know that the modern lie ‘quality time’ just doesn’t apply to miniaturists, who tend not to buy their children plastic mass produced tat but instead collect handmade treasures together and spend hour upon hour apparently making a little world whilst actually making relationships and memories.
You can find the exhibitor listing online now at www.miniatura.co.uk
but for all the addresses and contact details, you’ll need to go to the show and buy the brochure. I have them all from when I first started visiting in the early 1980s; now it reads as a Who’s Who of miniaturists. In a hall full of collectables, it’s the unmissable one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JaneLaverick.com – weeny window on a world class show.