Since beginning this site two years ago, I’ve allowed the links to evolve organically. This has proved very interesting, as has monitoring which readers are regulars. Unlike some Internet sites, which are primarily concerned with selling their wares to you, this site has always been a game of two halves, reflecting equally my twin interests of playing with porcelain and playing with words and my twin twin interests of gardening and photography.
In tune with all of these, I seem to have attracted readers just like you, who are often students, in education, in life or in miniatures; enthusiasts, of art, of miniatures, of creativity and collectors, of dolls, of art and of miniatures.
Accordingly I have rearranged the links to be more helpful to everyone. Aware that the net is full of bits of this and that caught like flotsam in the links, the list you will find by clicking on the word ‘links’ to the right and scrolling down under the word ‘meta’ at the foot of this column, is totally of originators. Although three are original resource sites they are genuinely helpful if you are looking for good information. Three more are retailers but of items you could search for far and wide. Everyone else is a manufacturer in their own original right and all are arranged according to your interests as a reader.
Starting at the bottom of the list and working up: smaller scales are mainly retailers of dolls’ houses and accessories in scales smaller than 1/12th, that is to say the sort of house you can make, finish and fill that will sit on a windowsill.
General miniatures lists makers of general dolls’ house accessories mostly in 12th scale.
Knitting and sewing is the place to find both miniatures made by these methods such as crocheted animals, tiny teddy bears and miniature mice and also the patterns and materials to make them yourself. If this site has attracted you to the world of miniatures and you fancy having a low-cost, less-mess go at it, this is a good place to start. It’s also a good place to get an idea of the art involved in the craft – if it looks easy to make a sewn stuffed animal you can hide in your hand, trying to do so yourself will not only convince you that it isn’t, it will probably get you hooked until you can.
Woodworkers are people of unusual ability; the carved matchsticks are genuinely staggering.
Dolls and doll makers is an indulge fest for the besotted. I’d feel sorry for you but I am one. A doll is the universal collectable. People but without the tricky bits. It never fails to amaze me how very different interpretations of this art form can be.
Artists in all sizes are just that, although two are doll makers, they are not exclusively so, and I do think dolls are just what they happen to be doing now. The third is a full size artist, just starting out; I’d be interested to include more artists of this type in the list, providing that they are as completely original as everyone else in the links.
Supplies and information bring us to the top of the list. There’s job information for general students, resources for miniaturists, supplies of silk for textile artists of all sorts and the manufacturers of Milliput, the wonderful modelling material from which all my doll masters are sculpted. Like everything else in the links, this is not a thing stocked in giant chain shops but is an item of interest to people who appreciate the original expression of art, who treasure individuality and are pleased to know, in a mass produced plastic world, that originality of creative expression is alive and well and living in the shop and in the links.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JaneLaverick.com – about people, about art.