Some Exciting News - A New Event!

Happy New Year to you all, I hope you had a wonderful time over the festive season. I don't know about you, but for me Christmas now seems to be just a distant memory. There is so much going on here. 

I do have some exciting news for you!

Although the finer details are still yet to be finalised, I am delighted to announce a very special event......

KT MINIATURES & FRIENDS 

VINTAGE AND ARTISAN DOLLS HOUSE FAIR

Saturday 12th October 2019

Thame Barns Centre

Church Road

Thame

Oxfordshire

OX9 3AJ

More detailed information about this event will be available when the main promotional page goes live on KT Miniatures website. But for the moment, please do spread the word and mark the date in your diary. 

I will be donating 50% of any profit made from the organising of the event to the wonderful charity CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young). 
Celia
KT Miniatures

Thank You & Merry Christmas From KT Miniatures

So there we are, another year over and I am now closed for the festive season. KT Miniatures will be open again on 2nd January 2019.

Thank you to everyone for your wonderful friendship, support and interest in KT Miniatures over these past 12 months...and I hope that KT Miniatures Journal has brought a little bit of sunshine into your miniature world. 

There are at least two exciting events for KT Miniatures being planned for next year (each quite different from each other), but I am not able to reveal all quite yet as there is much more to finalise. Although I can say, that if you are a massive fan of dolls houses - then do keep Saturday 12th October 2019 free...more about this very soon!

And now I would just like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas from KT Miniatures, and hope that 2019 will be kind to us all.

See you next year!
Celia
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Look At Molly Now...With Her Two New Sisters!

Do you remember this antique German "Porzellanfabrik Burggrub Doll" that was put up for sale on here in aid of the "Save The Dolls Houses Past & Present Website Fund? "

Well, the other day an email with a photo dropped into my inbox from Jane Huggett of Berkshire, who purchased the old doll. To my delight, it was a photo of this old German doll looking rather lovely in her new home, along with her two new sisters!

And here she is (far left with the dark hair), and I understand she is now called Molly.

The unflattering purple knitted dress has been discarded, and Molly is now looking rather beautiful in an outfit that had originally been made by Jane's mother for another doll. Her two sisters are called Ellen and Baby, both of which had previously belonged to Jane's mother. Jane had no idea what her mother used to call the two dolls, so she decided that as her mother had been referred to as Baby by the family until she was about two years of age, she would call the smallest of the dolls "Baby". Baby is the only one with a genuine old dress and although it was not original to the doll, Jane altered it to make it fit. I think they all look rather gorgeous, don't you?

Intriguingly you can just see a peek of Jane's stunning Theodore Heymann dolls house in the top right hand corner of the photo.

Molly certainly looks settled in her new home, what a gorgeous photo! Thank you Jane for sharing it with us. 

Celia

KT Miniatures Early 1900s Miniature German Style Kitchen Now For Sale...

This unique handmade miniature kitchen has just gone up for sale on KT Miniatures website.

It is based on the kind of slightly larger scale German miniature kitchens found in the early part of the 20th century. 

It has been great fun to make! This was it in the very early stages...

And this is it completed.

The painting took quite some time before I finally achieved the effect that I wanted. 

The main carcass is made from MDF and given a white primed finish. 

The walls have been given an aged tiled and panelled painted effect...was great fun to do. It was loosely based on an antique miniature kitchen photo that I came across when researching miniature kitchens for KT Miniatures 2018 workshop project. 

The printed paper friezes were based on actual c1910 German dolls house wallpaper and recreated to fit this project. 

The floor is genuine antique wallpaper, it is stunning and perfect for this little room box. 

To kick start the collection of fixtures and fittings for this old style kitchen, I have added a number of bits and pieces, including this actual antique German dresser, which came to me already over painted and missing the original back. 

So I literally gave it a new back of printed paper tiles, based on an identical but original dresser which I just happen to have in my own collection. 

I am including this genuine antique German hanging flour container, which as you can see has the word "Mehl" printed on the front (German for "flour"). So too an antique white china jug. 

On the left side wall I have created and fixed an old looking wall rack, based on an actual rack seen in an antique German kitchen. Simple but very effective.

Pans and utensils can be hung from the tiny tack hooks. There is also a narrow upper shelf, useful for further storage. 

This heavily aged cream painted antique tin chair is included and suits this kitchen well.

Finally, a simple wooden chopping board has been aged with paint and hangs on the right side wall. 

This is now available to purchase and full details can be seen on the following link:

ktminiatures.com/early-1900s-german-style-miniature-kitchen

Whoever takes this on, can enjoy filling it with antique miniature kitchenalia. Scale did not matter in the early 1900s toy kitchens, so I would just say go for it...and fill it with whatever takes your fancy, regardless of scale. 

Thanks for looking.

Celia

How To Breathe New Life Into Some Broken Miniature Treasures...

What do you do when you have a gorgeous antique German (or could be French) metal chair with a missing metal leg?  

I mentioned this back on here in May, when I sold it's sister chair that was in far better condition with four legs! CLICK HERE TO VIEW.   This chair still has some of the remaining gilt and black colour on the metal frame. Plus the seat pad is original and believed to be silk, but as you can see it is highly worn and has a stain. But you know, I just think this all adds to the character of the chair now...and is fabulous!

Meanwhile, does this broken chair sit in a box for ever more or worse, chucked away? Or does one do something with it so that it can be loved once again. Well I chose the latter...of course!

Ok, this is not going to appeal to the purists out there and that is fine,  I fully understand that. 

But as like my beautiful massive real life size squidgy sofa in my real life size lounge that has a broken foot which is currently propped up by several books (I kid you not - long story involving me and my cat Mollie very late one night)....I have created some of my old looking imitation books to prop the metal chair up so that it actually stands now. 

Maybe it could sit in an old dolls house attic, drawing room or library room? I am so chuffed with the result that I have been so very tempted to keep it. At the moment it is up for sale, but if it doesn't sell very soon...I think temptation may get the better of me:) Can be seen for sale on the LIVING & DINING ROOM PAGE.

And similarly....what do you do when you have a  gorgeous rare soft metal bed that is in several  pieces and obviously missing two legs, at the very least? Does this stay in a box for evermore too or chucked? Like the chair, this was just too beautiful for either of those outcomes so I decided I had to act now and bring it back to life. As you can see, it still has the original fabric stuffed mattress, albeit rather grubby. 

So, after a little bit of research I discovered that this most probably would have started out life as an ornate and very valuable half tester bed, with four long spindly decorative legs and a headboard that extended  upwards into a decorative gilt coronet with drapes!

 Hmm...it has taken me a while to figure out what to do with it. I wanted to do it justice, as it is rather old, probably late 1800s, very early 1900s and believed to be of German origin? 

My first task was to bend back all soft metal bits where possible, with fine pliers and glue the bedhead and side panels back into place, so too some of the metal struts on the mattress base.

Once all glued together I realised that the remaining stumps down the left side of the bed from the original long ornate legs, would actually suffice as tiny legs in their own right. However, the other side of the bed was a different matter and was in desperate need of some sort of support.  

After much pondering and head scratching, I decided that the best course of action was to use my miniature handmade books again, as with the chair.

The footboard support ended up being a lot trickier than anticipated and needed more support, hence I ended up using an additional pile of books glued in front of the footboard. Am rather pleased with the result. 

As with the chair, I am so very tempted to keep this but I really do not have a big enough space at this moment of time in any of my dolls houses...so for the moment it is up for sale and hope that someone somewhere can give this a new loving home.  Can be seen for sale on the BEDROOM PAGE.

Celia