Another Date For Your Diary.....Jersey Dolls' House & Miniature's Club Exhibition

St. Brelade Parish Hall, St.Aubin, Jersey

Sunday 23rd August 2015

10.00am - 5.00pm

I have another date for your diary for those of you who either live in Jersey or who may be going there for a holiday next month. 

Barbara Kendall-Davies, who is a member of the Jersey Dolls House Club, has asked if I can spread the word to you all about the club's latest exhibition. Their room box theme this year is a scene from a story and amongst exhibits will be scenes in box files, member's dolls' houses, shops, etc.. There will also be refreshments, a sales table, a quiz and a raffle. 

The painting above was created by Barbara herself with acrylics on canvas, and it is a scene of boats in Gorey Harbour - Jersey.

Good luck to the Jersey Club....hope you all have a fantastic day...sounds like fun!

Celia

Rare c1960s Tri-ang Spot-On Packaged Windows.....

If you received my KT Miniatures Newsletter yesterday, you will have seen that I had just put up for sale two extremely rare c1960s Tri-ang Spot-On packaged windows. Ok....they may be just plastic....but it is BECAUSE they were plastic and consequently rather fragile, that makes these windows so sought after and rare, as frustratingly so many got broken by their young owners. There must be many collectors out there who have vintage Tri-ang dolls houses with the original plastic windows that are either missing or instead have broken plastic windows stuck in place with Cellotape! 

Well the two that I currently have for sale are these......

 

This is the larger of the two windows....on the packet the label states it as being  "No. 1151 Contemporary 3 Light Window With 2 Opening Lights." 

 

Inside the packet there are two white frames which presumably click together either side of the wall and the tiny lugs slot into the relevant holes. There are also three clear plastic pieces of glazing....two that are obviously meant to be the opening windows and the other is for a central fixed window. 

 

These belonged to Marion Osborne and are featured on page 207 in her  The Book Of Tri-ang Furniture For The Dolls House.  Marion tells us that this particular window could be found in the Tri-ang "V" and "U" dolls house, so if you have this model house and are in need of a replacement window, here is a rare opportunity to obtain a new one unused.

This is the second window that is available to purchase. It is much smaller and slimmer but has the same concept of two frames clicking together via lugs. There is just one long piece of clear plastic for the glazing. On the label it describes this as "No.1153 Contemporary Small 2 Light Window". Marion tells us in her book that this is suitable for an "A" or "C" Tri-ang Bungalow.

Marion also tells us in her book that these windows were sold loose by retailers so some people used these Tri-ang plastic windows in homemade dolls houses too.

 

In this Tri-ang Bungalow "C" that was sold by KT Miniatures several years ago now, you can see the No. 1153 Contemporary Small Window in situ, on the right front wall. 

In this close up photo, you can see that there were two of those smaller windows fixed side by side.

 

These and an array of Tri-ang Spot-On dolls house furniture plus accessories can be found on the following KT Miniatures website page:

 ktminiatures.com/Tri-ang.html

During the next few days, I hope to do more listing of Tri-ang including several Tri-ang Jennys Home rooms. They will be listed all together on their own page, directly linked to the above Tri-ang page.....so watch this space for more news about these shortly!

Just Look What Came Through The Post!!

I have just had a lovely and very unexpected surprise in the post.....an envelope filled with these beautifully illustrated postcards!

They have been created by 'Children's Book Illustrator' Rachel Clowes, who based the figure on an antique doll found in the Pollocks Toy Museum, UK. I have been following Rachel's blog for a long while now and have been completely entranced and fascinated by her exquisite work. If you click on the following link, it will take you through to Rachel's blog where you can see more of her work plus a short time lapse video of this particular illustration in the making:

rachelclowesillustrator.blogspot.co.uk

Is fascinating!

If you are a lover of 1940s dolls houses, you will like Rachel's other blog too - 1940s Terrace DollsHouse where Rachel shows us her first dolls house project. As the blog title suggests....it is a Victorian terraced dolls house set in the 1940s. She has some very clever ideas!

Celia

Had to dash off for a few days....but back now.

Apologies for the delay in replying to emails and phone messages for most of last week and over the weekend.....unfortunately I had to dash off for a few days but thankfully am back now. I have finally managed to work through the backlog of emails and phone messages,  now hopefully fingers crossed, KT Miniatures can get back to normal.  Many thanks for your patience.

CeliaX

Oh Dear...Now Mollie Is In Disgrace!

Over the years, my two kitties have got themselves into some right old scrapes. But my gorgeous 6 year old black and white rescue kitty called Mollie has well and truly excelled herself this time!

 

There I was last week, on the hottest day of the year here in the UK....grabbing a few minutes respite from final preparations for the Cheltenham workshop....when I heard someone knocking rather enthusiastically on my front door! I opened to find my elderly neighbour Jack, very red faced and a little bewildered...mumbling something on the lines that he hopes I have got good cat insurance and it was too hard to explain, I had better come and take a look instead!

Hmmm....sensing I was not going to like what he was about to show me, I braced myself well and truly.  We didn't have to go far....just to his front lounge window!!

Well...the story goes  that naughty Mollie, who is by nature a very friendly and nosey cat, decided to trot through my neighbour's open patio doors and make herself at home in his lounge whilst he was elsewhere in the house. Finally, when Jack emerged downstairs and walked into his lounge, Mollie  decided to make a quick exit out of the nearest open front window...only what she didn't bank on was that there were lace curtains in the way. In her blind panic, she completely shredded his curtains down one side, as well as making a massive hole so that she could jump right through and out of the window!!!

Well what else could I do....I had to apologise profusely, dig out my tape measure and measure up his rather large window (93" wide no less) and embark on ordering him a new curtain.  So much for my few minutes respite! Finally, after much trawling on the internet of all the main UK stores...I ended up going with  a specialist net curtain company, who were actually very reasonable and a replacement came very quickly. So today, we had the official hanging of Jack's new net curtain. He reckoned that it looked much better than the old tatty one...ha ha, I had to agree! It was nice to see him smiling again and he seemed very pleased indeed.

 But that is not the end of the story....as I have just had another knock on my door, and it was a delivery van with a little something with my name on and an accompanying card simply saying.....

 And this is what the little something was....

Awwww, as my Grandma used to say....

"all's well that ends well"!

Celia