14 day deadline....!

As part of my last full year of trading, I've been conducting a thorough stock check of dressed dolls, ready to dress dolls, and kits, all of which are getting low.

I'm currently working on a megabatch of casting in order to restock porcelain toys and dolls, which will take several months.  After that's completed, early next year, I will be selling off my molds and kiln, along with all of my dollmaking tools and equipment, so all the dolls and toys I cast over the next few months will then have to last me for the remainder of my miniature making career, whichever form that takes.

Prices of my dressed and ready to dress dolls have remained static for over 12 years and during that I've absorbed all the rising costs of raw materials.  However, at the end of this month (that's 14 days time) we will be updating our prices across the website.

For my range of ready to dress dolls that means a 25% increase.

Sounds a lot doesn't it?  But it takes the cost of a handmade, jointed, china-painted, four-times fired, porcelain doll from just £12 to £15.  Prices of kits and dressed dolls will also rise accordingly.

The price changes across the website will take effect on 1 July.  So there is a two week window of opportunity to take advantage of the current ridiculously low prices!

See our ready to dress dolls HERE! 

A selection of jointed, ready to dress, porcelain dolls.... from 1" to 1  3/4" tall!

End of an era.....

Although I'm feeling eleventy million times better than I did on Tuesday, I'm still a bit 'meh' so today the limit of my ambition has been pottering about, ostensibly tidying up, as the house is a complete tip.

We're still trying to sort through no end of 'stuff' which came downstairs prior to the shower room refurb and most of it has ended up in the dining room, pending sale, recycling or charity donation.  The dining room also performed as my temporary sewing room last week so my machine and all the gubbins are still set up in there.  

Not so much dining room as warehouse holding facility.

My depleted energy levels haven't permitted me to do much in the way of sorting through the mess today, although I did drag out our old fair stand sign, which had been carefully bubble-wrapped and stored in what is now Gigglefidget's new room.

We made it specially for the 50th  Miniatura doll's house fair back in 2009, and used it subsequently at various Kensington Dollshouse Festival fairs, as well as many others at which we exhibited during the past 8 years, replacing a motley collection of display equipment which had graced my stand at fairs during the previous 22 years.

As it was for Miniatura's Golden Anniversary we decided on a black and gold colour scheme. It's difficult to see from the photo but all around the sides are little golden fairy lights, embellished with sprays of little iridescent gold beads.  PP cut the lettering for the sign and the whole thing bolted onto the back of a horizontal display shelf.  We used gold lame fabric over a black tablecloth to cover the stand and all of the modular display units were either gold or black.

Those were the days.....

I do have photos of it at that Miniatura show but they're saved somewhere in the bowels of our old portable hard drive, so here's a more recent one from the Thame Fair a few years ago.

Anyways.... as we're not going to be exhibiting at any more fairs, there's no need to keep it so earlier on I dismantled it. The lights will be used somewhere in the house and we'll cut up the wood to use for a garden project.

While I was taking it apart in the garden, Small Dog decided to take on a supervisory role....

As I've been under the weather the past few days, I've had some downtime to ponder on what direction I'll be taking next year.  Tentative ideas and plans have gradually been coalescing and taking shape so I've got a lot to think about.

However, in the meantime I'm going to have some fun and work on projects for miniatures which I've always had in mind to make, but have simply never got round to doing.
Also, over the coming months I'll be listing loads of minis, kits, tools and materials for sale from my workroom, as I systematically clear through all the cupboards, shelves and boxes.

Onwards and upwards.....