Trimble's is still standing !

 

Well , where did the time go ? I can hardly believe its been so long since my last post in December 2012.   I was very busy in 2013 , but really there is just no excuse for not posting ..... things have got to change !

Most of 2013 was spent doll making, and barely any of it was spent enjoying my hobby.

One of my new years resolutions for 2014 was that this was going to change.

I am still very busy doll making, but have plans to finally get to grips with the unfinished rooms above the toyshop this year and post my progress here .

 

 

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of progress made yet, but I did re arrange the shop window displays as I was making plans and they are looking lovely . 

 

 

I am still filling the toy shop shelves, I think it will take a few years before it is full . I am always looking out for special and unusual toys and my collection gives me a lot of pleasure.

I bought some lovely new toys in 2013 and also received some wonderful gifts of special pieces for my toy shop. I will write a post featuring some of the new additions to the shop soon.

First though I wanted to show off some very special miniature toys.

These aren't all mine, I only have one of them, but I am happy to show them as they have been made by my beautiful and talented daughter Katie !

Uncle Mort would be happy to have all of these three on display in the shop

 

I don't know which of these tiny jack in the boxes is my favourite, they are all so lovely and colourful !

 

 

 

Katie also makes wonderfully tiny puppets ( you can just glimpse one hanging in the first photo of my shop window ) and other tiny toys.

I hope you've enjoyed another peek inside the toyshop and sorry to have kept you waiting so long ......  I hope to be posting here a lot more regularly this year.

 

Julie xxx

 

Mortimer trimble takes up residence in the toy shop

It has been some time since my last blog post. 
There have been lots of things happening in Trimbles Toy Emporium !
As you can see the Toy Shop doesnt really look very different ...............................

The street light is still lit at the side of the building and the old Saint Bernard dog is still waiting outside , harnessed to the carriage..............

 

The shop window still has the wonderful dummy board of Belle sitting astride her trusty rocking horse, but things have changed a little here, a beautiful doll by artisan Lea Frisoni  is there to tempt you into peeking inside, and some precious old wooden toys by the sadly missed artisan Chris Sturgess Leif.
The biggest change however is standing behind the shop counter, take a peek through the open doors............ I do believe Mr. Mortimer Trimble himself is now in residence and waiting for you to enter his wonderful Emporium !

 

As most of you know I am a doll maker, my miniature houses are my hobby but doll making is my passion. When I built this toyshop I already had in mind the old fellow who owned the shop . It has taken me some time to actually get round to making him but to my delight he turned out exactly as I had imagined .

Let me introduce Mortimer Trimble, proprietor of Trimble's Toy Emporium and inventor of wonderful and magical toys !

 

Mr. Trimble is delighted to make your acquaintance and hopes you will enjoy your visit to his Emporium.

 

The shop is now beginning to fill up nicely with beautiful toys, although there is room for lots more !
I have also been working on the rooms upstairs and will post more photos soon as there have been a few changes and I have a special project in store for the attic .
julie xx

All change for Trimbles Toy Emporium

Once again it has been some since my last post. Life has been busy and the toy shops doors have been mostly closed. This week however I found time to work on some ideas i have had and finally I have trimbles exactly how I want it and ready to fill with lovely things !
You can see I now have the shop counter in. This needs a till and the toy shop shelves need filling but there will be no more changes to the layout now.
You might have noticed it all looks slightly different.....

I blocked the doorway from the shop to the house with a wall and then placed shelving in front of the wall. The door was never used but I felt the need to leave a clear path to it as you would in real life , so space was wasted.

Now I have lots more shelves and the view in from the side window is lovely . I will be stacking that toybox high with toys and really love the way it all looks now :0)

This little room is a new addition ! I have always been unhappy with the deep rooms in the roof.

The rooms above the shop both have doors in the back leading to the landing. Upstairs there had been a stairwell in one bedroom which had a door leading to the other bedroom..... a most impossible arrangement ! I tried to solve this by hiding the stairwell and making a built in bed in Uncle Morts room, but it really did not please me and I couldnt live with it.

So I have blocked the doorway between the two rooms and added a wall in the back of each room with a doorway leading to extra rooms and an imaginary passageway !

Belles room looks so sweet with her little writing / dressing room !

Uncle Morts room will have a bathroom in the tiny room. I think the house needed one and I am left with a lovely sized room ready to fill with the furniture of my choice for Uncle Morts bedroom.

The trunk is just biding time in there until I get my bathroom furniture :0)

It all looks right to me now and authentic to the rest of the building, and I am very much looking forward to filling it up !

Hope you like the way it is turning out,

julie x

A new year and finally some progress !

I was shocked but not entirely surprised to find it has been 7 months since my last post here.
It has been busy and I didnt find a lot of time for my hobby last year but this year one of my resolutions was to find time to do the things I love and this I have done :0)
So finally we have a little progress on the living quarters above the shop and as I have thought more about the characters who will live here i have changed things round a little and probably will do again before things are completed !
So here is the parlour, I think I will have a sideboard on the wall behind the sofa and definitely a picture or mirror above it but for now although not complete it is at least pleasing me .
The thing that is pleasing me the most is my baby house !
I bought this in bare wood and have painted it cream with grey accents. The inside I have decorated with silk fabrics , I wasnt too particular here as I want it to look very much like the antique baby houses I have seen in museums and not brand spanking new.
In my stories this has been built for Belle by Uncle Mort and decorated by the young Belle.
However it takes pride of place in the parlour !
I am gradually filling it with 144th scale furniture :0)

Finally we have curtains throughout the house. I have added windowsills and sat some tiny ornaments and a doll on this one.

I bought a lovely chair which I distressed and added a throw . I then covered the seat of the sofa with the same fabric as the throw and will be making some cushions for this soon as it is still to bare for my liking.

You can see the little west highland terrier here too, to remind me of our dear suzie who we no longer have. This one is a boy though called Barney !

I have also been working on the bedrooms , I will be posting again very soon .........

julie x

The Grand Bedroom Botch - up begins !

I have been working hard on my plans for Uncle Morts bedroom , as mentioned in my last post.
Here you can see where I have taken out the bannisters around the stairwell. This was dead space in the bedroom as the gap either side of the bannisters was too small to put anything into .
I wanted to make a built in bed with drapes to free up space in the rest of the room that would otherwise have been mostly filled with bed !


As in all the best botch ups I just got stuck right in and made a framework over the stairwell with square balsa wood strips. I then set in a small door which matches the rest of the doors in the house. I filled the gap above the door with various strips of spare wood I had in my "useful " drawer ! Then I replaced the skirting board, notice my antique cooking weights holding it in place till it dries, they have been a great help building this dolls house !

Here you can see the bed. I simply glued a frame around the wall to support the thin balsa strip I used to make the bed. Because there is hollow space under the bed and over the stairwell you are still able to look up the stairs from the lower floor without the top of the stairs looking blocked.

When you look though the new doorway in the bedroom you can just see the top stair and it looks as if you can easily walk down the stairs ! it is of course just an optical illusion but it will do for me .

The bed is now almost ready to dress. I still have to attach a piece of trim to the left hand inner side and then refit the cornice around the top. There is a space behind the upper wood strip (which I have now wallpapered ) to attach the drapes .

I wasnt able to remove the wall light as its wiring is covered in brickwork on the back of the house, but I think it works effectively where it is , lighting up the bed side beautifully.

I'm very excited now to dress the bed !

More photos soon ..........

julie xx

Inspiration in Chicago

I was in Chicago this April exhibiting my dolls at the Chicago International Show. While there I couldnt resist visiting the wonderful Thorne Rooms exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute. These photos are just some of the miniature rooms there. They are all behind glass so it wasnt easy taking good photos so please excuse the quality.
This first photo in particular really inspired me......... more of that later first here are some of the miniature rooms I liked best.

You would be forgiven for thinking this was a stately home ! The miniatures on display were really beautiful and the needlework in the rugs was amazing .

I loved this kitchen, the wood work was beautifully carved, very simple and oh so realistic.

I loved the way the rooms all had windows with light streaming through and open doors where you could peeek into imaginary rooms beyond !

Now back to Trimbles Toy Emporium .

I am a bit of a stickler for detail in a dolls house. I like to know that my dolls can actually walk up the stairs, open the doors and get about the house in a logical fashion if they so wished !

Sometimes though we have to use illusion and I am going to be doing this in Uncle Morts bedroom.

Uncle Morts room is up the stairs and there is a bannister in the room taking up a lot of space.

Belle's room is accessed by walking up the stairs and right through Uncle Morts room where there is a door to her room.

I really dont like this arrangement and have been dithering about how to overcome it.
However the first of the Thorne room photos shows a really lovely built in bed with curtains and a door leading to steps going up.

My cunning plan is to adapt this idea ( my room is much smaller than the one in the photo ) so that Uncle Mort has a built in bed over the stair well and a door next to it leading to the stairs.

he can then draw the curtains on his bed for privacy as Belle has to pass through his room to get to hers.

It also frees up tons of space in his room for all my other cunning plans !!

I hope to start work on this tonight and will post pictures as I go.................watch this space !

julie xx

The Thorne Rooms Exhibition at Chicago Art Institute

Belle's Bedroom, work has begun !

First of all thank you for your patience, its been a long time between posts !

I have been so busy with my dollmaking I havent had a lot of hobby time this year . After exhibiting at Kensington Dollshouse festival this weekend I will finally be able to step off the treadmill and find some of that elusive time to work on my Emporium .

I have done a little work though, and this is Belle's bedroom so far. Belle is 12 years old and although she works very hard helping her Uncle she is still a child and one of the perks of living above a toyshop with a toymaker uncle is having wonderful toys.

There will be some quite magical toys in Belle's bedroom although right now it is fairly empty.

I dressed her bed , it is a phoenix kit I painted and assembled, very simple to do and it looks wonderful. I spent ages dressing the bed to make it look slightly shabby yet still pretty and cosy.

The room needs curtains, a chest of drawers for Belles clothes or possibly a small writing desk.

Decisions, decisions !

I am looking forward to finishing this room.

The room next door belongs to Uncle Mort who is rather a strange fellow and will fittingly have rather a strange room.............. I am planning some minor adjustments to the structure of the room and will post more when I get time to try out my plans.

Welcome to my new followers, I hope I wont keep you waiting quite so long for another post :0)

julie xxx

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