Making doll’s house furniture kits might get a bit easier, now…

This picture might not seem very exciting to you. To me, it is. Very. It’s a delivery of samples from a company that sells all shapes and sizes of plastic bottles.

A delivery of samples – the circular lidded pots are only an inch across

I’ve been trying to find a way of selling small amounts of wood stain and varnish, as a ‘Finishing kit’ to help people who want to make up the miniature furniture kits that I sell along with my doll’s house embroidery kits, for literally years. I’ve always felt that it’s a shame that the smallest ‘hobby size’ tins and bottles of stain and varnish are too large, and often very expensive – most of it ends up going to waste. You only need a tiny amount to finish a wooden chair that’s only three and a half inches high! A 250ml tin of wood stain, for instance, would last a lifetime.

I already sell an embroidery kit to make this chair, with a whitewood chair kit. Now, I’ll be able to sell a staining kit alongside it

Now, I’ve managed to find a supplier of the most dinky little bottles and jars, so I can finally start putting together a finishing kit that has just enough for a couple of kits, so that nothing goes to waste. So, soon there will be waxing kits and staining kits available from my website, to go alongside the embroidery kits.

These rectangular stools, stitched on 32 count silk gauze, co-ordinate with the chairs

What’s that saying? “If it’s worth having, it’s worth waiting for.” Seems to be the story of my life!

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Tiny accessories for tiny embroidered teacosies

Tiny teacosies to stitch for a doll’s house

I’ve been selling tea pots to go with the doll’s house teacosy kits that I sell, for several months, now. But I wanted to have ‘proper’ mini tea sets as well. Now, I have managed to find a supplier of really cute tea sets, in several patterns, to go with the teacosies, and at a really great price. A full set of tea pot, milk jug, sugar bowl with lid and four cups and saucers costs only £5.95, with free postage worldwide when bought from my website.

Blue and white doll’s house tea set

A pretty pink doll’s house tea set

Classic pink roses doll’s house tea set on white china

Just look at those tiny cups! They’re only 8 millimetres high!

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An Unintended Holiday Stitching Project

I have just got back from a great holiday in the Dominican Republic. It’s a wonderful country, populated by the friendliest people you have ever met, and with beaches like this:

The beach at Bayahibe, early morning

However, I wasn’t so impressed with the baggage handlers at Manchester Airport, who managed to wreck my suitcase.

My damaged suitcase, with broken zip and squashed corner

The staff at our hotel suggested that we let them send one of their staff to a local chain store, to get prices for suitable-sized new suitcases, and then they’d buy one on our behalf, so that we didn’t have to waste our holiday time doing it. But when they gave us the price , they were so expensive that we said we’d prefer to try to mend it ourselves.  ‘No, no!’, they said,’Let us get our hotel tailor to mend it for you!’

So, we left the case with them for a week, then enquired about it.

‘Come back tomorrow,’ they said. When we did that, they said ‘Come back at five o’clock.’

By now we were not very confident that they would get anything done. We only had two days left before going home, and no suitcase. When we eventually talked to the head of Guest Services, he owned up. ‘The tailor has been off sick for a week. Now that he’s back, he’s got a backlog of work. He’s looked at your case, and he thinks it’s beyond repair. Sorry.’

Aarrgghh!!

So, we asked for the case back, and said we were going to attempt to fix it ourselves.

‘Can’t be done!’ they said. ‘The tailor said so. It’s beyond repair.’

Several members of staff later, we got the suitcase brought back to our room. With the aid of a tiny ’emergency mending kit’ provided with the toiletries in the bathroom, my husband Chris managed to backstitch the zip back into place, using all six shades of cotton provided in the kit.

Chris fixing the suitcase

Chris’s backstitching

Despite the hotel staff’s disbelief, the suitcase held together all the way back to the UK (including through baggage handling at Manchester Airport).

One of the hotel staff offered him a job as hotel tailor, but he turned it down, as he reckoned the commute to work would be a bit long from Staffordshire.

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