A huge list of websites that sell doll’s houses and miniature 1:12 accessories, to get you started in the hobby!

Since changing the focus of this blog from just being about embroidery, to also covering my hobby (and business) of 1:12 doll’s houses, several people have contacted me to ask how they get started in this hobby. ‘Where are the best places to buy miniature things?’ is the question I am being asked the most.

So, I’m going to give you a HUGE list of websites that sell doll’s houses and miniature 1:12 accessories. These are the ones that I like – most of them are in the UK, as I am English, but I do buy from anywhere in the world, if that’s what I need to do to get exactly what I want for my three doll’s houses. Miniaturists are known to be rather particular! In the list below, the websites can be assumed to be in the UK unless a country is listed beside the name. It’s worth noting though, that these days about 99% of websites will ship anywhere in the world, so it’s not usually a problem if a supplier isn’t based in the same country as you. It just means that you might have to wait a bit longer for your parcel to arrive, there may be import taxes to pay, and of course, shipping will be higher from another country. But I’ve found that it’s not worth compromising on what you really want, in the long run.

In the list below, I have roughly grouped the themes of what the websites sell together, but it’s a good idea to browse each site anyway, as many sellers have diverse items (many unique), and I can’t describe everything that they sell, here  🙂 Also, I can’t, obviously, include absolutely every doll’s house website on the planet – this list covers my favourites only, and I have bought – or intend to buy soon – from all of these.

One thing that I have found very useful when I’m browsing websites for ideas for my doll’s houses is to save images of things that I like to a specific Pinterest board, so that I have a visual ‘shopping list’ for later. Here’s my one for my doll’s house toy shop, and the one for my miniature French cafe, to show you what I mean. As I actually buy things, I move the image to the board ‘Dollhouse miniatures I’ve bought now‘, so that I can remember what I’ve bought, and who I bought it from! Some people say I’m over-organised, but I don’t agree….

Remember that many businesses these days have Facebook pages and blogs as well as websites that they sell from – here, I’ve only listed the websites.

So, get yourself a coffee, and have a good look through this list, for ideas to get you started on the wonderful hobby of twelfth scale doll’s houses!

GENERAL

Melody Jane Dolls Houses. Stocks over 3000 items.

Melody Jane Dolls Houses

My Tiny World. Stocks over 14000 items.

Petit Connoisseurs. (South Africa) Many unusual miniatures from all over the world. Many dolls, toys, one-off items, and some vintage too.

Jennifers of Walsall. Large range of items, including lots of wallpapers and fabrics.

Jennifers of Walsall

Phoenix Model Developments. White metal kits to make all kinds of accessories.

Sussex Crafts. Quality household items. Many fireplaces and metal items.

Newtonwood Miniatures. Unusual household miniatures.

Karon Cunningham Miniatures. High quality items from a large range of miniaturists from all over the world. Many toys.

Karon Cunningham Miniatures

Dolls House Emporium. Good budget range for those starting in the hobby. Very large website. Over 6000 items.

Streets Ahead. Good budget range for those starting in the hobby. You can download a pdf catalogue from their website, but they don’t sell direct to the public – only via shops and other website businesses. There is a good list of stockists on their website, to help you locate your nearest shop.

Maple Street Miniatures. Good budget range for those starting in the hobby. Very large website. Stockist of Sid Cooke dolls house kits (my Edwardian toy shop is a Sid Cooke one).

Wonham Collection. Over 2000 items. Good budget range for those starting in the hobby. Very large website.

Minimum World. Large range of budget to medium priced furniture and accessories.

Dollshouse Mania. Over 12000 items in stock. Stockists of Jia Yi high quality furniture.

Art of Mini. (Germany). Many interesting and unusual items, many as kits. Flower kits, glass items, ephemera, etc. Website has an English translation.

Art of Mini

MINIATURE EMBROIDERY / NEEDLEPOINT

Janet Granger Designs. (Well, I would put my own website on this list, wouldn’t I?!) Almost 300 kits and charts for all kinds of 1:12 miniature needlepoint – carpets, bellpulls, chairs, Christmas stockings, handbags, etc. 18 count canvas to 40 count silk gauze.

My website – Janet Granger Designs

CURTAINS

Curtains-Petite. Custom curtains made to your own measurements or ready-made.

Tanya Shevtsova Miniature Curtains. (Russia). Beautiful, fancy gathered curtains and pelmets.

Tanya Shevtsova

MiniChris. Pleated curtains and roller blinds – ready made or custom sizes.

LIGHTING

Ray Storey Lighting.  Finely made working lights with glass shades, historically accurate.

Ray Storey Lighting

Micro Miniatures. Lighting systems.

FOOD
Paris miniatures. My favourite maker of food in the world! French style patisserie is their speciality. Whole large cakes, ones with a slice taken out, and ‘cakes for one’. Christmas, Halloween, Easter and Valentine’s Day ‘special ranges’ brought out each year as limited editions.

Paris Miniatures

BUILDING SUPPLIES, WOOD, PAINT, etc

W. Hobby Ltd. Kits, paints, wood strip and mouldings. Large range.

Hobbies of Dereham. Kits, paints, wood strip and mouldings. Large range.

Replicast. Plaster fireplaces, ceiling roses, mouldings, etc.

Replicast

Stacey’s Miniature Masonry (was ‘Richard Stacey’). Brick and stone cladding (real and ‘slips’ made from textured card), and roof slates.

Bromley Craft Products. Lighting, building materials, real wood flooring, etc.

Jaspers Miniatures. Many items for building/finishing, inc. real wood flooring.

Little Green Workshop. DIY materials, lighting systems, transformers, etc.

PLATES/CUPS & SAUCERS

Twelve Times More Teeny. (Spain). Transfer-decorated plates, cups and saucers – amazing detail, large range.

A Lavender Dilly. (Australia). Transfer-decorated plates, cups and saucers – amazing detail, large range. Also cafe signs.

A Lavender Dilly

SHABBY CHIC ITEMS

Sarahs Lil Essentials. Cafe signs, accessories and furniture in shabby chic style.

HOUSES

Dolls House Direct. Houses, shops and room boxes. My miniature French style cafe/florist’s shop kit (‘Malbury’) was bought from here.

Maple Street for Sid Cooke houses. Huge range of houses, furniture and accessories. They bought up the Sid Cooke business in 2016, and are gradually revamping the range and will have the whole range of shops and houses available for sale as kits or ready-built as soon as possible.

FURNITURE

McQueenie Miniatures. Fine quality miniature furniture  and kits, mainly in mahogany. Also make a gypsy caravan.

Manchester Miniatures. (USA) Kits and ready made, among a large range of items. I bought the tables for my French cafe from here (as kits).

Meirucorp Store. (China) Huge range of quite fancy/decorated furniture, similar to Bespaq.

Meirucorp

Dream Home Miniatures. Official Supplier of Jia Yi dolls house furniture and miniatures for the UK, Ireland and Northern Europe.

Wooden House Miniatures. Simple furniture, ‘country’ painted pine.

Escutcheon Miniatures. Finely made furniture in yew and mahogany.

Escutcheon

Ann High. Quality carved furniture.

MICRO DOLLS FOR DOLL’S HOUSE DOLLS (under two inches high)

Tower House Dolls. Finished dolls and doll kits for Jumeau and other style ‘antique looking’ dolls – very prettily dressed. Also many other kinds of toys, such as pull-along animals, Alice in Wonderland themed toys, etc.

Tower House Dolls

Diane Yunnie. (South Africa). Very pretty Jumeau-style porcelain dolls; also doll’s prams.

Debbie Dixon-Paver. (South Africa). Finely made little dolls, very collectable! Also makes women, men and child dolls in 1:12 scale.

Ethel Hicks’ Angel Children. (USA). Artist dolls in a distinctive style.

Jan Althouse. (USA). Really, really tiny dolls – under an inch high! Have to be seen to be believed.

DOLLS, ADULT & CHILD, 1:12 SCALE

Angelique Miniatures   Hand-crafted character dolls from ALL historical periods

World of My Own. Women, men and child dolls, character dolls, doll kits.

PLANTS (both KITS and FINISHED)

The Miniature Garden. Paper flower kits.

Templewood Miniatures. Flower kits (also 1/144 scale houses).

Lamis Minis. (Germany) Paper flower kits.

Mi Patio Escondido. (Spain) Paper flower kits. To order, email a list of what you’d like, and they will send a Paypal invoice.

Mi Patio Escondido

BOOKS/EPHEMERA

The Linen Press. Books, building blocks, packs of cards, calendars, etc.

TOYS

Tower House Dolls. Porcelain dolls, pull-along toys, Alice in Wonderland items, toy theatres, Jack-in-the-box, pierrot dolls, etc.

Artisanos Felipe Royo. (Spain) Wide range of toys, dolls, etc., such as a hobby horse, artist dolls, fort. Also high quality furniture.

Severn Models. 1/144 scale houses (doll’s houses for doll’s houses) made from brass sheet, to be assembled and painted.

Severn Models

Petite Properties Ltd. 1/144 scale houses (doll’s houses for doll’s houses), to be assembled and painted.

Sally Reader Miniatures. Toys.

Roberson Miniatures. Very finely made, historically accurate prams.

Roberson Miniatures

Valerie Casson.  Toys, nursery furniture, ark, soldiers.

Veronique Lux. (France) Toys, tiny houses, felted toy animals.

WICKER ITEMS

Wicker Miniature. (Russia). Baskets, conservatory furniture, nursery furniture, bookcases.

Also, try these magazines:

Artisans in Miniature (Online group for the ‘mini artisan’ community, which professional miniaturists can belong to). Its website has a good section of ‘Member profiles‘, giving details of what their members make, sorted by theme, with links to their websites, blogs, etc. They publish a really good, free online magazine for the public every couple of months, with a huge back issue section on the website also.

Dolls House and Miniature Scene Magazine.

Dolls House World Magazine.

American Miniaturist Magazine. (USA)

Dolls House Nederland. (Netherlands)

1 zu 12. (Germany)

SEE ALSO…..

Pinterest is an amazing resource for doll’s house images. Not all images found on Pinterest link back to shop websites – for instance, many are from blogs (but they are also interesting!). I have found that the search results are far better if you use keywords such as ‘1:12’ rather than ‘doll’s house’, for some reason.

 

Good luck with your browsing!

Please note: These websites were active as at February 2017 – if you find a link that doesn’t work, please let me know by emailing janet@janetgranger.co.uk, and I’ll update the list. Thanks!

Also: I can only add websites to this list if I personally have bought from them. By all means contact me to let me know of good ones, but this list is of my personal favourites, not a general ‘free advertisement’ directory.

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Are you interested in doll’s houses and stitching? Then why not visit my website, where you can buy doll’s house needlepoint kits to make all kinds of soft furnishings for one-twelfth scale dollhouses. There are over 280 kits to choose from, plus chart packs, fabric project packs, tutorials, and lots of eye candy to inspire you! Kits are available on 18 and 22 count canvas, 28 and 32 count evenweave, and 32 and 40 count silk gauze, so there’s something for everyone – from beginners to experts.

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My oak sewing box

I was going to do a blog post this week about all my favourites doll’s house and miniatures websites, so that you can use it as a ‘basic resource’ when making and collecting for your own doll’s houses, but I have realised that that’s quite a mammoth task (as I have dozens of ‘favourite websites’), so rather than rush to get that one ready (I want it to be good!!), I’m going to give you a ‘stitchy blog post’ this week:

People have asked me what kind of tools and equipment I use day-to-day when I am doing my embroidery, so this week I’m going to talk about one of my favourite things. Whenever I start a new project, I collect together the threads and so on that I’m going to use, and put them in my project box. This is what it looks like:

This is a box lid design by Sheila Marshall that I stitched about ten years ago, with goldwork highlights and some beads. I love it!

Most of the embroidery is long and short stitch, with some needlelace filling stitches for textural interest. Many of the shapes are outlined in various thicknesses of gold thread, couched in place with silk thread. Tiny gold seed beads are scattered over the background to fill the spaces.

When I saw the design in the book ‘Elizabethan Needlework Accessories’ by Sheila Marshall, I really wanted to make it, but the box she had used for the version in her book had been specially made for her. So, I asked my husband to make me a similar sized box with an aperture lid for my birthday, to put the stitching into.

The box is beautifully made out of oak. It measures 10 inches by 6 by 3 high.

I specifically asked him not to make the interior into lots of little compartments, as I find that although they look useful, nothing ever really fits properly. I’d rather have just one compartment.

This is the book that the design is from. It was published in New Zealand in 1998. For several years it was out of print, but you can now get it on Amazon again here for around £13.  There are several other books in the series by the same publisher (Dick Georgeson), and they’re all very good. I’ve made several things from all the books, and they’re gorgeous. The stumpwork petal bag on the cover of the book is something I loved making a few years back.

One small change that I made to the design was that I added a little bee from a companion piece in the book (to make a pinwheel), which was just too cute to leave out.

Here’s a picture of my box, alongside the picture from the book of Sheila’s one. Similar, aren’t they?!

It’s one of my favourite things that I have ever made  🙂

 

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How to assemble a 1:12 Sid Cooke doll’s house shop

This is the Sid Cooke twelfth scale doll’s house shop that I am making (this image is from their website):

I got this for Christmas a while back – I had been thinking of getting a second doll’s house, and a miniature shop appealed to me, especially as I fancied having one where I could indulge my love of little toys. It’s called ‘Number 1, High Street’, and measures 18 inches wide.

But I got the kit rather than the assembled version – partly because I could customise it as I went. This is how it looked, straight out of the box:

Oo-er!! Bit of a shock, to be honest, as I had never assembled a kit house before, and I was surprised by how many bits there were!

Still, with a bit of help (OK, a LOT of help!) from my husband, who is not DIY-challenged like I am, we got the basic shell assembled. The kit comes as two parts – you could buy just the downstairs shop part, as a stand-alone room box, or the upstairs part as well, to make a more realistic-looking building, which is what I chose. This is the simpler-to-assemble upstairs part, with the parts set out on my desk:

The two halves are glued together at the appropriate time. This is the upstairs part taped together to see how it would look:

It has a chimney that is glued on last. The windows are plastic, and can be painted. They fit really well, and, although non-opening, look really good.

First, though, I thought it would be a good idea to have a dry-run of the whole thing. The front bay windows were quite tricky to hold together with masking tape to try this out, but it was worth doing, to see the whole thing as one piece. All the parts fitted together very well, with no bits left over, so that was a relief  🙂

This was the point where I started to get excited, because it was beginning to actually look like a miniature shop! There were still trims to be added to the frontage, but I’d tried out enough of the assembly to feel confident enough to ‘go for it’.

 

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Introduction to my three doll’s houses

I have owned a Georgian-style twelfth scale doll’s house since 1982, and recently, as that house was *almost* finished (they’re never completely finished!) I became interested in getting another miniature building of some kind.

But which kind to get?! I eventually settled on a Sid Cooke 1:12 shop kit (called ‘No. 1 High Street’), which will become an Edwardian toy shop. But I also became tempted to get a third miniature building soon after, when I came across the wonderful mini food created by Paris Miniatures, and I then decided to create a French-style two storey doll’s house shop, with a cafe upstairs (to display all the yummy cakes in), and a flower shop downstairs, as I have always adored miniature plants and flowers.

So, I now have two miniature shop buildings to complete at once, and I’ve decided to expand what I write about on this blog, and to start sharing with you the process of building, decorating and collecting for both of them.

I’ve always loved doll’s house nurseries, so the idea of making a toy shop in 1:12 scale has always appealed to me. It would give me so many opportunities for collecting all those little toys, especially dolls!

When I decided to make a mini toy shop, I thought it would be easy to choose a building. But once I started looking, I got picky. I needed a building with a Victorian/Edwardian look to it, with no stairs (as that would take up valuable display space) without too many upstairs rooms (as I didn’t want to be doing ‘living accommodation’, just shop rooms).

This is the image from the Sid Cooke website, when I first decided to get the kit:

I chose this one, as I liked the off-set bay windows that it has, and the balanced look to the first floor facade. The kit was half the cost of the assembled version, so I sent off for that. It was a bit of a shock when I opened the box on Christmas Day (Santa agreed to get it for me!) to find a couple of dozen bits of MDF and plywood, and quite a brief booklet on how to put it all together.

I’d never put a kit together before, and to be honest, when I looked at all those pieces, I thought, ‘What have I done?!’

But I spent two days putting the basic carcase together (with the help of my husband, who knows how to bang a nail in straight!), and it didn’t seem quite so daunting once it started to look like a building. Building it from scratch, of course, means that I can customise bits as I go, and it makes painting the trims far easier.

Since I got the kit (three years ago – there’s a reason for the delay in assembling it, which I’ll explain in a later post!), the Sid Cooke business has been sold on to Maple Street online doll’s house shop. They tell me that they are working to get all the Sid Cooke range of houses back on sale, but as of this post (February 2017), only the bestsellers are available, which doesn’t include this particular shop kit, but they hope to have it available again by the end of 2017.

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The French shop that I want to make will be in a mini building which I bought, again as a kit, from Dolls House Direct. The doll’s house is called ‘Malbury’. To me, it’s got a vaguely French look to it. I had looked for ages to find something with a French look, and there was nothing really strongly French, but I think that by painting it in cream and blue shades, I can make it look suitably French! This is the image from their website:

It’s got two good-sized rooms (quite a bit deeper than the Sid Cooke house), with an interesting ‘fake door corner’ in each room, giving the impression of further rooms beyond, but no actual staircase to take up valuable space.

Although the Malbury house normally comes with upstairs windows in both left and right hand side walls, I had a custom one made, with only a window on the right wall, so that I can put a large cabinet full of cakes along the left hand one. For once, I am planning ahead…..

So, I’ve got two houses on the go now, as well as my embroidery projects, which are a constant in my life. Stops me being bored, anyway!

 

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