The Other End of My Flickr Trade; "Wonderful things."

  A few posts back you might remember I talked about a trade I was doing with a friend from Flickr. (For those of you who haven't heard of Flickr,it's a photo sharing site.) I showed you what I was sending her HERE. Well, I received the box from my friend,who we will refer to by her Flickr name,Odd Mod,last week. In this post we're going to look at what she sent me.
  First of all, if you want to see Odd Mod's great pictures of her amazing 1/6 scale dollhouse,you can check out her Flickr account HERE.
  Now,to get to my package. I was so afraid that nothing I was going to send was going to be good enough for Odd Mod. She has the coolest,most realistic looking dollhouse,and she has great versions of everything you could want for a dollhouse. Well when my package arrived I felt really awful. The box was HUGE,and filled with,as Howard Carter said the first time he looked into King Tut's tomb and was asked what he saw, "Wonderful things.". Not only were the things wonderful,but so many of them were handmade,some by her,some by her and her husband, and some by artisans she bought from at her local 'miniature fair'. (I think what she refers to as a miniature fair would be a doll show over here,as they have things in 1/12 dollhouse scale, and 1/6 Barbie sized scale.) Tammy World was so excited she unpacked everything right there on her front porch and dove in.

 All of the smaller items arrived in these pretty little bags.

There were stacks of books,made by Odd Mod herself.

Tammy was so thrilled to receive her own copy of the book Odd Mod made from her Flickr photo story starring the residents of her dollhouse,'The Retirees'.

She was even more thrilled to find that it had been signed to her personally by The Retirees.

Odd Mod must be psychic. I really wanted one of these books!

Tammy and I were also really excited to receive pastries from Ullanpulla,the bakery Odd Mod made that features in some of her Flickr photos. (You can see it HERE.)

 

"Yeah! Two bags full!" Uh,Tammy, you will remember to share those,won't you?

The white cupboard was handmade by a man who makes 1/12 scale miniatures.The cupboard is actually 1/12,but looks really nice in a 1/6 setting too.

The little shoe boxes are by another miniature artist.

This glass bowl,filled with pears,was handmade and purchased at the miniature fair. The framed saying and the 'Be My Friend' nautical decorations were handmade by Odd Mod.

 The rocking chair was also hand made.
 

Odd Mod made the mini doll boxes.

She and her husband made this ladder shelf just for me.

The rugs were handmade and purchased at the miniature fair,as was this beautiful little sweater. 

 It has embroidered flowers and real little buttons.

The little straw goat is called a Gavle goat,and is a traditional Scandinavian Christmas decoration.

It's all so nice! I love tiny books,and I am obsessed with furniture. All these beautiful handmade things have inspired me to get busy making things. I have all kinds of ideas. I should be making things anyway.For one thing, I think I owe Odd Mod a lot more to make us even. I didn't realize she'd send so much. It was so nice of her, but I feel I short changed her. I had a few other things I was going to send, but they wouldn't fit in the box,and I am collecting other things to add to them. Ken and Emma are going to England next summer. (It was supposed to be this summer, while Ken's place of work got remodeled,but the remodel got moved to next summer.) I'm going to pack a bigger box for Odd Mod and send it along to England with them to be mailed. It will be cheaper to mail from there, so I can send more.

Maybe Tammy will have read all these books by then.

Return of the Internet and the Miniature Show

  Well, our modem has been replaced and we have internet again. It's been out since late last week. You have no idea how dependent you have become on the internet until you lose it! We were constantly wanting to research something and remembering that we couldn't! What a pain."Yeah, I'll go look that up.----No I won't!" 
  Anyway, the miniature show was Saturday. Like other doll related shows, it was a lot less busy than previous years. I sold bits and pieces which I did NOT make, and nothing that I did make. Several people looked at my Mrs. Beasley dolls, and one lady asked about the blue fainting couch. But alas, no buyers.

Little Beasley, and yes, she and the other one are poseable, and their glasses are removeable.

Slightly bigger Beasley

That blue fainting couch.

So. All that stuff is going on Ebay or Etsy. I keep getting told that I just need to give it time, to keep doing shows until people decide they can't live without my stuff, or figure out what they can use it for. But doing shows is so expensive. The tables at the miniature show are $110! Luckily I know a lady I share with, so that makes it an almost affordable $55. But there are other costs too. The gas it takes to get to the shows is one. Some people come an awfully long way. I drove a little over an hour myself. (Ivy and I made it worth it by doing some shopping while we were there, but she still didn't find a winter coat she likes.)Think how much you have to sell to make up the costs, let alone make a profit. And then of course, at dolls shows, (but not so much at the miniature shows), people ask you if you will take less than you have the stuff priced for! I sold alot of very small stuff, which I have to say I had at amazing prices.But that means I have to sell even more to make any money. I don't think I did more than make my table cost. (And less than that when you consider that the stuff I sold had to be paid for originally too.) If I were selling bigger ticket items, like the stuff I made, I would actually make some money.Oh well. We shall see. It may not be worth continuing this business.The lady I shared my table with suggested I make more dolls. I said I didn't know if I wanted to waste my time making more dolls I'm not selling.Still, I sold all the dolls I put on Etsy, so maybe that's the way I need to go with this thing.I am noticing that my hands are getting sore from doing alot of the stuff. I may have left it too long to start this stuff now. I may be getting too old and arthritic!