4. Skull and the Dolls House Festival

Weeks since getting bit by the miniature bug, I had the beginners luck of scoring a few gorgeous items at the Dolls House Festival by the Tower Of London on February 1st.

(carry on reading behind the break....)

The enormous show, frankly, blew my little mind. The artisans crafting intricate tapestries, delicate outfits, ornate picture frames made me wonder where exactly the ceiling for the art of miniatures lay, how far the potential of this obscure, precious, futile and gorgeous hobby could be pushed. My guess is that the possibilities are truly limitless!

Some of the stalls in the fair, including a chemists laboratory and footlockers made from authentic battleship wood

I came home with my soul singing with inspiration, and a little bag full of beautiful tiny things. Yes, I set out embracing this hobby to make my own things by training my eye and fingers to the passable level of skill, but some objects were just too gorgeous and mind-boggling to resist... 

Such as the SKULL.

Hand-carved out of a deer's horn found in a forest (oh, the romance!), it came from Shepherd Miniatures for a measly £12. Here it is in situ, with a tipple and some lovely leather-bound embossed books of mystical, magical and religious texts:

It was clear to me all along that any self-respecting dolls house needed a good screaming skull, a paranormal object of many legends. In the Small Sories exhibition, one is featured in the Bettiscombe Manor:

Here's its story:

Myself, I do keep moving my own skull around the house... Here it is in the sitting room on the secretaire desk, along with a cigarette and some morbid tabloid newspapers for a morning read. There's also a revolver in the secretaire, if the news get to be too depressing.