nid d'abeille

I just stumbled upon the most amazing website that's all one lady's collection of doll houses that she's made and filled - Mary's Dollhouses.  And I mean it when I say the pictures are breathtaking!!!  (Of course, having really good photography goes a long way to help, as pictured here.  The same room photographed with a flash would still look awesome, but not as amazingly realistic.)  I love this description (written by her husband):


Wow, just jaw-dropping wonderfulness.

Also, I'm so excited because, with the British pound being so low in relation to the dollar (and it's about time!!!) I just ordered a bunch of tiny chemical glassware from British artisan Ray Storey.  Just look at his things!  They're brilliant!!!!!!  (Click picture for bigger image.)

 And I talked to him on the phone just to make sure my order had gone through - I was confused because it wasn't showing up on my credit card yet - and he was just about to make my cobalt blue poison bottle.  He was so nice, and he lives near Newcastle so we chatted about that, and his son went to the same uni as me.  I also asked if he ever makes carboys (big stock chemical bottles - like what Stephen kept his main laudanum supply in, down in the hold) and he said yes, he does, so he's going to make me one.  I'M SO EXCITED!  I've wanted one forever.  And I've wanted to order things from him forever.  And he's going to make a carboy from scratch for me!  And also, he has brown bottles which nobody else has - at least, not that's suitable for me - and I like the look of brown for chemical/medical bottles.  So he's going to give me a mix of clear and brown ones.  YAY!

Randomly, if you haven't noticed, I LOVE miniature bottles.  I'm a little jealous of people who do witch and wizard miniatures and get to use bottles - jealous in a possessive "that's not fair, all bottles belong to ME" sense.  And watching "Merlin" and especially "Perfume" really made me want to make miniature rooms with bottles.  And of course I'm infatuated with Stephen's dispensary, which was the whole reason I started my M&C miniatures at all.  At first it was ONLY going to be a dispensary.  But Ray Storey has all these chemical utensils and stuff that wouldn't really fit in Stephen's world - he's a physician, not an experimenting scientist.  But that arc lamp really makes me want to make a miniature Enlightenment era lab, like for Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier or Sir Humphry Davy.  <3

For your amusement, here are some other random miniatures that I'm currently in love with.  They're not going anywhere though (they're flightless), so I'll probably buy them later when the time is right.

Fancy silver toast rack from Kerbey Lane Miniatures.  "I smell coffee, toast!"


Coping saw from Kerbey Lane Miniatures (again with the saws!  Why do I LOVE these bone saws?  Plus I'm so enamored with my own little bone saw.  And when my local dollhouse store closed, I bought nearly all of their saws so I could distress them and reshape them and maybe sell them in surgical sets, maybe, eventually... plus lots and lots of little knives too.)


Sterling silver tweezers by Taller Targioni. 

I revere Taller Targioni, but nearly everything they make is out of my price range.  These are one thing that I could afford, and it would be lovely just to have one of their items in my collection.  (Other items I love - the pistol in a box, the various mineral and butterfly cabinets (I keep imagining that I want to make a Joseph Blaine roombox, or wealthy-Stephen's-house-of-dreams naturalist abode...) and this wash stand is almost exactly like something movie!Stephen has in his dispensary with the microscope sitting on it (oddly enough).  (Can you tell that I have obsessively pored over screencaps to identify every article in that room?)  And perhaps best of all - or competing with the butterfly cabinets - I adore this simple, beautiful, perfect chair.  I adore its simplicity and cleanness. 


Cristina Noriega is the miniaturist I most admire, I think, and then probably Taller Targioni second.  But then, Cristina's things are so very  expensive and superb that it's almost like she's a one-of-a-kind artist and not a seller, to me.  She's amazing!  So if Taller Targioni is my favorite seller, then Nantasy Fantasy is close second.  They made my fabulous scales, and I'm very proud to own them.  I also love their very fine sextant!  But at $167, heh, that's just wishfulness.  There are much less expensive sextants around, and I'll be perfectly happy with one of them, truly.  And now this wish list is drifting away from the probable and possible into the wishful.

But while we're there...

Anyone got a spare $610 for Killick?
I love SP Miniatures.  (Remember them, alto2? :D)  Maybe I can get it engraved to say that the Lively preserves the liveliest remembrance.

ETA:  I almost forgot, this cello by Heidi Ott.  It's the most accurate 1:12 cello I've found (so many claim to be 1:12 but are really much too big), so I plan on getting it as soon as the great cabin is ready for it.


ETA again:  Forgot something else!  Also from SP Miniatures!  New!  Beautiful glass carboys (demijohns) which can be filled with laudanum.

There's even another miniaturist who makes wicker coverings for them!  But they're really expensive.  I'll be happy with a plain carboy.  Maybe in amber.  Or green.  Hmm.

Eek eek!  Look what I just got!

The thumbtack is just for scale.  And the middle item is actually a brandy decanter, not labware.  Eeek!  So so so cute!  So perfect!  The bowl and the mortar and pestle are for Stephen of course, and the decanter is for Jack.

They came from SP Miniatures, my favorite site (which I've never gotten anything from until now.)

I'm SO excited! :D  Happy Valentine's day to me!


Bigger pictures below...

( Bowl, decanter, mortar and pestle! )

Doing research for my mini-dispensary, I keep running into this site about Lewis and Clark.  But it was only today that I discovered how extensive it is about the medicine aspect!  And it's my period too, 1803+, so I'm pleased.  I'll have to read it in depth, because it's so lovely and fascinating.

Lewis's Medicines

x-posted at hms_surprise .

Miniatures update:




linked at doll_houses .

Tonight I made bottles out of beads.  Like a madwoman.  Like a banshee.  Because you know how those banshees love to make bottles.

And a magnifying glass.  They're not finished.  I need to add the lens, and I need to distress them all, with spilled medicine and little labels and grime and age.

I'm a tired madwoman.




linked at doll_houses .