Stuff and Nonsense

The quick 'sorting out' of my workspace is near it's end ! Today I received ten archive boxes that I managed to assemble with no paper cuts, amazing! 1200 trips to the attics with fabrics later and I can almost see the light.

I wanted to throw some photos at you of my home, a small part of it at least. I have a collection of miniature chests of drawers, no idea how that started but I'm done with that collection. The drawers are full of miniatures of all sorts and as you can see some have spilled over onto the top! 

The kids in the photo are my little sister and brother, now both gone ahead and my little Peach who is also with them. 

 More minis ! and photos of my adopted daughter doing what she does best, trying on fashion ! and then my parents all dressed up. My dad has also gone ahead and that leaves mum and me for now.

 The picture of my daughter was taken in Sidney Australia as she travels for her job all year round. On the phone I used to ask her where she was and she would have sometimes to ask! Most hotel rooms look alike. 

 My lovely new clock alongside a chinese 'mudman', used to decorate miniature bonsai gardens and a 19th century Chinese bronze, my birthday gift to me last year. The tiny ivory elephant was the top of a page marker, I sawed it off on my scroll saw and will take the smell of burnt ivory to my resting place ! awful! 

 I love this engraving, it's by an artist called Danielle Dillmann. I found two on eBay one night and have never been able to either find more or learn anything about her! The late 18th century cups are lovely but too fragile to use. The orchid is fake as I forget to water things! 

 After finding and posting an article on metal flowers I found this on eBay, again one night! It's one of a pair and quite more lovely than the picture on eBay. I negociated the postage from the US but was hostage to import fees! so annoying.

 In my storage unit that I am supposed to recover next month there are almost 600 handbags of all sorts !! Yes 600 ! AND that is not counting all the bags in this house. Years ago no-one wanted 'vintage', it was thought to be old and dirty so dealers would give them to me either for free or for pennies. I even found an old evening bag full of many thousands of old french franc notes ! worthess I add. The one here on the left is totally beaded and is probably Japanese. The one on the right I bought to take appart but its way too nice for that so its added to the collection. My friend Britt is a photographer and we are going to make a book on handbags and purses and then I will get rid of them one way or another. 

 I picked up this odd wooden hand at an antique fair in Paris, it isn't a glove stretcher. The tiny knitted boots have followed me around for years. Another fake orchid! The drawing of a Young girl I found in a 'vide grenier' in Paris for a few euros.

 Big miniatures ! The coffee pots came from a tiny shop in Lisbon years ago and sat in my mum's house until she went minimal! The Staffordshire plates were a find as they are quite rare. I think that the brass fenders are saleman samples.

 I love éléphants. The large wooden one is beautifully carved, there are some terrible ones out there. The middle one is porcelain, a gift to me from me and the one on the right is an embroidered Indian Toy quite faded. The water colour behind I paid 2 euros for and it turns out its by someone famous.

 One of my many bronze greyhounds, lovely dogs but not as lovely as my Jack Russells. The mantle seems to be a repository of stuff, old xmas cards and ornaments, found toys and many photos of dogs!

 I have realised that I have more framed photos of dogs in the house than people ! 

Says a lot about me.