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The Mini House Project
As children, growing up in the 1970's, my sister and I shared a much loved dolls house.Mr and Mrs Bender lived there with their children Tommy and Sally. Probably socially inappropriate today, their...
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The arched front door
Although the plan was to make the inside of the Mini House echo the interior of No 1. Heatherside Corner, the outside was never going to look the same. For a start, we don't have an ornate wooden...
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The Shrubbery
I'm not green fingered by nature and am really quite a danger to all plant life when attempting any form of gardening. So when I had the idea a while back, of "enhancing" the approach to our real house...
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"Printer's Lead" roof flashing
One of the handy things about working at the family printing firm, especially one that has been in business for over 100 years, is that we have an old Victorian factory full of random bits and pieces...
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Hodge
Hodge the cat belonged to Dr Samuel Johnson, the English writer and critic, who is most famous for his "Dictionary of the English Language".Hodge was so loved by Johnson that he was mentioned in James...
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Jurassic Parquet....
I'm a bit obsessed with fossil hunting. Sadly, I know next to nothing about the actual things I find, apart from the fact that, one, they all crawled, swam, or generally bobbed about on our planet,...
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The Wisteria Challenge
Yesterday I visited the City of London Dolls House Festival. I’ve never been to a dolls house fair before and had no idea what to expect. Never in my life, have I seen quite so many people, peering...
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The mini House of Frankenstein
Just when it was all going so swimmingly, I have had my first disaster. Having received some very positive and lovely comments (for which I thank you) regarding the start of my quest to turn the junk...
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The chocolate-box cottage
When the Mini House first arrived at Chez Pearly Jones, it was covered in brick effect paper, which for some inexplicable reason had been printed in a rather unhealthy and very un-brick like shade of...
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If at first you don't succeed....
I was told this week by a close relative, in a jokey manner, that I "need to get a life". It was just after he'd signed for a parcel in my name and, being keen to know what was inside (a fact, in...
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The Balcony (now) Seen
Having relegated the first attempt at a mini house for the Mini House, to a dark corner of my workbox, where out of sight is out of mind, and only dust bunnies lurk, I embarked upon the second version,...
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More "blemish" than "Flemish"....
Working on the Mini House Project has made me look much harder at my surroundings than I previously have done.Although I believe I know every corner of our dusty little Victorian pile, staring at one...
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Mrs Bender's coming home!
Anyone has who read my original post explaining how the Mini House Project started, will be aware of the Bender Family; the four, small rubber folk, who lived in the dolls house belonging to my sister...
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Just call me Norman...
I like to rock.Not in the musical sense of the word. But in a big wooden chair. In the "old lady with a rug over her knees, wearing a badly fitting, frizzy ginger wig, and a lipstick moustache" type of...
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Shaken, not staired
It all started one night when Mr PJ was mixing up one of his speciality scalp raising, eyebrow singeing Bloody Mary's. I was watching with interest, through a welders mask (which I keep for just such...
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Making lamp shades? No sweat!
"Can I help you with anything?" The young girl in the chemist asked, after watching me stare at their range of shampoo for fifteen minutes. "Are you looking for something in particular?"I straightened...
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Stop press: Bender Family Update!!
I have had a telegram from my good friend Diane, to tell me that Mr Bender has finally broken cover!!Mr Bender looking decidedly worried about his futureObviously spurred on by seeing the kids leave...
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Mr Bender is on his way!
Good news!Especially for Mrs Bender, who has been on the edge of her tiny seat ever since her errant rubber hubby was first spotted for sale on the world wide interweb.After 37 years of being apart,...
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Let there be light!
Or: How to wire a front opening dolls house using its hinges...I now know what inventor of the light bulb Joseph Swan and his friend William Armstrong felt the day they finished wiring Swan's house in...
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The Benders are back!
If you look up "Benders" on the internet you will find a disposable cup company who are unnaturally excited about the latest technology in insulated paper cups, a not very good jazz band from Sydney...
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