$1 Baggie Dollhouse Find

At a recent antique show, rooting around in a dealer's box of bargain-priced "junque," I found this baggie full of broken dollhouse furniture, priced at just one dollar. (It doesn't look like much here, but just wait...)

The pieces were clearly very old, German-made circa the 1890s-1910. On a closer, surreptitious inspection, I discovered all the bits were there, and they weren't really broken, just unglued. Over the past century, the animal-based glue dried out and gave way.

It was the work of a couple of minutes for the pieces to be reassembled, and ta-da: here they are!

The 4 inch tall chair is made of red stained, gold gilt trimmed wood and pressed cardboard, while the faux wood grained sideboard  is in a much smaller scale at 3 1/2 inches, and fits perfectly into my hard-to-furnish 10 inch tall dollhouse.

Not a bad find for a buck!

A New Peng Peng Bear!

Look who just arrived in the mail: "Candy," one of the latest creations of teddy bear artist extraordinaire, Peng Peng. Just 4 1/4 inches tall, the fully jointed little bear features hand-dyed mohair in a luscious shade of green, milk glass googly eyes, and handmade booties with a tie-dyed dress. Candy is just delicious!

Antique Dollhouse Doll and Friend

A recent find was this little German all-bisque dollhouse doll, circa the 1890s-early 1900s. Just 4 1/4 inches tall, she has an unruly blond mohair wig and one tiny eye slightly offset, which gives her a quirky charm. I think she looks like a Victorian child who's gotten away from her nanny, escaped the nursery, and been running wild through the house, throwing temper tantrums all the way.

Here she is with her new best friend, a 1920s Schuco miniature bear. Hopefully he can convince her to tidy up her hair and sit down quietly for a nice cup of tea:

Another Teddy Bear Trade

A few months ago, I wrote about a wonderful trade I did with Canadian teddy bear artist, Michelle Mutschler. We just completed trade number two: my 1918 American teddy bear and a vintage Fisher Price Goldilocks and the Three Bears playset for four of Michelle's tiny handmade bears (along with an old German dollhouse doll and a bunch of vintage holiday decorations and cards.)

Here's the group of Michelle's quirky miniature bears, ranging in size from just 3 1/2 inches tall to 6 1/2 inches, made of aged velvets and assorted trims:

 
The clown bear has to be seen in profile to have his wonderful oddness fully appreciated:

The looooooong skinny panda is my favorite out of the bunch:

Poor "Rose" suffers from an enlarged cranium which she unsuccessfully tries to disguise with a festive bow:

As does her sister, little "Pinky":

Thanks Michelle, for another fun trade!

Oopsy...

Anyone who's been following the blog may have noticed the sudden reappearance in your Reading List of several old posts...what happened is, somehow a bunch of old photos got deleted from my Picasa web albums over the weekend, and I had to republish the posts to restore the pics. Sorry about that...