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On our way to a coin show in Ft Walton Beach (DH is a collector) we stopped at one of our favorite thrift stores in Gulf Breeze and I found five Greenleaf furniture kits:  the kitchen, the bathroom, the library, the living room and the dining room.

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.... And did you BUY them? 

  I'd seen a craigslist ad for a couple of weeks (not far away) and the ad just showed a photo of a boxed dollhouse window.  And the ad said there were things in the boxes ($75) to build a Victorian house.  I passed it by for a couple of weeks and then thought I'd just find out if there was any basswood because I use a lot of it.  She said this was a collection of her mother's.  Her mother had planned to build a house (from scratch I assume) one day but had passed away.  The daughter had no interest in dollhouse stuff  When I met her she opened up the back of her car and there were four boxes of stuff.  You KNOW the excitement I felt.  It was like CHRISTMAS.  One box was nothing but new windows and doors in their original packaging (from the 1980's I'm thinking), lots of them, not that I WANTED them.  Another box was full of old magazines and on the very top was the instruction manual for the VF800 Victorian Farmhouse - which was her mother's inspiration.  Coincidentally I own a huge VF 800 and its sitting on the table in my dining room right now to do some work on. 

  It was a 'sign' so I ponied up the $75 and I couldn't WAIT to get back home and go through all the boxes.  I had no idea what doors/windows go for since my dollhouse all came with them.  I listed them as a 'lot' on eBay for an opening bid of $50 plus shipping, not really thinking anyone would take me up on the bidding.  Well they just sold this afternoon for $213 plus shipping.  YEE HAW.  I get my original investment back PLUS. 

  But the fun part was seeing all the things her mother had collected over the years.  I don't really intend to sell any of it other than those windows/doors.  She'd built a lot of furniture from Chrysnbon kits - which I'd never seen before - the organ, a beautiful fireplace with floor-to-ceiling back plate and fire box too, beautiful ornate desk, tables, chairs.  She did a lovely job too.  And there is a darling heavy stove from Germany along with a set of heavy-weight copper pots and pans. 

  I wish I could've known and learned from that lady. 

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Today I bought these figures. They are marked "Van Brode Clinton, Mass". I looked them up and saw that they were included in the company's cereal in the 1950's.

They are about 2" tall, and there are a lot more of them available. I got these six for $1 each. At some point, it might be quite fun to paint them, and make a miniature theater roombox, with backdrops of the countries they represent. I could make little platforms on either side of the stage with the figures waiting in the wings for their turn to perform.

They aren't very expensive or rare, so I don't think I would mind painting them, and it would be a fun project. Now I want to try to collect them all!

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On 9/26/2016, 3:22:33, havanaholly said:

Nice find!  I think figures like those were also available in boxes of Cracker Jacks..

The woman in the antique shop thought they were from Cracker Jacks too, but these weren't. Apparently there were different sets of people in different products. I don't remember the name of the person who did the Cracker Jacks ones, but I saw a post about his stuff on line while I was researching these. The man who did the Cracker Jacks ones did a bunch of other prizes for them.

At first I was bummed because they weren't Cracker Jacks, but now I don't care, because they are really neat anyway!

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  • 4 months later...

I recently purchased these paintings and was wondering if anyone knew about them.  They are signed "Boyd".  I did a search and found Jean Boyd in the UK.  I sent her an email, but am not sure if they are her's.  I loved them since they are Louisiana plantation homes and her detail is great!

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20 hours ago, havanaholly said:

Are those mini?  They are incredible!  I love the colors, and I think I've seen the top one along the road!

The top on is Parlange Plantation and it is north of Baton Rouge.  The painting measures 2" x 3 1/4".  The bottom one is San Francisco Plantation and it is on the River Road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.  It measures 2 1/4" x 3 1/4".

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  • 2 months later...

Well, today for absolutely no reason I can think of (and if you believe THAT), I was perusing Craig's List and came across an ad about miniatures for sale. I usually never ever look at miniatures for sale. That wicker a while back was a first. My downfall is dollhouses every single time. But I guess there's always a second time and since the price was incredibly reasonable (which means even I could afford it for once) and the seller only lived about 11 miles away, guess who jumped right on it? Besides, I had a little extra money this month - I hadn't brought in my glasses to have the left lens redone yet and I figured I could maybe put it off a bit. Because, priorities, you know.

So I brought home two large bags of stuff and 13 copies of Nutshell News (I only have two of them if you can believe that) and a couple older books, good for pictures. But I was so stoked at some of the other stuff, mainly things I can use in both the Arthur and the shadowbox.

The little stuff included 2 mini toasters, one for each kitchen, a medicine cabinet, the perfect small table and two chairs for the Arthur, a lot of sewing items, enough perfume bottles to start my own store, 12 - yes that's 12 - cakes, enough to start my own bakery, 6 empty jars with cork lids, a couple fireplace tong and brush sets, way too many miniature ornaments for the miniature Christmas tree that lights up with a battery, 5 Michael's hutches, etc, etc. Then there was the furniture.

A Victorian sofa and chair set (and I don't have a clue what I'm going to do with those), a complete bedroom set, TWO kitchen sets (neither with any upper cabinets but who cares?), one of which has a double oven, the other has a round table and 4 chairs, and the piece de resistance or however you spell it, a Reutter Porzellan fancy ornate fireplace. In pink yet! Something I've always dreamed of having but knew I couldn't afford. And I don't have a clue what I'm going to do with that, either. It looks great in the Arthur but it's really too much for that house and it's too fancy for Bramble. So of course, you guys know what this means, right? Someday, some way, another dollhouse to decorate Victorian style!

Hey, what do you think if we started Miniatures Anonymous, kind of like Alcoholics Anonymous? We could have sponsors, so if I, for instance, decided I desperately wanted to buy something I had no business buying, I could call someone and they'd talk me out of it. We'd have to get non-miniature people, though, because another miniaturist would just tell the caller to go for it. We're all such enablers. LOL

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I forgot to add: Now that I have the Glencroft, the Arthur, the shadowbox, my Rose Shop, Bramble on top of a basement on top of a 4ft cabinet, two kits still hiding under the sofa, the broken down Hofco behind the dresser, two boxes of miniatures and a tote of miniature wallpaper along with two bags of miniatures now, I found out I have a room inspection this Thursday. As some of you may know, my room is about 10' x 12'  with the bed, sofa, bookcases, heater, end table and dresser in it and all those dollhouses and kits in it. The room inspection is to check to make sure we haven't made it into a fire hazard.

I'm thinking, fire sale anyone?

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3 hours ago, rodentraiser said:

Hey, what do you think if we started Miniatures Anonymous, kind of like Alcoholics Anonymous? We could have sponsors, so if I, for instance, decided I desperately wanted to buy something I had no business buying, I could call someone and they'd talk me out of it. We'd have to get non-miniature people, though, because another miniaturist would just tell the caller to go for it. We're all such enablers. LOL

Surely you jest. Who among us would ever give any weight to what a non-miniaturist says?

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4 hours ago, havanaholly said:

Maybe you could hide the houses at Lisa's until after the inspection?

Lisa doesn't have the room!

But I already have the Glencroft and its box out in the car. Last night I managed to fit the two bags worth of stuff into one bag (I crammed a little and put a lot of pieces into the various houses) and that bag will also go to live in the car until after the inspection, along with a box I can't fit into my closet, joining my telescope, folding table, and astronomy books. Of course, now my car is a fire hazard, but they don't inspect that. I just hope the cops don't pull me over for something and want to search my car. That could be a long, long, long process. I'm also pretty sure I wouldn't want to try explaining, either.

2 hours ago, KathieB said:

Surely you jest. Who among us would ever give any weight to what a non-miniaturist says?

Kathie B! That is NOT the attitude I'm looking for! LOLOLOL  But you're right, gotta admit that. And I'd be the last person to listen to someone telling me not to buy something. So you can enable me but whatever you do, don't tell my mother!

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6 hours ago, rodentraiser said:

So I brought home two large bags of stuff and 13 copies of Nutshell News

I can't speak to whether twelve-step would work for miniaturists (I know I would be a terrible sponsor :)), but congratulations on a great haul!  What a treasure trove you got!  Happy to hear you got some things you have wanted for a while, but didn't think you'd be able to afford.  Stories like this make me so happy.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I bought a few months ago some of the first Nutshell News magazines that refer to the smaller scales miniatures (they included one yearly edition every May for a while). On the first edition I believe (I can confirm if anyone is interested) I saw for the first time the Chrysnbon Country blue kitchen, and I loved it right away. I started hunting (I love to hunt minis) for this pieces, but they show only one here, one there and not often. I had forgotten about them for a long time now, and then a couple of months ago I found an ad on Craigslist about a sale for the rest of a store that was closing about 1 and 1/2 hours from my home. I was hesitating because of the trip and the not knowing if it would be worth it, I told myself, what if what is left is the things that nobody already grabbed?. Anyways I pretty much gave up, but since I contacted the seller asking, turned out that it was one of this people that refused technology so she didn't have pictures on her AD (her daughter posted the sale for her and she also was in denial for the modern conveniences), but she didn't give up trying to convince to go up there to check out her items, she said that I was not going to be disappointed, and boy I was not!. She had my beloved Country blue kitchen set almost complete, already put together and at 50% off of the original price of the kit! I almost fainted! I bought a few more things and came back home. What she didn't have was the table and 2 chairs that we can see on the picture that was selected to advertise the set back then. My luck didn't finish there, I was able to find on my local hardware the same shade of blue (at least almost exactly) that the original set has, so since I had an oak set of the table and chairs, I painted it blue. To finish I bought the black stove that Chrysnbon has and decided to also painted it blue. So I present you my incredible Chrysnbon Country Blue Kitchen set! Yeahh!

 

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