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This site is latst updated on: maandag 06 oktober 2003

My Great, Small World

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My love for Dolls Houses and Miniatures started around 1984 with a little book about the Dolls House from Mrs. Sara Ploos van Aemstel, that you could see in the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, it is really a beautiful Dolls House, and when you are visiting Holland you must go and visit this Museum to see that beautiful house. Coming back from a visit after reading the book, my father and me where thing about building a Dolls House. At the same time I inherited a beautiful cupboard, in Holland named a "Meidenkast" because it was normally standing in the room of the girl that was doing the housework, from my grant parents. That had the right size between the shelves,

and so we started to think how to make a Dolls House. The first chair we get in the shop in Amsterdam with the name the Bijenkorf. Now we had the size and from here we can make the table, the cupboard and al the other things you need. At that time there was not so much to bye in the stores, and there were not so many books about it. So just looking in the books from some of the Museums in Holland. My father, when he was young he did the Art Academy

and is a really good painter, made the greatest part of the furniture; I was making the dresses for the dolls, the curtains and the wooden floors. Slowly the cupboard started to look like a Dolls House. The first cupboard that my father made, was from a peace of wood, putting the doors on the front, and pain- ting it in different colors. But he was not satisfied with it, so the next cupboard we used the hinges from a box with cigars, there were small en nice to see, and it worked. He started a cupboard for porcelain and the he made a beautiful top of carved wood. It really is the top item in the dolls house, later he made an other one for my new Dolls House project and his own Dolls House. (See the pictures on the photo page) Later there was the first miniature fair in Arnhem, great, we did not know what we were seeing there, beautiful things, the fair started small, but in a few years it was getting bigger and bigger. Things are expensive, but you made ideas, and you could buy the little things like lamps, kitchenware to make the house look much nicer. My father looked into books with old furniture and made the cheers, tables, and cupboard after the pictures, he reduced the size to 1:12. The was- hing machine is really working, from old parts he made it work, you turn around the wheel, and inside the machine some wheels will turn so the wash will be really cleaned.

In a workshop for a large doll, I met Trees Beertema from Unicorna, she is now a wellknown figure in the miniature world, and she could help me with addresses to by dolls, and she is selling beautiful lace, cloth and that kind of things to make curtains and clothes. True this lady I became more interested in miniature things to make myself, she was helping with addresses and books. In that time, more books came out, more shops, a magazine called P&M. Poppenhuizen en Miniaturen (Dolls Houses and Miniatures). That is giving

you patterns and ideas to work on your Dolls House. It started to get a big hobby. After 1 year the Dolls House was finished. But the hobby did not stop after this house, My parents had both a bookcase especially for building a Dolls House. And so we started all over again. And from building my Dolls House we have learned a lot of things, so this house was going better and better. My father made the furniture; from a little ping-pong ball he made a beautiful globe.

First he painted the ball white, after that he took a very small paintbrush with only 2 hears and painted the world on it, and then he made it into a wooden stand. For my dolls house he made a copy of it, because now he knows how to do it, and in my library there was no globe, and now a beautiful one.He made also a cupboard with little draws inside, first he started with 1 ore 2, after a wile there were more, and also a desk with a belly, and draws. For his house I dressed the dolls, made the curtains, with my mother I went to fairs in Amsterdam and Arnhem to buy the things we needed for that, and to buy glass work, lamps and al sorts of little things to finish the rooms. I was starting to make flowers, after patterns that were standing in P&M, nice work, but very tiny. In the mean time my girlfriend both a cupboard, and also for this one my father and I were making the things. So now we had made 3 big dolls houses. And we are still getting better and better. Then came the new ideas, so look further on this website, for more story’s and pictures.