just in time for elves and fairies day!
Dolls houses, fairies – it’s all about the teeny tiny world…
Following on from my dolls house post there was a delicious twitter-chat about dolls houses,
dolls house food,
and Tom Thumb, Hunca Munca and the plaster boiled ham, from the jewel of dolls house stories The Tale of Two Bad Mice by (we all agreed, the brilliant but slightly spooky) Beatrix Potter.
I remembered my love of secrets-in-a-matchbox that I’d posted about here.
And tomorrow Playing by the book is beginning it’s series ‘I’m looking for a book about…’ – first off gathering up stories about elves and fairies. Do call by at @Pollylwh‘s thelittlewoodenhorse for a true connoisseur’s fairy finds (and handmade fairy endpapers I’d do anything to own…), and Child-Led Chaos who actually has fairies – I can SEE them!
So –
clap your hands if you believe!
When my mother was little her Great Uncle Leonard (or ‘GUL’ – very reminiscent of Noel Streatfield) used to make sets of matchbox drawers, each one labelled with slightly implausible things like ‘fairies’ or ‘sealing wax’. I think my mum still has one of the original ones somewhere. GUL was apparently a well-known mineralogist (if that’s not an oxymoron!), and his fascination for collecting and labelling things extended to making these little boxes for children. My mum has tried to keep up the family tradition, but somehow her little boxes are slightly toe-curling cringe-making affairs in the way that GUL’s weren’t. He never tried to make them pretty, but there was always something slightly delicious about opening a little drawer labelled ‘goblins’, or some such, and finding paper clips or buttons inside. GUL was long dead by the time I came along, and I never met any of his (rather illustrious) children. But I think I would have liked him very much.
What a remarkable character. I can quite see the appeal of those matchbox drawers – stemming as it did from a playful extension of being a collector and classifier… have you tried this too? I must say I am very tempted.
(I feel for your mum’s efforts, though!)
I remember a childhood phase of trying to fit a present for each year of the birthday celebrant’s life into a matchbox. I’m pretty sure we cheated with the giant Bryant and May size though.
That’s such a top idea! Have you ever done that for B & E?? Could I borrow it for a v special upcoming birthday? I’m itching to get started immediately.