About Ebba
A lot of people like to know, how I developed my passion for this hobby,
Miniature doll’s house furniture and accessories.
I was born in 1937 and always had dreamed of having a doll’s house. Not one for children but one with real “life” or furniture in it.
But from where do you get such one? In the late 1980’ it was nearly not possible in Denmark to get any accessories.
Finally in 1990 - Gitte, a friend from “Malerihuset” (Artist supply company) in the city of Holstebro, organized a set of fine furniture for me (the one in red plush) - that was the moment when 10 books in my bookcase had to make room on the shelf for this nice little furniture.
In the surroundings of Holstebro that was all I could get. But one day, visiting one of my husbands (Arne) colleagues, Allan and his wife Anne Grethe in Copenhagen, I asked if there was a chance to find a shop in Copenhagen selling accessories other material for doll’s houses. Anne Grethe wasn’t sure about this but she knew a shop in Helsingborg in Sweden and she would suggest a “girls trip” to visit the shop - and by the way, she said, she once had bought a doll’s house in England and she had never had the change to assemble it. She would be delighted to give it to me.
After a nice sailing tour between Denmark and Sweden, we arrived in Helsingborg harbour and in a little shop nearby I, for the first time in my life, saw such an unbelievable selection of accessories and equipment for doll’s houses - I couldn’t believe my eyes.
What to buy?
Can you imagine, a crystal chandelier for “only” 385,- D.kr., and it could even give real light,(if you had the right power supply).
For me this was an easy choice.
So proudly back home with the trophy I started assembling Anne Grethes doll’s house. Even though it was an English instruction manual and a lot of small pieces to assemble I succeeded. I decided to give the nice little doll’s house back to her, so that she could start on her own filling it with life.
In 1995 – at the doll- and miniature exhibition in Lyngby, (city close to Copenhagen) – I was really impressed about the quality and variety of the doll’s house accessories, these competent people were able to produce.
Of course I couldn’t resist and had to purchase a lot of these small cute “things”. Back home the bookcase lost more books to make room for my “prey”.
After this exhibition the “buzz” within the small scene of making accessories for doll’s houses went louder.
Another exhibition in Farum
Per and Helle Harms started producing the small Magazine for making of doll’s houses and furniture. (- we all have to thank them for that)
All the adverts, ideas how to make all kind of accessories your self was great.
We loved every issue.
One of the pioneers was the “Dukkestuen” in Hilleröd/ Själland. The shop was fare out. After a long search I finally found it (the former one), bought, as far as I am concerned a lot of things and also incredible things like a stove and sewing machine. Robert, the owner of the shop wondered how many doll’s houses I had. “Oh, it is just a shelf in a bookcase, not more.” Roberts answer: “Oh yes, you don’t know what you are going into.” – later I had to admit that he was right.
I have been at his new and bigger shop several times during the last years and enjoyed every minute of it.
However all these tiny little things became more and more and I found that a real doll’s house was definitely too expensive to buy. Maybe I could use the old bookcase to put the things in, I thought.
Maybe one could get help from the son in law, putting the shelves at the right distance, cutting windows and building up a roof. First steps to my new own doll’s house. We tried it and it worked out well.
Luckily it took a lot of time and restful hours to finish it up but looking at the result there was definitely something missing: FLOWERS.
I had got the taste of producing things myself, so why not flowers. The first ones I tried were real dried flowers, no good idea, than some artificial flowers, not satisfying, but than came Hanne from PH Design. She had descriptions explaining how to make paper flowers and punch out forms.
It was not that easy to give them the right look, but with some good advises from Hanne and a lot of exercise it became real fun.
Why shouldn’t it be possible to buy another punch and make a different kind of flower? Meanwhile I own many punches and plenty different kind of paper. For many years I have experimented a lot, and made a lot of crap. But now I think I found the right technique and it seems to work very well. I have now a lot of contacts both in Denmark and other countries, and now I sell my flowers on miniature fairs here in Denmark.
I take a real flower, take it apart, piece by piece - draw it. Then I take the measurements of it and divide into 12, to get the right size. Next step is to taint paper in the needed shades and cut or punch out the leaves and petals; they should resemble the real parts as much as possible in colour and shape. Finally the leaves and petals are glued to a peduncle and planted in some small pots, bowls and jugs mostly made by Lisbeth from the company “Minipot”.
I hope you can guess what kind of flower it is.
I had and still have much fun making flowers and also other things for my doll’s house and yes; I am working on house number two. This one is more modern, with now a day’s furniture, computer, flat screen etc.
A good thing having this hobby is, the “things” don’t have to be finished at a certain time; it is allowed to take years. Enough time to make up your mind and change opinion again without anybody noticing. I can rearrange the furniture as often as I feel like, - even without irritating my husband.
