The Barn is now open to the public. We have created a country feel to the Barn with surrounding gardens and views. There are tables and chairs for people to enjoy the creativity within the Barn as well as enjoy a cup of tea or coffee outside. We are open most weekends and public holidays, give us call on 0412622640/0265693126. Small groups are most welcome by appointment.
Add comment 1 October 2011
We are finally moving! I thought it would be wonderful but its become so daunting! Have gone back to do three shows for the end of the year 2009.
Mainly to finish things for the barn and to see what people are looking for? What are they looking and buying? Very hard indeed. But if there were not
people like us collecting making things, then people wouldn’t collect or be interested in anything at all? People would not know the value of these things. I did do some modern dolls and clothing on the cheaper side so that I could pay for the stall and sell some dolls. Bad, bad, thing! First rule, you do not do what other people do, and you do not sell things on the cheaper scale. It is a form of art. You are selling yourself! It was good though I did learn quite a few pointers. This last show which will be in Mittagong this weekend on Sunday at the club near MacDonalds, I am going to take a couple of different things. Seeing the various stall holders around me, I do like the old world style dolls. Dolls of yesteryear! I also like some of the modern dolls but with a theme or something different! Only one big problem I can’t sew on my modern Creative machines that I bought and enjoy,
so I will use the very old one and do a lot by hand. I have even found my Logo Doll!
Shes a German doll the last doll rolled out the year that I was born 1949! Thats why I so fell in love with her. I looked around everywhere to buy an original, but couldn’t find a pretty one. Even the Seeleys mould A7M the large size is now gone! I made three of them she is the first, and I made all her clothing so to what my grandmother would have done! Very German style of that era in the 1920′s to 30′s and last the late forties, where the
European Doll market collapsed, the U.S. taking over to this day! Even her wig is from Seeleys right from the early days and she looks exactly like the one Seeleys had in their catalogue. That’s where I saw her and then made my mind up to do her when I saw a lady had made up near Coff’s Harbour in her studio? I so fell in love with her, if only I could have shown my mother! But she took her life so early in the peace, and I never finished her quick enough to have shown her, what a great pity!
Add comment 10 November 2009
Nataschas Barn and Warehouse has finally been constructed. The barn is on the Mid-North coast at Eungai Creek which is some 36Kms north of Kempsey 1Km east of the Pacific Highway. As you can see from the attached image the barn is in ” quaker style” and will allow Natascha to display and store her products at ground and first floor levels. Very soon we will be inviting all interested persons to contact us when they are on the Mid-North Coast to join us for a look around and a cup of tea or coffee. We will be moving to the property early 2010 so we will keep you posted.
Add comment 25 October 2009
I have been busy working on current projects for the New Barn at Eungai Creek (Mid North Coast), here is a snap of the Barn, please don’t take too much notice as it has just been built. I am still in my Sydney place making things, cleaning up and doing up the place..
I am so looking forward to showing my creations and making people feel welcome. I will have coffee, tea and biscuits on hand , with seats around so that you can have a good look. I have been collecting and growing plants to make a beautiful garden around the barn. I have pots started with plants, border plants, lots & lots. I have also bought garden furniture table & chairs so people can sit outside which will be all built ready to be open up at the end of the year or the beginning of next year! I certainly will be working at it! I am so looking forward to it. I have been driving down the south coast and up the north coast, mountains everywhere! I am so disappointed there are no more handcraft I mean handcraft shops around. I had a shop at Revesby in Sydney but decided to retire (sort of) to the Mid North Coast (Eungai Creek). So I have finally decided to do it! I don’t exactly know how, but I will learn day by day. The best way of course is to show my art on the web! For all to see!
Add comment 18 May 2009
I have been so busy preparing greenware so that they don’t break while in transit. I also finished projects that I started years ago. I haven’t been doing markets anymore I find that they are just a waste of time in this economic climate. So many people are doing them now, and the organisers do not look after us! Never mind I will put them all on the web and in the Barn. We still have to go up and do the upstairs,(staircase) and clean around it! The posts at the front will be a gate of Welcome! It has its own driveway instead of going up the house. Its just one kilometre exactly from the highway going up North. (Pacific Hghwy) in the Nambucca Valley, and on the bottom of Mount Yarrahappinni. An absolute pretty place on the edge of the National Park!
Add comment 18 May 2009
I have started to begin with the German section of old dolls. I love the German dolls, mainly I am German and secondly a lot of them have very pretty faces and character. They were mostly made for the toy market and competed with the french dolls more to favour with children playthings. Many of them came undressed which people that bought them dressed themselves. Many of them were plain compared to the French which were aimed more to the fashion world!
Add comment 24 November 2007
Now I’m doing my German Children. I am still keeping them to a nice marketable size and cabinet size for collecting. Some bodies are in porcelain to size up with their heads and some are in composition of paper mache, treated, painted and sealed!
1 comment 24 November 2007
After I have cleaned the bodies I check for abnormalities, fix them then I dip them into a product that protects them from deterioration. Most of the compositions of today have rubber components in them and they tend to deteriorate much faster. You can see that it lets out fumes and the clothing starts to age or look very yellowish.
Some people like that ’cause it looks old to them, and some people get very distressed by it.
If you see cracks and crazing appearing, you know then the product is starting to break down and you have to act very quickly to protect it. If not, then you will not have a doll any more.
Lots of the celluloid dolls and the English Pedigree, even American, whatever, are all made from early plastics and are starting to deteriorate as well. It amazes me when I see a dirty deteriorating doll at the markets with dirty clothes, and people still paying a high price for them. But some you can save and some you cannot. With some the breakdown is well on the way and even a liquid starts to ooze with a pungent smell, well that poor doll is definitely dying… I have even seen some that were actually melting. My heart broke I had to throw it out.
When one dips the bodies you have to make sure that you really dip it and there is no section undone that can start the process.
Add comment 2 August 2007
The first half of the 19th Century saw the manufacture of primarily wax and paper mache dolls made in England and Germany. China head (glazed) dolls were made beginning in about 1835, followed shortly by unglazed porcelain heads (circa 1830).They became extremely popular. The Germans dominated the market with these dolls and exported them around the world.
By the 1840’s the French were doing a brisk business importing papier mache dolls from Germany and lavishly costuming them in material scraps. When the porcelain head dolls became an inexpensive and effective alternative for shoulder heads, the French began importing them as well.
Paris was the fashion capital of the world and the costumes of the dolls reflected the latest ravishing fashions. Because of these enchanting costumes, French dolls became a world famous luxury item. Mid 19th century dolls were costumed in imitation of elaborately dressed adults in large part so that the little girls who owned the dolls could imagine themselves grown-up. The dolls had complete trousseaux with every piece of clothing an exact copy of elaborate adult clothing. They were exported to show the allure of the fast, fashionable city of Paris.
These dolls were not only play things, but served as a standard of fashion in foreign countries. In 1851, the Jumeau firm won a top medal for doll clothes at a competition at London’s Crystal Palace. It appears France imported most of the doll heads it used from Germany also profited from France’s brisk sales in the world doll market. Rohmer, Barrois and Jumeau imported most of their porcelain doll parts, but Jumeau was the first to decide not to rely on foreign imports. He worked toward making an entire doll per his own specifications.
The 1867 Paris Exposition marked the end dolls with enormous trousseaux. France lost the Franco-Prussian war in the early 1870’s and the country made a great effort to re-establish the industries it lost during the war. By 1873, encouraged by the lack of German dolls on the market, Pierre Jumeau set up a larger factory. He now had everything including the boxes, to retail dolls on the larger scale. Jumeau won gold medals during the 1870’s in both Vienna and Philadelphia for his fashionable dolls that sold at a low price. Pierre’s son Emile took over the business when his father died in 1878. Emile had ambitious management style and used diverse advertising techniques to make everyone in Europe and America aware that Jumeau was the important name in the doll industry.
Until 1870 the French Poupees had an adult stature. The Germans made their own version of a fashion dolls. However, children readily took to Jumeau’s introduction of the Bebes (child dolls) in the 1870’s, which represented children themselves and not their parents. The Victorian age viewed adults doting on their children as stylish. Mothers taught their children sewing skills making clothing together for their dolls.
However, the Germans had not given up. While the French produced stylish and romantic luxury dolls, the Germans were plodding and industrious. They had a long history of cottage industry doll making in which entire families worked together from their home. The German economy had also suffered during the war. They did not produce a large volume of dolls during the period the French dominated with the poupees and bebes.
However, The Germans were known for being excellent businessmen who always found less expensive ways to mass produce. By the 1880’s the German doll industry expanded primarily as it had begun – as a cottage industry. Wages in the cottage industry were low and the hours long. It is estimated that the people working the French doll factories made three times as much as the Germans working in the cottage industry. Lower wages, coupled with simper methods and less expensive materials, enable the Germans to made a very attractive doll of reasonable quality that was much less expensive than the French doll.
The German and the French doll manufacturers fiercely competed with one another from the late 1880’s on. Sonneberge was one of the largest doll manufacturing regions in Germany. Many of the Sonneberg companies had an employee stationed in Paris. As soon as a French company would release a new doll, an agent would bring it back to Sonneberg. Within a few weeks a similar product would be offered on the world wide market at a cheaper price.
One of the more famous of thise copies is the Kestner AT, made circa 1881 which closely resembles the French Bebe AT by Thuillier. Another circle/dot Bru manufactured by an unknown Sonneberg manufacturer in about 1885.
Thus, making German dolls in the French Trademark style became big business for the Germans. Many other dolls, whether direct forgeries or copies with small changes made, are known today simply by the region of Sonneberg where they were produced.
Even so, the French were forced to sell their dolls at special rates to compete. As long as the popular fashion styles of France set the trend, the French dolls held their own against the less expensive, more simply dressed German. By the mid 1890’s children’s clothing became more simple styles. Since children wanted dolls which emulated themselves, there was no longer the demand for the exotic, lavishly costumed French dolls. Simple garments now dominated and appeared to be equally favoured by both the adults and children.
The reign of the French doll was soon to end. Jumeau must have realized it was impossible to produce quality dolls at a lower price. It is documented that in 1887 he commissioned the German firm Simon and Halbig to produce the original 200 series character heads. Today they are among the rarest and most sought after of the Jumeau dolls. By the end of the 1890’s Germans dominated the doll world. The Germans and the French merged, S.F.B.J. at first the doll quality was good, although inherited parts sometimes made unorthodox combinations as the dolls were assembled. Familiar names such as Bebe Jumeau, Bebe Bru, and Eden Bebe were still manufactured.
Soon, much less expensive German heads were being mounted on Jumeau bodies and sold in Bebe Jumeau boxes.
The French never regained themselves in the doll market, after the war the Germans too lost. America after the war seized the chance to expand, leaving the Germans and French to the past.
This is the history of the past, the full circle of the doll market, and now its left to the… that is why I begin my journey and muddle on, with the rest of societies, creating our doll dreams…
Add comment 27 April 2007
We finally have a blog installed and all at the press of a button too. Well, we poked our tame geek and they installed WordPress and tweaked it a little for us.
We’ll try and keep you updated with our regular crafting adventures.
1 comment 29 July 2006
