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Thursday 15 June 2017

Fairy Doors and Fairy Garden accessories

Fairy Doors


Fairy Doors are a great encouragement for small children to adopt good behaviour, and to help them through challenging development stages in their lives- from toilet training, to new beginnings (new homes, new schools, family changes), as well as simply adding a touch of imagination and fun to your home!
Fairy Doors
Simply find a suitable place for your door - they are great on skirting boards, or perhaps on a shelf away from tiny fingers (but keep them indoors please!), and let the imaginative play begin. 
Perhaps provide a little basket for those baby teeth to be taken away in, to cut out the rifling under pillows in the dark. (and stepping on plastic bricks on the way out of the bedroom).
Dress the doors with knockers, and letterboxes to add a further touch of realism. If using on a shelf, why not incorporate a lovely Royal Mail red post box, which also acts as a beautiful bookend - in perfect scale with the Fairy Doors.
Encourage good behaviour with your fairy leaving notes, or small gifts beside the door in a morning for your child to find. If you're feeling really brave, incorporating glitter can add a further touch of magical sparkle.
The great thing about imagination and magic, is it's limitless. Let your ideas run free, release your inner child, and join in the fun of seeing your child engage in imaginative play.
black door fox



We stock many accessories at Magpies-Miniatures which can bring even more magic to your little doors, from door knockers and letter boxes, to post boxes, baskets to place outside, even toadstools to create a miniature Fairy Garden. Just remember to keep them inside!

Shop the range here: Magpies-Miniatures


Sunday 22 December 2013

Creating with Miniatures: Making Fairy Doors

(image from this blog)

Have you seen the latest trend of fairy doors? They are everywhere at the moment, tiny little doors for the magical folk to enter. Some companies out there make them in a few selected styles, using glittery paint, or external wood stain to weatherproof them... but why not take the inspiration and make your own?

Here at Magpies-Miniatures we stock lots of products to help you create wonderful little fairy doors. Including ready built doors, knobs, handles, knockers, even letter boxes!

Too late for this Christmas, but plan ahead and consider a little door for the elves, how else did the Elf on a Shelf get in? Adorn it with tinsel, a wreath, and leave little gifts outside it! Perhaps a ring box decorated with ribbon, with a little plate of cookies inside - imagine the delight of the kids as they receive the presents, and fill up the dolls' houses in the process!

pop over to www.magpies-miniatures.net to see what miniature wonders we stock, and let your imagination run wild. Big kids and little kids alike will love this unique idea, whether it's in your home, shop, or cafe - or even outdoors!

Click the links below to browse our shop. Enquiries welcome.


Friday 20 December 2013

12 days of Christmas offers from Magpies-Miniatures


Sign up to our special mailing list, to receive details of 12 very special offers from your favourite Dolls' House Miniature retailers!
Every day from 25/12/13 to 05/01/14 we will be notifying subscribers of an offer which will be valid for 24 hours only - including prizedraws, giveaways and exclusive discounts.

Sign up here, and watch your inbox for more!

www.magpies-miniatures.net


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Sunday 24 November 2013

Creating a Dolls House Miniature Window Display




Working Together... 


As we don't have a "physical" shop premises here at Magpies-Miniatures, it is difficult to reach out to local people, and let them know we exist! Only so much can be done through local advertising, social networking, and word-of-mouth, so when an opportunity arose to claim window space in the Town centre over the Christmas period, we'd be daft to not oblige!

We were in contact with a local store at the beginning of November, and quickly our conversation led to us agreeing to complete a window display for them, for our towns annual Dickensian Festival. This festival is a weekend event at the end of November, which sees the town turn back in time. For more information, see the Ulverston Dickensian Festival website.

The brief the shop (Namely Mr Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe) had given to us was simply "A Victorian style street scene". We were allowed to go with this however we saw fit- and we did.

My Dad, Jon, is incredibly talented at many things - woodwork being one of them. He created us a 4' "stage" to create our display on. We were able to source some wonderful photo prints of the town centre in Victorian days, and these became the backdrop of our scene.

Our town is a very traditional, old-style quirky market town- complete with cobblestones and original dated buildings. The photos depicted these, and we used a couple of the wallpapers we sell in our miniature store, to create the pavements, walls, and cobbles. (We found an old slate roof tile paper gave a brilliant result for cobbles!)

We then decorated two shop fronts. One in the style of an old toy shop, and another as a miniature Mr Simms Sweet Shop. If you have a Mr Simms local to you (they are a small(ish) UK franchise), then you will know what a magical aura they have themselves. It's like stepping back in time - shelves filled with glass jars of the most colourful candies you could imagine, from floor to ceiling. Our Victorian piece fit wonderfully into it's surroundings..

We included details from a period postbox, to people going about their business in the busy market scene, and even down to coal spilling out of the coal sacks, and 3 little black rats- one toying with a cat around the Mr Simms advertising board.

We had so much fun researching the period, collecting the miniatures together, and creating a wonderful miniature scene! We hope Lynne and John at Mr Simms are impressed with our work, and that passers by can enjoy the miniature world too. A lovely bit of magic for kids, and big kids alike!

Here's a few pictures of the scene as it developed:

Thursday 31 October 2013

Christmas Postage dates 2013

It comes at the same time every year, yet every year it induces this mad panic, braving the cold to endure some frantic rummaging through half-empty shelves to find that perfect present for your Great Aunt Tilda.
Well, we have a solution to combat the road-rage, angry mobs at the check-out, and the need for steel-toe-capped boots in the shop aisles. Grab yourself a lovely warm cuppa, kick your slippers off, and browse through our lovely website to find the perfect gift for your miniature-loving friends and family (or yourself, of course!)
Everyone deserves a little treat at Christmas.
Here we have some further information about postage details for the upcoming Christmas period. Turns out the Royal Mail is in fact nothing to do with any elves or reindeer, and they too could do with a sprinkle of magic dust to make them fly faster but, seeing as this isn't especially easy to achieve, we simply suggest you follow the guidelines below to make sure your package is with you well before the man in the big red suit climbs down your chimney. Let's make it easy for everyone this year, and pull together to make sure we all have a simple, straight-forward, stress-free Christmas. (Well, as stress free as it can be!)

The following information is passed on to you from the Royal Mail (the shipping company we deal with here in the UK) - and these are the last recommended postal dates for Christmas deliveries. Of course these are the VERY LAST days, so please try to plan as much as possible - we will not be liable for any packages which are delayed in the system, and we'd hate for Great Aunt Tilda to be disappointed.
International Airmail
including Airsure® and International Signed For™
Wednesday 4 December Asia, Far East (including Japan), New Zealand
Thursday 5 December Australia
Friday 6 December Africa, Caribbean, Central & South America, Middle East
Monday 9 December Cyprus, Eastern Europe
Tuesday 10 December Canada, France, Greece, Poland
Friday 13 December USA
Saturday 14 December Western Europe (excluding France, Greece, Poland)
  HM Forces Mail - British Forces Post Office
(BFPO)
Friday 29 November Airmail to Operational BFPOs
Friday 13 December Airmail to Static BFPOs
UK Services 
Wednesday 18 December 2nd Class and Royal Mail Signed For™
Friday 20 December 1st Class and Royal Mail Signed For™
Monday 23 December Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed™
So there we have it! For any more information, including postage costs, please see either UK Postage Information , or International Postage Information - depending on your location.
Best Wishes for Christmas and the New Year from all of us here at Magpies-Miniatures.net

Wednesday 28 August 2013

Wish List

For a good while now we have been bugging our host (Create) for a Wish List feature, but to no avail. However, a quick Google told me that Amazon have created a "Universal Wish List" which is not only usable on Amazon but on ANY online store.
I gave it a download, and a quick test run.

I'm currently using Firefox 23.0.1 and I have to say it works BRILLIANTLY on our webstore.
Will give a quick tutorial here as to how it was applied and used.

So all you need to do is follow this link (presuming you have an Amazon account, if not you need to sign up first) :Get the Amazon Add to Wish List Button
and follow the instructions!
When you restart your browser, you'll see an amazon "A" next to the address bar. Now, visit our web store.... and find an item you like (isn't too hard ;) )
I'm a geek for all things creepy, so I'm choosing the 3 black rats (really, they're adorable!)
So... find your product, and click the A!
This will bring a pop-up screen up, so you have the option to add to your wish list. Do the same for any other product your heart's craving for! Worth putting a  few things together to save on postage costs, right?
I'm choosing some more favourites now....

...

My list now looks like this:
 so now you can compile your list until it's ready to pop! Beauty with this is you can even post it to facebook to drop some very heavy hints, print it out and leave it in front of the kettle for your spouse to accidently "fall" upon, and when you're ready to purchase anything, just visit the product page by clicking on the item title, and pop things in your shopping basket. Beautifully done! 
You can set up lists for various websites, or even different rooms in your dolls house - a bathroom wish list, living room wish list... etc!

What a magical little feature.
Thank you Amazon!

-Niccy  

Sunday 25 August 2013

Important news for our eBay customers

This is a special notice for customers on our eBay store, found here: eBay Shop 

We mentioned there are upcoming changes to ebay, and the way they handle fees from sellers, in a previous Blog post. We have been scratching our heads to try and get to grips with what it is they want from us, and have found the only way to combat their greed, is to up our postage prices on there (We really don't want to have to do this!). Currently they don't take anything from your postage price, which is great, because we don't make any profit on this (it all goes to our lovely friend Andy - our local Post Office Wizard). Now ebay have decided they want 10% of the money we would have given to Andy... and it's not fair that we should take the hit (as they already take 10% off the item price), and the money isn't going to materialise from Andys' pocket (and why should it?) so the only option we have, is to pass on that 10% increase to you, the buyer. We hate to do this, as we feel like we are ripping people off - this is not what we are about! Please remember it is EBAY who are being greedy, not us :(

If you ARE a serial eBayer (you know who you are) this is where you need to listen up. 

Currently on ebay we have around 400 items (431 to be exact), where our website total currently stands at around 3500 (okay, sticking with being exact, we actually have 3526 products WITH MORE TO ADD!) everyone likes variety! (Website 1 - Ebay 0 )
 
Now, to list them on ebay- we already are forced to add AT LEAST 10% to the price you would pay on our website, so that lovely order you compiled on ebay which came to £100? You could have had it for £90 (or less!) on our website! Cheaper! (Website 2 - Ebay 0)
 
Surely ebay has better offers on?...NOOOOOO. We don't run the same offers on ebay goods as we do on the website. Our sales and Special Offers are EXCLUSIVE to our website customers. (Currently having a huge Jiayi sale, which ends on 31/08/13) -and keep an eye out on newsletters because I sometimes share discount codes there too, applicable ONLY on our site!  Offers and Discounts! (Website 3 - Ebay 0 )

But what about combined shipping? As standard on the website, as there's a full integrated shopping basket. We do of course combine shipping on ebay...but it's manual and time consuming. Everyone likes something easy. Simple! (Website 4 - Ebay 0 )

 Payment! Surely it's more secure on ebay!....no..... it's all in your imagination. We take payment through Paypal too on the website, just as you would on ebay, so it's just as secure! You don't even need a paypal account to pay, just credit or debit card details. We will also accept cheques (UK only) Secure! (Website 5 - Ebay 0 )

I could go on, but I think you can see the point I'm making here...
SHOP DIRECT ON OUR WEBSITE AND AVOID EBAY AND THEIR GREEDY WAYS!

We can't stress this enough!!
What's the website?www.magpies-miniatures.net

Visit and click Ctrl+D to add us to your Bookmarks :)