janonlife

A Touch of Clarity at Steampunk-Shrunk

Posted on January 4, 2019 by janonlife

A new year dawns, marked here at Steampunk Towers by Charles’ jubilant arrival on January 1st in his velvet-seated time machine. Considering the adventures he’s had, neither he nor the machine are looking in bad shape at all. True, he’s been slightly pompous since someone commented that he looked ‘very timelordish’, but we can forgive him for that.

Anyhow, for those new to our site, or confused by recent changes, here are some notes on what exactly Steampunk-Shrunk is and how it trades.

Unique and Upcycled

Everything produced by Steampunk-Shrunk is a hand-made and one-of-a-kind (OOAK) creation. Upcycling is very much part of our ethos. It is a point of honour here to find novel new uses for plastic packaging, broken jewellery or watches and the kind of junk that lies about most homes and charity shops in forgotten boxes and shelves. This tinkering and repurposing lies, after all, at the very heart of steampunk.

Selling Direct

Our favourite way of selling is through the Steampunk-Shrunk trading stalls. These can be found at various steampunk fairs and conventions throughout the UK, at selected dollshouse and miniatures fairs and sometimes at craft and vintage fairs. We love to be able to chat to customers, to allow them to pick up and examine our wares and see if they can read our tiny books.
The next fair we have booked is in Shrewsbury in March 2019, but all venues will be listed on the home page of this website and promoted on our Facebook page.

The Steampunk Dolls’ House

This is the international trading arm of our micro-business. At the time of writing, we have around 35 lines for sale in this Etsy shop, which can be shipped around the world. We try to provide plenty of photos and detailed descriptions, so that customers know what they are getting, and it’s very easy for them to ask questions or chat about items we are selling. All our reviews so far have had five stars, which is hugely encouraging. The link to the Etsy shop is here.

The Crispin Emporium

Street, Somerset Our latest sales venture is hiring a glass cabinet in a beautiful craft emporium in the Somerset town of Street.
Street is best known as the home of Clarks Shoes and the massive Clarks Shopping Village.
The emporium, upstairs in the newly refurbished Crispin Centre, supports and showcases local artists and craftspeople and provides a welcome change from the chain store outlets. The building also houses a gorgeous florist shop, a very lovely cafe (Street Food!) and various meeting and event rooms. It gets its name, incidentally, from St Crispin who – along with his brother St Crispian – is the patron saint of shoemaking.
If you are visiting Street this year, or nearby Wells or Glastonbury, do call in and take a look. Here is a link to the emporium’s Facebook page, so you can check opening times etc. The address is: 83 High Street, Street, Somerset, BA16 0EZ.

There is also a contact form on the home page of this website, if there are items you would like to know more about.

Topping Toppers

Posted on December 24, 2018December 24, 2018 by janonlife

The steampunk hat is a wonder to behold.

The ingenuity and range of adornments to bowlers and toppers at any steampunk gathering is stunning.

Mine tend to be diminutive.

However customers often arrive at my stall searching for items to add to their own headgear. Imagine my delight when I recently met a lady and gentleman whose top hats were decorated with some Steampunk-Shrunk gizmos!

I was happier still when they purchased more. Perhaps at a future venue, I’ll see those in place on the Inventors’ Hats they are creating.

As for me, I’m rather fond of my brown bowler.

By George – so pleased to make your acquaintance.

Posted on December 6, 2018 by janonlife

We may have met before, but permit me to introduce myself anew.

Steampunk-Shrunk tinker

I am George Entwistle, tinker and general handyman to the gentry. Yes, I have resigned from my post as patents clerk and become a full time tinker. Indeed, I would venture to say that my time machines are very much sought after by ladies and gentlemen of discernment with an adventurous temperament.

I like to consider myself something of an adventurer, too. Very recently I travelled in a railway carriage to a steampunk spectacular in the delightful town of Shrewsbury. What an experience it was!

customers at Steampunk-Shrunk The purveyors of our products were the most splendidly attired persons I had ever encountered. Even Mrs S, who is quite used to these affairs, was impressed and kept taking photographs of them, a few of which I will reproduce here.

We had scarcely opened before Alice announced that she was changing her name to Olga and heading off to become an opera singer with her new patron. I think Sir William was sad to see her go, but he soon began to chat in a very friendly manner to Miss Delilah.

Steampunk-Shrunk I confess I was quite delighted when a charming lady and gentleman agreed to purchase my latest time machine. I often wonder where my customers will end up when they head off on their temporal journeys.

My greated delight, though, came when a distinguished looking gentleman stopped to admire our wares. There was something familiar about him and I was quite taken by his military bearing and immaculate appearance. He chatted for a while about our room cases to his good lady, and it was only after he left that Mrs Steampunkle told us it was none other than the great Icabod Steam!

How I regretted not having removed my stained and grubby leather apron or straightening my tie! I even had the honour to view his trailer at close quarters, although Mrs S wouldn’t permit me to leave the stall to watch one of his performances. I noticed that she was mysteriously absent at that time, however…

Upon our return to Steampunk Towers (and mainly, I suspect, to quieten the complaints about the journey from Lady Christabel) Mrs Steampunkle announced that some of us would be heading to a new residence. I was fortunate enough to be chosen, along with Lady Christabel, Sir William and the lovely Miss Delilah, to inhabit a glass display cabinet at a quite charming Emporium in the Somerset town of Street. We have five of my friend Mr Robottom’s robots with us, as well as several cabinets of curiosities and the Looking Glass rooms Mrs Steampunkle quite recently completed.

It feels quite strange to be away from Steampunk Towers, but our creator visits us regularly and has promised to pop in and check that we are all happy in our new surroundings.

Do come along to pass the time of day, should you be in the vicinity.

A suitcase??

Posted on November 26, 2018 by janonlife

Keeper of the Hour Glass Moderator I am mortified.

I, Lady Christabel Craxton-Keyes, Keeper of the Hour Glass Moderator, am expected to travel in a suitcase! This is an outrage.

Initially, when Mrs Steampunkle told us we would be travelling to a Steampunk Christmas Extravaganza in a pretty town in the Shropshire hills, I was rather pleased. The event sounded charming. My sister Delilah and I joined Mr George Entwistle in admiring the festive decorations that had been prepared for the Christmas market and looked forward to encountering our fellow steampunk enthusiasts.

on sale at Sheampunk-shrunk stalls It was only yesterday that she explained how the journey would be organised. We will be travelling by railway train, from Mr Brunel’s splendid Bristol Temple Meads Station. I was most pleased at this prospect.

It was only then that the woman broke the news.

“I’m sorry, Christabel, but you and the other exhibits will be securely stored in a valise. I will do all I can to make your journey as comfortable as possible.”

Exhibits! What an insult! And if she thinks I am mollified by her description of that battered, wheeled suitcase as a ‘valise’, she is quite mistaken.

So spare me a thought, Dear Reader, as I am buffeted and bundled around. I just hope the Extravaganza will be worth it. I hope, too, that I am able to procure a new home while I am there, so that I’m not forced to travel back here in the same humiliating manner.

Tinkering with Time

Posted on November 20, 2018 by janonlife

Steampunk - Shrunk!

George Entwhistle, a patents clerk by day, had always enjoyed tinkering. The trouble was, tinkering could be a somewhat noisy activity. Living as he did in a terraced property, he had to contend with frequent complaints from neighbours and visits from members of the constabulary.

In consequence, he’d been banned from hammering, sawing, welding or producing anything with a tendency to explode between the hours of 8pm and 10am, and all day on Sundays. This, given the long hours he worked at the patents office, made it difficult for him to achieve anything of note. George felt cheated by life.

All this changed, though, the day he realised that the blocked up door in the sitting room did not, as he’d always imagined, lead to the parlour. Careful measuring and still more careful (and virtually silent) plan drawing showed that there was a two and a half foot gap between…

View original post 464 more words

Lets do the time warp again…

Posted on November 20, 2018 by janonlife

“It’s been a while,” Henry told me, wistfully, “since I went time travelling. Any chance you could help me out with a new machine?”

“Fine,” I said. “As long as you can source all the components from our junk box.”

“My pleasure, Madame,” he beamed, and headed off to rummage through the collection.

Putting components together is never easy.

An hour or so later he was back with a particularly ugly little bamboo chair, a couple of clarinet keys, a light-up Christmas badge, an empty ribbon reel, the inside of a sewing thread spool, a clip from the old shower curtain, a few beads, promisingly-shaped wires and springs and a plastic robot arm.

“Hmm,” I said. “Interesting. How are you going to power it?”

” ‘If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration,’ as my dear old friend Nick used to say. That circuit in the badge is at a perfect frequency and has plenty of energy stored in its batteries. As for the vibration, just take a look at these springs and the switch on that clarinet key. Try twanging it!”

I did. It made a rather pleasant Jew’s harp sound and vibrated beautifully.

Henry's time machine from Steampunk-Shrunk — Henry had it fired up in no time.

“Okay Henry. You get the circuits sorted and I’ll get to work with some paint and copper tape,” I told him.

Before long the machine was finished. Certainly not the most aesthetically pleasing of objects, but when he sat in the seat, Henry had foot pedals that could be calibrated to the target date and time, a copper steering column, a strange silvery sphereoid that did goodness-knows-what, but seemed very important, along with a clock and altimeter.

“Dear Madame, if you would be good enough to give the temporal booster rocket a turn and then ping that little lever you liked so much, I’ll give it a spin,” Henry smiled.

Available at Steampunk-Shrunk stalls — Ready to go.

“Don’t forget to put your goggles on, I told him. And make sure you’re back in time for the trip to Shrewsbury.”

“It’s a TIME machine, Madame!” he chided. “I can be back at whatever time I choose!”

“Yes, I know that, but – just be careful, Henry. You know how, um, adventurous you can be.”

Henry waved his cap to me and then, as I started the contraption’s rocket up and watched the blue and red sparks firing away inside it, he focused all his attention on that strange silver ball.

a blank

“Henry, how are you going to start it up by yourself when you want to come back…?” I was asking.

But I was all alone.

He still isn’t back.

I just hope he’ll make it by the time of the Shrewsbury Christmas Steampunk Spectacular, Knowing Henry, he’ll be there with seconds to spare.

If you’d like to take a look at the machine, or even contemplate buying it, do come and join us at the market in St Mary’s Church on December 1st and 2nd 2018.

A Touch of Fortune

Posted on November 11, 2018 by janonlife

So here’s the thing.

A week or two before I was due to move from my temporary lodging back to Glastonbury, I sold the Fortune Teller’s Table. It sold to a customer in New York. I had a million things to do, so I raced down to the post office first thing, sent it off tracked and signed for, as usual, pocketed the receipt and went off to get on with some of those jobs.

You’ve guessed, haven’t you? When I came to mark the item sent on my Etsy site, the receipt – with that all-important tracking number – had vanished. I turned out my bag, all pockets and looked inside anything I’d used that day, but it was nowhere to be seen.

“Well,” I thought to myself, “Let’s just hope the parcel doesn’t go missing.”

The day I moved – while I was actually on the journey, in fact – a message came through from the buyer. Where was the table? Why hadn’t I sent the tracking number? It hadn’t turned up.

I went cold and clammy all over. Never before had a parcel been lost in the post, so why this one? All those lovely five star reviews would be worth nothing if just one customer posted a rant about what a careless and unreliable supplier I was.

I came clean, apologised profusely and asked her to wait another week, just in case it was languishing in customs. After that, I promised, I’d either send her a full refund or attempt to make a close copy as a replacement. ‘OK,’ she agreed – one week, and she’d prefer to have a replacement to a refund.

SteampunkDollsHouse on Etsy So, with suitcases and packing boxes still unopened, I hunted through my 12th scale furniture stash and – I could hardly believe my luck – found an identical sized desk. It was brown, rather than black and, unlike its predecessor, it still had some drawers. Over the following days I studied the photos and worked to reproduce the dowsing pendulum, the tiny pack of cards, the candle, dream divination book, aged scrolls, tray of crystals and fortune telling boards.

It was nearing completion, when another message from the customer arrived. “It’s here!” she said. “I haven’t even opened it yet, but it was delivered today!”

Phew.

So I looked at the replica I’d been working on, decided the table top didn’t look mysterious enough, and covered it with a deep blue velvet cloth. And now, there is another Fortune Teller’s Table for sale in my Etsy shop.

You can take a look at it by clicking this link.

Through the Looking-Glass, and how Alice got there

Posted on October 15, 2018 by janonlife

Something a little different today: a glimpse into the creative process that went into one of our models.

…which, after a bit of rearranging, became a double room.

I decided to send Alice through the looking glass, but this was the only girl doll I could find.

This is as close as I could get to Tenniel’s original illustrations.

I knew the bits of foam packaging from a set of roller blinds would come in handy sometime.

With a few sawn up oak twigs and a battery tea light, Alice soon had fireplaces.

Some card and lace trim made the mantlepieces. Time-consuming to make two of everything!

The clocks had to look the same from the back, of course…

… but quite different from the front. Everything was true to Lewis Carroll’s text and John Tenniel’s pictures.

I used polymer clay and jewellery findings for the fire irons. The white knight needs to slide down the poker.

Imagine how long it took to set up and glue down the pieces. White is about to catch Alice in fool’s mate.

In Looking-Glass House, though, the pieces are wandering two by two around the fireplace. A bishop is sitting on a log, reading a broadsheet…

… and a white pawn called Lily has fallen over on the table and is screaming for her mother.

A shadowy Alice can be seen climbing through the mirror from the completed drawing room…

Of course both rooms fit neatly into the box to make a perfect little set.

Both Alice and the room box set are for sale in our Etsy shop – The SteampunkDollsHouse. Follow the links to take a look at them.

Alice Alone – Almost

Posted on September 17, 2018 by janonlife

There were only four of us at the start of the latest Steampunk Convention, unless you count the two ladies engaged in the tea duel, who speak to no one, but fix each other with steely stares over their cow biscuits and cups of tea, or the Samurai warrior who stands transfixed in some Zen-like meditative state. Just four – myself and the three gentlemen.

I am Alice. I was Mrs S’s first ever makeover. I permit myself to believe that I will always hold a special place in her heart for that reason alone. Then there was Bertie, the military gent who made maps of uncharted lands for the Ordnance Survey, Lars, the mysterious inventor who never removed those dark glasses and William, the rather aloof and dapper man with the dart-launcher chained to his arm.

We stood in a casual group on the stall, all secretly wishing that a new owner would arrive and transport us to a permanent home, ending our nomadic existence.

Bertie was the first to leave. Just imagine his delight when he discovered that his new guardian was to be the very same lady who had, on a previous occasion, purchased Leonora. A match made in heaven, we all agreed. We could imagine those two intrepid explorers heading off to discover new lands and treasures together. How could we be anything but delighted?

Lars was the next to depart. His new guardian was also a returning customer. The young man had bought that very worrying time machine with the flashing lights. I was glad to see that go. It made me nervous. Now here he was again, eyeing each of us intently and trying to decide which of us would be the machine’s inventor. Well clearly it had to be Lars. William would never get his hands grubby with oil or grease and – well – do I look like the kind of person who would go galivanting around in a time machine? Obviously not.

So by the end of the day, only William and I remained.
“Just you and myself, then Madam, it would seem,” he said, in a slightly strained voice.
“Indeed,” I replied, permitting myself to look into his eyes and notice that there was a certain softness in his expression which I hadn’t noticed before.

“Charming about Bertie and Leonora,” he said.
“It is,” I agreed, and found myself wondering, fleetingly, how it would feel to end up in the same home as William. Not too disagreeable, I felt.

“I never really got to know Lars,” I told him.
“Hmmph,” he snorted. “Very odd chap. Brilliant inventor, of course, but not – you know – someone I warmed to. We had, er, business dealings, but that was all.”

I nodded. I’d never before thought of William warming to anyone. But who can say?

On the road again

Posted on September 10, 2018 by janonlife

How very inconvenient it is to be bundled into a wheelie suitcase and carted off to different venues with such frequency. True, Mrs S is always careful to cushion us well and give us as much personal space as possible, but it is not a pleasant way to travel.

No sooner are we back from a spate of ‘Dolly’s Daydream’ sales, than we are once again off on a new adventure.

Ah, but this one is a steampunk gathering, and we do love those! All the wonderfully attired people who actually understand what a tea duel is and why we have Racing Teapots and Octopuses’ Gardens.

So on September 16th, we and our gizmos, gadgets and other wonders will be on display at The Steampunk Essextraordinaire VI in the splendidly named Museum of Power.

Do come and join us if you are in that part of the world. Image may contain: 2 people, people smiling, text