About Sally Reader Miniatures

My name is Sally Reader 
 
 I have been making and selling tiny dolls, toys and teddies for the dollshouse nursery for nearly thirty years. 
 
From a very young age I was fascinated by miniatures, loved teddy bears and enjoyed crafts.
 

When I was a child my favourite exhibit in the Worthing museum was a pedlar doll about 12inches high with a head made from a preserved apple and in her tray she had tiny sewing items.  It was always in the back of my mind to try and make one.  Many years later I did make a pedlar using the traditional wooden peg doll method. This meant my doll was about 6inches tall (half the size of the one in the museum).  I wanted a tiny wooden doll to put in the tray so I created the wooden doll pictured.  I still sell these today.

  first mins wooden detail

First miniature doll 
 

Another item of inspiration when I was young was a very tiny orange pipecleaner teddy inside a craft kit which came in my Christmas stocking. The instructions in the kit showed you how to make very simple animals out of pipecleaners but not how to make the teddy bear. I remember my mum, dad and older brother all trying to make one for me but with no success.
Again, it was many years later I started fiddling with a packet of coloured pipecleaners and managed to create an acceptable half inch tall bear.
  

In 1983 I booked a very small stand at a doll fair in Brighton and tried to sell some dressed peg dolls,  including the pedlar,  together with 40 pipecleaner teddies and 5 tiny wooden dolls. I sold a few peg dolls but I was more successful selling all of the teddies and the little wooden dolls. Ann Strudwick, a trader with a shop in Hastings called Children's Treasures, bought some of the teddies and wooden dolls and asked me to supply her by mail order. This encouraged me to work out some other tiny dolls and toys which was the start of my early range of miniatures.  Around the same time I met Kristin Baybars who has a long established dollshouse shop in London and I have supplied her over the years.

  wooden peg dolls
 My original dressed peg dolls including the pedlar
 first miniatures2
first miniatures
 Some of my original range

 pedlar 4

My current pedlar doll is 1.25 inches high

 I left work at a bank to start a family in 1992 and now have three girls aged 19,17 and 13. As time became available I started to increase my range and exhibited annually at the original Hove miniatures fair, Alexandra Palace and Excel. When my third daughter started school in 2003 I was able to turn the miniature making from a paying hobby into a small business. 

I now exhibit regularly at the Kensington Dollshouse Festival in May and December and this year I will be at Miniatura for the first time. You can also see me at Charmandean in Worthing West Sussex which is our local fair in April and November. The pedlar doll I now make is 1.25 inches high and at present I am working on developing a range of 1/48th period dolls so I am really back to making the dressed peg dolls only a lot smaller!  

 Luckily I have a very supportive husband who accompanies me to the fairs and who has designed, built and adapted my stand over the years as my range of miniatures has grown.  

 Tudor family 1  1/48th Tudor Family
 Sailor Boy and GirlSailor Girl and Sailor Boy (approx.1.25inches tall)

 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

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