remember these?

When I was younger I was so jealous of friends who had a Kenner family treetops treehouse, so when I recently saw these new versions I knew I had to get a few for the shop (and Arthur, who spied it in the box and threw an almighty tantrum wanted one as well. I kind of gave in - he now gets to play with the shop display one). They are no longer made by Kenner, they are from France by a company called Vulli. They are almost exactly the same, include Mum, Dad, 2 Kids and the dog, but this version has been tricked up with the sounds of birds chirping when you close the lid. It's been quite amazing how many people have commented on the one in the shop window and how they either had or wanted one.

my cookie jars

A few of my collection of cookie jars are featured in the latest frankie magazine. Woo hoo. You can enlarge the above photo and read my interview blurb. It's mighty embarassing re-reading the article, if you ask me. I'm quite sure in real life I never say the word cute, but maybe I do.... I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before but none of my cookie jars contain cookies. Because biscuits are banned in this house, as we (Nick and I) have no willpower and scoff the whole lot in less than a day.

we're open for sales (and repairs)

Yes we are open again, so it's back to business here Arthur's Circus. This Sunday sees the Spring Fling Festival on in Errol Street, with the Queensberry Street traders having a stall of some sort. We'll also have the shop open for a few hours in the day too, but from then on we shall be closed on Sundays. We've decided that we need a little family and friend time on Sundays and to be honest North Melbourne can be like a sleepy country town on Sundays too. So the shop hours will be Thurs - Sat, 11am - 5pm and also by appointment. We'll be extending our hours mid November, but I'll let you know.

sorry we are closed (again)

Unfortunately we have had to close the shop this weekend and into next week. We hope to be back up and running our usual shop hours within the next few weeks. Please contact us via email or leave a message on 0408557459 and we'll get back to you asap. We apologise for any inconvenience.

tv quiz

I love this game, it's so darn clever. There's another game with the same concept that's called magic robot. He's cool too. You spin the dude around so that his stick is pointing to a question, then you place him on the mirror and he rotates around to the right answer. Tricky I tell you. Unfortunately I don't know the answer to most of the questions, they're beyond my general knowledge, but one can assume that the magic robot and man know them all.

ass / donkey / too much information

I find it hard sometimes to know how much personal information to delve into on this here blog. Many people out there share very personal stuff, amazing, sad, wonderful, happy stories about their lives. Also as I almost failed final year English, words aren't really my thing..... So the photo above is of a board game called 'the donkey and the carrot'. I had been meaning over the past week to upload many a photo to here and flickr of some of our collection of old board games, some of which we have framed and are selling and others that we plan to play with Arthur, but life has a habit of getting in the way. I have a reason and it can somehow relate to the image above, but I ain't going there on this blog. So my apologies for not quite getting there yet.

game artwork one

Not much to report on the blogging front, so I thought that I would share a few photos (over the next few days) of some of the gameboard artwork we have on display for our exhibition.
First up is J'Apprends Tout. I am not certain of the exact date of this piece. I'm placing it around the late 1890 to early 1900's. It is an original lithograph print of a game cover / box art. My French is non existant beyond year 7 bonjours, so I'll leave any attempt at translation alone. I can tell you that it was discovered in an old French printers shop and we have imported it from a dealer in the USA. We have quite a few different French game lithographs that were never used or glued to board. They are really quite amazing. Oh and yes it is for sale.