An Artist's Shopping List

No, not milk, bread and sugar, the list of diverse items that I have been having to search for this week in preparation for my residency at The Priest's House Museum. As this is probably the most ambitious project I have ever undertaken, it has thrown up an equally ambitious list of requirements for all the themes I intend to explore when I am there.
Not wishing to give too many of my ideas away before the event, I will try to provide a glimpse of what I have in mind for my week's residency and some of the bizarre things I have had to go in search for.
My main intention while I am there, is to get the visitors to become more engaged with the room again, and I hope to do this by considering the room's original purpose and providing a variety of presentations to spark their imaginations. As The Georgian Parlour was inhabited by a Mrs King during the late 1700's, I have been looking into her life, her and her husband's occupation as Mercers and their occupancy of the room. There are some fantastic social history books available now and each has provided me with a variety of ideas to explore including considering what fabrics were sold by the family to the wider community, what furniture the Kings' would have had in the room, what pastimes would have been enjoyed by the family and what they would have had for tea! So my shopping list this week has been as follows:
1 x pack of replica 18th century playing cards (next to impossible to find, except in Holland?)
An assortment of battery powered candles (so as not to burn the museum down at an evening viewing)
The rules to a variety of card games
A recipe for Plum Cake
Tea Set designs in the 18th century
Teak wood fabric printing blocks
Georgian interior colour charts
2 x lecterns made to my specifications
5 x plinths (see above, very patient fiance)
A printing company that won't charge the earth for a short run of postcards
Loomstate cotton
The history of potpourri
and acid free tissue paper
I suppose in the grand scheme, it's not the most peculiar list when you consider one of my classmates has been searching for rubber goldfish in the US, but I'm betting that not many professions can boast such a diverse range of required equipment!
More information soon, 13 days to go...