When first bitten by the miniatures bug, it is all too easy to get swept up and away with the excitement of a new-found hobby. Miniatures, after all, are a multi-disciplinary passion requiring a variety of skills – creative flair coupled with logical, mathematical process. It is likely you’ve eyed-up dolls houses on your local trade and exchange website as you imagine your grand designs (I blame pinterest for my lofty aspirations). You may have considered a brand new house kit. In the early days, motivation and momentum seem limitless.
As exciting as it is to have an entire dolls house to either build or renovate, it can be entirely overwhelming, or simply out of your initial budget. Another real consideration is space – there’s nothing small about this miniatures hobby. Before you know it you’ll have myriad zip-lock bags and partitioned bead boxes to store all those bits and bobs you’ve bought simply because they were cheap, or better yet, hoarded because they were free. Especially if you start collecting random bottle tops, blister packaging and other everyday things that have the potential to be repurposed into a miniature ‘something’.
My reality check was time & budget. When I first re-discovered my passion for all things miniature, I had a newly established art gallery and was working on site 6 days a week, 12 hours a day. I had to cram the housekeeping and miniatures-making into that one day off. So I started small with a wooden craft box and planned a little country vignette.
A timeline of my room boxes
After 5 years of refining my skills, I look back at that first room box and as with all creative folks, I am hypercritical about, what I consider to be, an unsophisticated yet eager and honest attempt. Everything was made from scratch with a mixture of balsa wood, toothpicks, coffee stirrers and found things like buttons and beads. The art teacher in me then throws in some sage reason, this humble little room box was a launching point that gave me the instant gratification of completing a project that has led to numerous others; with each successive room box, my skills have improved and as the great Confucius once said: “It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.”
Hopefully miniatures will become a life-long hobby and therefore it is a marathon with milestones that are better left unrushed. Be discerning about your choice of pieces and be kind to yourself when you’ve upholstered your first wonky armchair. It is all part of that learning process.
Keep Calm & Make Miniatures
Mel