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11/3/07 When were you 1st exposed to Minis?


Minis On The Edge

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When I was a child a girl down the street had a doll house. She never played with it but her mom used to let me play with it by myself for hours, even when her daughter wasn't there, I think now that she was just glad someone appreciated it. Then 3 years ago I got a miniature catalog and was going to build me and the kids a house, after seeing the prices of stuff, I decided I could make some of it, Then I realized after making some of it that I could actually make most of it. Now I'm hooked, grrrrrr.....

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The first mini items I can rember seeing were the mini displays at Knotts Berry Farm way before it was an amusment park. I got involved in minis because Darrell had a partialy built house I thought either needed fixed or tossed. LOL Now I would nver consider tossing a mini.

Melissa

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As a very small child I remember visiting another little girl that had a small tin dollhouse - and I wanted a dollhouse of my own, so I used my father's roll of heavy duty tape to tape together cardboard boxes to make a multi-story house. The windows & doors were cut up pieces of construction paper glued on to the outside of the boxes and I used left over cardboard scraps and junk from around the house (my carpets were wash rags) to make furniture for the house. The outside was decorated with crayon - complete with grass & flowers around the bottom :)

My next real exposure to miniatures was as a young adult - my mother came for a visit & brought a San Franciscan kit with her that she wanted to build & decorate for herself. We worked on it together over her weekend visit and she left it with me to finish building. I worked on that kit almost non-stop and called her before the end of a week's time to let her know it was built & she could come get it to decorate it & fill it! After that I was hooked - but it was a lot of years before I could really afford to get kits of my own.

I've made up for lost time the last few years - now I have so many kits, houses in progress & rehab houses that I've pretty much run out of room for any new ones. Well, okay, there's always room for a few more lol, but I definitely wouldn't be able to build & display them all - not enough room for that!

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Got a small cabin inscense burner as a teen, picked up a copy of Nutshell news and the rest is history. I have been facinated ever since, even got a dollhouse for 16th birthday..........the best gift ever. Made those furniture kits by the month, saving my parttime paycheck to pay for them. Sigh..........so long ago, but I am just as excited by miniatures today as I was then, maybe even more so.

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I was a child. I remember going to Old Sturbridge Village (in Mass.) and they had all the old miniatures--flour sack, butter churner, cradle with wooden doll (I still have one of these), wooden bowls. We had a collection and a doll collection. Whenever my grandparents went away they brought us back dolls, so we had dolls from around the world. We also were able to buy UNICEF dolls from Africa at our church. I remember saving up for them. The dolls and miniatures usually stayed in the curio cabinet though. Sometimes I would take them out and play with them.

My best friend had a dollhouse her father made her and we played with it all the time. I don't know at what age she got it though. (We've "known" each other since we were 6 months old.)

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I was a small child living in an old Victorian in Readfield, Maine. In my stocking at Christmas I got several little toys, one of which was a small battery operated plastic dollhouse sized floor lamp. I was ingrigued with that little lamp and had it for many, many years until it fell apart. I used to hide it in my bed and read by that little light under the covers when I was supposed to be sleeping. Later I got my ranch set and then my electric train........ I've been hooked on miniatures for years!

Wolfie

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As a child. My sister and I had a two story tin dollhouse with a balcony on side. We played with that dollhouse all the time. It had people and furniture. My sister always wanted a big family so we would cut out pictures of people from the Sears Catalog and add them to the dollhouse family. I don't know whatever happened to it. Then I went to college-------after I married I started up again. I do love this hobby. Little things have always intrigued me.

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My Aunt had a large collection on miniatures a few houses but mostly room boxes. Many where old but with few exceptions she let my sister and I actually play with the mini's!

We lived in Europe until I was 11 and I had German houses. I had a modern English house called the sun trap (it had a sun room on the porch) but my first very favorite play furniture was Petite Princess, though I was already 12 when it was introduced. I still have most of it.

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I don't remember the first dollhouse I had because when a family friend gave me a Keystone when I was 6 DM gave the old one to my cousins. My DGM had a lot of miniature porcelain figurines that I played with at her house. When I was 9 I got a tin circus and all the little figures were hard rubber.

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My dad built me my first dollhouse as a Christmas present when I was 3 years old. He built it from scratch, built furniture and even electrified the dollhouse. He carved the dolls out of wood, painted their faces and my mum made clothes for them (non removeable). I don't know what happened to it, but often mentioned to my dad that it was favourite gift ever.

In 1994 he built the Beacon Hill dollhouse for me, built all of the furniture (from scratch - no kits) and once again electrified the dollhouse. I've been a mini-addict ever since.

My dad is one of my most ardent supporters, and loves to see what I create.

-Susanne

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From birth. My mother still had her beautiful old handmade dollhouse, so I grew up playing with it. (I considered it mine.) As a very young toddler, I was fascinated by the miniature outdoor village that my parents took us to see. I actually abducted a miniature cow, and did NOT want to put it back in it's meadow - much to my mother's embarrassment. Anything small has always intrigued me.

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When I was eight or nine my father sent me a Lil' Abner piano with all the Al Capp characters connected to it. When you wound it up they danced. I took Daisy Mae off and made her a kleenex skirt and made her a house in my Grandmother's book case. I made furniture from Ohio match boxes and all kinds of scraps. I really wanted stairs and to this day I have to have stairs in my houses. I never had a real dollshouse until about 20 years ago when a shop opened by the doctor's office where I worked. I've been into minis ever since.

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The first mini items I can rember seeing were the mini displays at Knotts Berry Farm way before it was an amusment park. I got involved in minis because Darrell had a partialy built house I thought either needed fixed or tossed. LOL Now I would nver consider tossing a mini.

Melissa

I forgot completly but now remember seeing this once too! Wasn't this the Mott's Miniatures collection?

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I would have been around 5-6. My grandmother dealt in antiques. She had a lovely old display house in her garage to go to a sale and she showed me. I remember the tiny toilet. Not long after that I got my home made one from great granddad's workshop.Lots of memories in that windowless box with a roof. I am still trying to decide how I will revamp it.(it is in the attic)

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I remember wanting a dh when I was 5. I had saved up all my money...I remember the day my parents and I went to get it. We rolled up my pennies and took them to the bank on the way to toys-r-us lol.

My house was sitting on the bottom shelf and it was $60 :cry: and that was 1982 lol.

My mom and Dad got me furnishings and some people. I rememeber getting more peices over the years, and still have the bulk of it.

Mom put my house together, and I remember it sitting on our microwave drying...I wouldn't let her put the windows in or the door on, or the trim, I had to have it THEN hehe. We chuckle about it now.

When I was about 11 or 12 I finally got around to painting and putting up some wallpaper inside. It's pretty ugly really...I used my grandmas floor tile in the kitchen and living room, and used the same ugly wallpaper that was in our bathroom and living room for other parts of the house. One of these days I think I'll re-do it, but I almost hate to cause it's so corny, but, it was mine and I played with it non-stop.

Mom tells me that I wouldn't let anyone else touch it either :nono: I was a tad spoiled :banana:

I always thought it would be neat to build my own house, and I bought my 1st kit a few years back and now I've got them all over the house, sold a few and still have some in boxes! It's an awesome hobby and a great conversation peice..after the inital "look"......we all know what that is lol

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About 5-6 years ago, my Step-Mom sent me pictures of some miniature items that she made. I was intrigued and fascinated. I went crazy on ebay bidding and spending too much money on LOTS that were mostly junk but I didn't know it at the time. Before long she had me joining groups on yahoo....I got talked into doing a swap. I will never forget my first mini. I think I did a pretty good job with it and everyone gave me lots of praise. It is amazing how much STUFF for this hobby I have accumulated over these past few years. I don't really recall having an interest in dollhouses when I was little.

What is sad to me is that my Step-Mom isn't into the minis so much anymore. Her health has deteriorated and so has her eye site, so I don't have her to share this hobby with. However, she gets tickled to pieces when I send her pictures of something I have made.

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I remember being a little girl, 6 or 7, and my mom bought a dollhouse kit to build for me. I used to sit beside her and watch her work on it. Unfortunatel, my mom is not that crafty. After awhile, she admitted defeat and the unfinished kit was put in the attic. I never forgot it, though.

My great uncle used to tell me he would make me a house with red carpets and chandeliers. When I was 17 I asked him whatever happened to the idea of building me a house. That's when he built me my first real house, the Victorian one in my gallery. He built it from plans I picked out. It has all snowballed since then.

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When I was 2 or 3 I was given the original fisher price little people farm animals for xmas, then my Mom found the barn at a SallyAnn's and it snowballed. I now have a ton of the people, the barn, the animals, the school house, the tudor house and many more (all the original wood turned ones with no arms or legs, they're cuter imho), and they made me want all things small. I also played with my older sister's kiddles and loved all the mini accoutrements they had. My first real 'house' tho', was a Weeble haunted house when I was 6. I still have most everything and now have severeal wooden doll houses that have been given to me or I've rescued. One very nice one a friend rescued from a dumpster at her storage unit site. Someone had cleared out an old locker and just dumped this 1940/50's era wood and masonite doll house. Lucky me she knew I always want more. :drool:

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  • 1 month later...

I remember going with my mother to one of her friends homes and in the dinning room was the most wonderful thing I have ever seen...it was HUGE probably 10 rooms fo wonderful goodies with lights and all...I do not know who built it but I do know it was the adults house. I have wanted a dollhouse ever since. and everywhere I go I find little items that call out to me...I never bought them as I had no place for them. now I have plenty of spaces for any and all goodies I may find along the way!

nutti :)

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The very first dollhouse kit that I seen and bought was on a vacation trip with my ex at Myrtle Beach. The Waccama Mall had a store full of dollhouse merchandise! I bought a Victorian, worked on it for a couple of months, stored it away and ended up selling it in a huge yard sale just before my divorce! I kick myself all the time now for selling it! I sold everything, didn't want reminders, you know!

Well a little over a year ago I was searching for a miniature desk set as a gag gift for a co-worker whose new office was very, very small. Well the search took me to the Dollhouse sites and there it began! I bought the Beacon Hill and when I opened the kit and started working on it I was so overwelmed by all the parts that I decided it wasn't for me. I posted a thread on Ernie's site that I wanted to sell it. I got a reply from a person who said I should keep it and I wouldn't get what I paid for it and it's worth giving it a try! We have since became dollhouse friends and we email each other pictures of our progress/builds. I'm really glad she talked me into building the Beacon, I really love it! I'm amazed myself how it turned out. Now I'm building the Willowcrest and have many more dollhouses to build! It gives me so much pleasure!

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When I first read this topic, I couldn't recall how I was first exposed to minis. As a little girl, I just always had toy dollhouses, like Fisher Price, and really liked them. But, this morning I remembered the first dollhouse store I went to. My dad had a little shop in a roadside "antique mall" when I was about 9 or 10. We spent every weekend there. There was a creek out back (polluted, but we didn't know any better) and a big tree out front, so we had fun playing when the weather was nice. But, there was another shop there, full of dollhouses! It was run by a retired husband and wife. I remember her name was Dot, but I can't remember his name. They were wonderful! They had to be the most patient people on earth - I'm sure I spent way too much time in there. I don't remember specific houses or anything, except for a little swan shaped rocker they gave to me for a nursery. I don't even recall if I had a dollhouse at the time to put it in. I don't know what ever happened to them, those shops are long gone now. But, that has to be what really started the fascination with dollhouses for me.

Then, as a teen, I built a Rutherford and a Peaches and Cream. I sold both when I "grew up" and needed to make room for a baby crib! But, now I get to have my second childhood - lucky me!

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WHEN I WAS COLLECTING VINTAGE DOLLS I WENT TO DOLL SHOWS JUST ABOUT EVERY MONTH. AT ONE OF THE DOLL SHOWS THEY HAD SOME DOLLHOUSES AND MINIATURES. I WAS SO INTRIGUED BY THEM, I HAD TO GO BUY MYSELF A DOLLHOUSE. MY FIRST WAS THE VICTORIA'S FARMHOUSE THAT I GAVE TO MY GRANDAUGHTER. JUST RECENTLY I MADE ANOTHER FOR MYSELF, AMONG ALL THE OTHERS I'VE BEEN WORKING ON. I CAN'T GET ENOUGH...

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