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how do you feel when people find out about your interest in miniatures?


Tinkerbelle

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I carry a small picture album with me to work, tucked away in my tote, with pictures of some of my minis. But I only bring it out if the subject comes up. I find that I avoid the word "dollhouses" because that word seems to trigger Fisher Price toys and little children. I say my hobby is building/making things in miniature, usually in the 1:12 scale, although I have been increasingly interested in the 1:144 scale. If they haven't run screaming for the nearest exit at that point, then I ask if they'd like to see pictures. But these are all work-related friends, not family. As to the family, my sweet mother is my strongest ally and encourager. She loves everything I make and is always anxious to see the next project. My biggest deflater is my DH - so I just go on without him. HIs typical response is, "What are you going to do with it now?" Of course, what he doesn't realize, is that the stress and distress he causes me propels me deep into my mini-hobby. :rofl: And for enabling and encouragement and inspiration - I can always run back this forum!

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I too don't have anybody in my immediate family who is really interested in miniatures - but my husband does understand that my hobby is important to me and he supports that. My mother only pretends to be interested and my sister refers to it as my "addiction." However, I have found various people in my church (and now that I think of it, they are all artistic and creative people) who love dollhouses and miniatures and so we have a good time together. Plus I posted some pictures of my dollhouse on Facebook and was amazed at some people who commented so positively. So I say, just advertise your interest and see who responds.

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Not to get off the subject, but its not just dollhouses and miniatures that can gather strange looks,. Anything that isn't typical or that takes someone by surprise can get you anything from expressions of awe to looks that shout, "What is wrong with you?"

I probably mentioned this before, but I like road trips and traveling to off-beat places. Two of the places I went to see were the Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, Kansas and the Largest Ball of Twine Made by One Man in Darwin, Minnesota. Some people who saw my pictures were less than impressed to say the least, but I was unphased because I had a great time seeing parts of the country few people get to see. Also, I am not interested in spending my entire vacation lying out in the sun on a hot, croweded beach or partying in night clubs (not that there is anything wrong with people who do prefer that type of vacation).

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I have most of my pictures on my cell phone. I will show them to total strangers. I am proud of what I have accomplished with them. I have never been very talented, but dollhouses I just am obsessed and don't really care who I bug HAHA!!!!! Most of my photos are posted all over my FB page and my friends love them. Hopefully when I am back to myself I will get the Westville and Beacon Hill on here. Have a Happy Easter to all who celebrate,

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Not to get off the subject, but its not just dollhouses and miniatures that can gather strange looks,. Anything that isn't typical or that takes someone by surprise can get you anything from expressions of awe to looks that shout, "What is wrong with you?"

Amen. Try telling people you raised and showed mice and that you show model horses!

I don't mind telling people about my hobby. If they get weird, that's their problem. And I'm all ready to understand that it's their problem.

But I won't say anything anymore at work (if I work again). We did the traveling thing with a little moose and I brought it over to Seattle to Pike's Place and took a photo with it on one of the pigs and in a salt water taffy display and on the ferry. I causually asked my boss if I could photo it next to a tape dispense on my station, and I thought she would flip out, telling me how immature I was. Like I said, physically 5 years older, mentally, a million years older. How sad this woman has no capacity for enjoying different things.

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I always loved the old adage "kill'em with kindness". Several of my relatives were kind of snooty about my love of miniatures (actual dollhousing is still new to me,but I've been into miniatures for decades),until I started making them inexpensive,simple little vignettes that included their favorite colors or themes of their lives and hobbies. Everybody is always amazed at their tiny gifts.

The cutest incident was my (now soon to be ex :() sister-in-law. She just didn't 'get' me,until one year I made my mother a small Christmas roombox. SIL was facinated with it and made me promise right then to make her one the next year. I did,including a tiny resin lighthouse and a lighthouse pendant hanging on the wall,because that's what she loves and collects. My brother said she was always proudly showing it off to visitors. It wasn't anything fancy or hard to make,but she loved it and from then on never made fun of my hobby.

My mother has always been supportive of my minis,but still doesn't get the 'dollhouse for adults thing'-I am not sure why it's so different,but I know she will love it when I finally finish one! I know giving gifts to others who may have belittled your passion is a hard thing,but in my family at least,it worked! :)

Edited by kat57
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Tinkerbelle, first I want to say how awesome it is to find a fellow anxiety sufferer on this board! I have suffered from Generalized Anxiety Disorder since childhood and it practically ruined my life. Miniatures and dollhouse assembly has helped me so much that I could write a book on the topic, literally. It feels like through miniatures I have been able to build a piece of my life that I didn't even know existed since I was born with this disease and don't know what life is like without it. Having said that, I can relate to the feelings you had. This hobby is so important to us that it really hurts when others don't seem to even acknowledge it but there are plenty of others out there that become floored when they see what we can do. Don't a let a few sour grapes spoil the bunch!

With me, people are interested when I tell them about it and others seem to minimize it. For some reason they keep associating children with what I do. I always have to emphasize its for ADULT collectors. I think they just don't really get it until they actually see it. A lot of people are familiar with the glue and nails variety of dollhouses so they just don't get why that would be a hobby. They figure its a nice weekend project for those that have to do it for a child but not a real hobby. They are unfamiliar with tab and slot dollhouses and I love to introduce them to it. :)

The other day a locksmith came to the house to change out our front door handle and lock set and when he saw my dollhouses he said that his children would tear them up. I had to remind him that it wasn't for children. (You would think that would be obvious.) Then he tried to compare model car making and dioramas to building a wooden tab and slot dollhouse. He was going on and on about how difficult it is to make realistic models and how tiny they are. He wasn't sharing just to share but more along the lines of putting down what I do or making it seem like his hobby is so much more technical and difficult that it couldn't be compared to "dollhouse" assembly. He even had to nerve to say he would love to try out assembling a dollhouse since it should be easy to do considering how incredible his model making abilities are.

Well, it just so happened that I had my BH kit open and ready to go in the garage. I take him to the garage and lifted the box lid. When he saw what was inside his eyes kind of widened and he asked me again if this was how the dollhouses he saw inside my house started and I told him yes. That's when he quietly said, barely audible, "Oh, no, I don't think I want to take on a project like this." LOL All I said to myself was "chicken".

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More minis, it so nice to know I'm not the only one. I developed it when I was 17 because I was struggling in school. I v.rarely have problems now but it took a long while to feel normal. But nobody understands what it is like.

Dollhouse and miniatures has definitely helped me but so has figure skating( I now unfortunately live too far from a rink to skate regularly but I love it) and writing stories.

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I took up my dollhouse passion when we finally bought our home we plan on staying in, finally. Before that I just was able to look, imagine.

I should say, when we first married 28 years ago, we bought a kit, and started it, got orders to England, and the movers shoved it into a spot only a foot wide. It was 4 foot wide. When my husband saw it, he quickly rushed me from the room, and I never saw it. It was THAT broken. Knowing we would have to move again and again, I didn't start one again, till we moved here.

His family has always known I had this desire, and love of miniatures and have always been ... Snide?

It's been, so - are you going to finish your dollhouse? When, etc. smirk.

I just ignore the smirks, I don't really like his mother, sister or brother, and I won't even go into what kind of people they are, just say they are users, and have issues with the law, etc. I think my husband must have completely different DNA.

So - suddenly last fall I put aside the dollhouse and had an urge to make a christmas room box. I saw it completely finished, and I made it, love it, and it was part of our christmas decor.

http://www.greenleafdollhouses.com/forum/index.php?app=gallery&album=6531

We always have his entire family at christmas, for a party, and of course, snide comments from sister and brother, and his Uncle, whom everyone treats with careful respect walks in the room and said, you made that! That's amazing! And started telling me about his friend who makes tiny handmade furniture that takes him months to make. He and I stood and discussed how I did everything, and how I had help in this site for my fireplace, had to build it twice.

His brother and sister were so embarrassed.

I also think that's true, someone said before, people think of fisher price, and such, and when a lady I work with asked to see pictures, she said, but I want to see the dollhouse pictures. I said, those are! She said, what, I thought that was your house! She has much more respect.

I am not afraid to say I work with miniatures and such, and I usually just laugh at peoples faces they make, and say, you think I'm crazy, don't you, and change the subject. I think they're hobbies aren't interesting, and I don't mock them, so if someone does mock me, I will sometimes nerve up and say so. Usually, they are still confused.

Most of them think I'm odd anyway, oh well. For those who say they have anxiety issues, in never did before, but since moving here, it's been an issue, I won't lie, his family has been a big cause of it, and my dollhouses, being able to create, has been a huge help

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Fellow anxiety sufferer here too! It's been almost three years and I'm doing much better. DH was overjoyed when I announced one morning a few months ago that I needed to get back into building my dollhouses again. He's helped me organize my craft room and it looks great! I was straightening and putting stuff away getting ready for a visit from my mom and brother and showed the wonderful space to my mom. She ran her finger across my dollhouse and said "You need to dust the roof of your dollhouse"...Oh well, thank goodness I have all of you wonderful people here and I don't know why this is now typing weird.....LOL!

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Hi Lindsay, I kind of know what you mean. Some people get snarky and ask me if I still play with dolls. I can say, no this is for my daughter or that I'm going to sell it on the internet. For the most part, if they have to ask, they won't appreciate it. But I do carry my stitching projects with me to work, or to the kids' sporting events and practices, so plenty of people have seen me working on the same thing for months. If they see it up close, they are always amazed at the tiny details. Just don't let numbskulls bother you. Not everyone can appreciate the finer things in life.

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I just completed reading this thread and something really stood out for me. It was the word "dollhouse". I love working on my miniature house, but have never considered it a dollhouse. I really think of it as a miniature piece of combined construction and art. I'm wondering if when talking to others and describing this hobby if the word dollhouse, is not the best decription. I don't think when model railroaders talk of their miniature hobby, they refer to it as a "doll's railroad". Just my thoughts.

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I build dollhouses for adults (mostly me) and I make the dolls that live in them (little people? no, because contrary to the delights of my imagination I don't endow them with the ability to come alive), and that is what I tell anyone who asks. I don't react to their reaction unless they ask me what I consider technical questions (scale, materials, etc). I tend to be a bit of a smart a** and have learned to keep my mouth shut.

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I just completed reading this thread and something really stood out for me. It was the word "dollhouse". I love working on my miniature house, but have never considered it a dollhouse. I really think of it as a miniature piece of combined construction and art. I'm wondering if when talking to others and describing this hobby if the word dollhouse, is not the best decription. I don't think when model railroaders talk of their miniature hobby, they refer to it as a "doll's railroad". Just my thoughts.

We had a thread about "Rude Comments" a while back. In that I spoke to the fact that I prefer to use the word miniaturist and building miniatures rather than the dh description. Miniatures can be anything - a ship, car, motorcycle, building, landscape, diorama, railroad layout, rock garden, room box, and many other variations. In my opinion, it sets up people to ask more logical questions rather than the automatic assumption that you are playing/building a child's toy.

For others, using the dh term may work just fine, but for me, changing the terms to a more refined one, with more possibilities of what exactly is being built, has assisted me in discussing my hobbies. Btw, I do both trains and houses.

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I certainly did not mean to be rude. I just thought, as you do, that miniature or model is a little more refined and may lead to more positive feelings by others.

Oh my, I only meant to say that the other thread was titled "Rude Comments". I surely did not think you were being rude. I'm so sorry if you misunderstood me. The other thread is here. It has gone on for a long time and, from time to time, folks post statements that other folks have said to them in the past about their work. Many folks have experienced rude comments about their wonderful work and other ridiculed or make fun of because they enjoy this hobby. Of course many have gotten wonderful compliments as well.

I've found that, in my locale, using the term miniaturist or miniatures helps to differentiate between the child type dh and the adult hobby of building small things.

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I was in the miniatures aisle at Hobby Lobby yesterday. A lady and several of her kids were standing next to me looking at the large Victorians. She was amazed at the price difference between a house that was in kit form compared to the price of the house if hobby lobby built it. She turned to her 10 year old (he couldn't have been older than 10-11) and said "you should start a side business building dollhouse kits, you could easily build these". I hope eventually she buys one and lets her 10 year old try putting it together.

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I hope eventually she buys one and lets her 10 year old try putting it together.

Oh, my ... what do you have against 10-year-olds? :lol:

and wouldn't we laugh if the kid pulled it off?

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I use both 'dollhouses' and 'miniatures' when I do talk about my houses. I have found that 'miniatures' gets the better response.Oddly enough, I refer to my outdoor village as a fairy village and when I show a picture people get confused because they are expected the whimsical homemade type houses made with sticks and leaves. I think I will refer to it as a miniature village from now on.

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Oh my, I only meant to day that the other thread was titled "Rude Comments". I surely did not think you were being rude. I'm so sorry if you misunderstood me. The other thread is here. It has gone on for a long time and, from time to time, folks post statements that other folks have said to them in the past about their work. Many folks have experienced rude comments about their wonderful work and other ridiculed or make fun of because they enjoy this hobby. Of course many have gotten wonderful compliments as well.

I've found that, in my locale, using the term miniaturist or miniatures helps to differentiate between the child type dh and the adult hobby of building small things.

Now I must apologize. I have a bad habit of skimming and not really ready sentences. I think it comes from too little time and too many emails. I do agree with you on using the terms miniaturist or miniatures. But, I also think that people who make rude comments about miniaturists or collectors of any types are just rude people and probably make rude comments to everyone.

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Oh, my ... what do you have against 10-year-olds? .... and wouldn't we laugh if the kid pulled it off?

Well, living with a 9 1/2 yr old, I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would definitely not be able to build a large Victorian kit. She has been working on a small kit for the entire winter and still isn't done. She has great ideas but gets sidetracked with her other interests and new ideas so easily that she doesn't make much progress. She needs a great deal of re-focusing attention and demos as to how to accomplish new tasks.

She has completed several diorama style settings and done those fairly quickly but they were gifts or fair entries with definite time constraints and she began with those Michaels birdhouses as bases.

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You know what he does do, that is actually pretty cool..he can copy my houses ( the Tudor type) almost exactly on the video game Minecraft. It's really fun to watch him doing this. I hope all of my children learn a love of miniatures from me, that would be fantastic.

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