Jamie's Miniatures - The Collector's Choice and Beginner's Friend - Hobbies - http://maxpages.com/jamiesminis/A_World_In_Her

Business Keeps Belfast Woman Thinking Small.
By Tanya Mitchell
The Republican Journal

Belfast -Jamie Lucas' shop is a small world. And after all, it's just the way she likes it.
Lucas is the owner of Jamie's Miniatures in Haymarket North on Route 1, where everyday objects have been scaled down to a twelfth or less their orginal size.
With the sunlight streaming through the windows and acting like spotlights on the dioramas, Lucas stood between narrow shelves last Friday that display everything form tiny cubes of sugar to mini-Raggedy Anne and Andy dolls. She loomed as a gentle giant in her miniature world as she prepared for another day in a place where there's a little bit of everything and everything is very little.
Many people come into the shop to find trimmings for shadow boxes: framed, flat wall hangings with variously sized compartments that hold a collection of miniatures. Lucas said that miniatures can be used to create rooms using something like a wooden wine box or a doll house.
Others come to Lucas' shop during off-hours to learn how to create miniature worlds of their own. She teaches classes on topics such as wiring mini rooms for electricity so that the small lamps will glow as full-sized lamps. Creating a miniature world - be it a greenhouse, gym or Victorian mansion - is a visual form of expression for both children and adults.
"It doesn't need to be a doll house. It can be anything you want," said Lucas. "You can make a landscape or a campsite. It can be anything that you can imagine."
Designers of a miniature world not only choose the setting, but also the perspective. Room makers have to decide whether the point of view of the project should be from the outside looking in, or the inside looking out. Lucas recalled on of her customers who made a "reversed general store", a store where the point of view was from the inside of the store looking out the front door.
Lucas has had little luck in generating interest in miniature worlds to children.
"Maybe it's got to do with money, where a lot of parents will think, 'Oh, it's such an expensive hobby'",said Lucas. "But there are a lot of inexpensive, make-it-yourself kits that you can buy to start out with, or you can even make a lot of your own things. It just depends on what you want to do with it.
The price of creating a miniature world varies. Lucas said there are some mini pieces valued over one thousand dollars in stores that feature the works of a particular miniature maker. Prices in Lucas shop vary from a $59 stove from Germany to a mini toilet plunger that will cost you a quarter.
Creating miniature worlds can also involve recycling. Clipping book titles and scale advertisements and then gluing them to cardboard is a way to create an instant library or cupboard scene.
Those who pursue the mini market can find run-of-the-mill tinies such as a dinette set or an upholstered couch and love seat at the Belfast establishment. Another more detail-oriented miniature shopper, says Lucas, may be searching for an accent such as a micro sized lobster dinner complete with a dish of melted butter or a pair of men's tan leather boots to dry by a miniature fireplace.

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Jamie's Miniatures
139 Searsport Ave Route 1
Belfast	Maine	04915
USA
1-207-338-0516
1-207-338-0516
jamies@agate.net

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Page Updated Mon Jul 29, 2002 10:24pm EDT