Dollhouse Miniatures as an Adult Hobby

My Hobby– let me show you it. And let me have a little rant. When I was a child, I was practicing my hobby, and it was fine and cute. When I was 10 and got into it properly, I got some very weird looks from my friends. By the time I was 12, I had class mates (and some now ex friends!) teasing me mercilessly for ‘playing with dolls’. But I don’t play with them! I said. Besides, most of the people in the club I go to are over 40!

‘Oh! So you hang out with old people!’ I just couldn’t win. But I sucked it up and continued, and I can see myself doing it forever.

What was and is my hobby? Dollhouse miniatures! These are, for me anyway, representations of daily life and different eras, in tiny house format. I don’t ‘play’ with the dolls as such… though, I have to admit I do create personas for them. I pick their little accessories and house décor based on those personas. And representing their ‘lives’ is a lot of the fun. Fits in well with my other hobby which is writing!

I work in ‘one twelfth’ (1:12) scale, which means that one inch in the dollhouse equals one foot in real life. A six foot tall man in real life would be six inches tall in one of my settings.
There are many different things that you can create in miniature! Pretty much anything. I tend to create historical houses, but others create their houses from childhood, their dream shops or businesses, scenes from books or movies, etc etc. My passion is 1895… 100 years before I got my first ‘real’ dollhouse. But I have intentions (I can practically hear future room mates or husband wincing) to have several houses of different eras– 1940s perhaps!

Something that’s fantastic about dollhouse miniatures as a hobby is that it encompasses almost every other crafty type hobby available, and can represent all the others! In the realm of dollhouse miniatures I sculpt, paint, sew, and do woodwork. It’s all just… a lot smaller. I also research and tell stories! And many things can be made from recycled full size items– spas from yoghurt containers for example!

If I can’t do a certain project myself, I can be sure that someone somewhere will be able to, and I’ll be able to swap or buy it from them.

I feel that it’s the perfect hobby for people of all ages– I just hope that more people are brave, don’t listen to peer pressure, and get into it before they turn 40, and don’t give up at age 10.