How I Live... Little Treasures Meet The Goddess Of Small Things

Karen Joyce (57) is a Miniaturist, Crafting Elaborately Detailed Replicas of Real-life Scenes

- Julie Jacobson

“I used to own a hairdressing salon. One of my clients, a lovely lady, came in one day talking about how she made miniatures.

I’d never heard of miniature making, but she said, ‘Oh, we’ve got an open day over at Ellerslie. Why don’t you come along and have a look?’

I talked my husband Bernard into it, over we drove and there were people making these absolutely delightful little buildings and things. I thought, ‘Wow, this is neat, I can do this.’ That was about 14 years ago.

I had dolls as a child, but I wouldn’t say I was passionate about them. Miniature work is more about the craft for me − the actual making and building, rather than the dolls, whereas some people absolutely love the doll-making part of that.

And it’s not dollhouses as such, it’s more what I would call miniature scenes or replicas of real life.

I belong to the Waitakere Miniature Makers Club in Auckland. It’s an extraordinary little club, hidden away − though not on purpose − in the beautiful Tui Glen Reserve in the heart of Henderson. The park is used by families for picnics and that sort of thing, and right in the middle is a little Scout den and that’s where the 17 members meet once a month to work on our projects.

I work in 1:12 scale (sometimes called a one-inch scale), which is the most common and gained popularity after being used in Queen Mary’s 1924 dollhouse, but there’s a lot of people doing 1:48 scale these days, and there’s one in our group who does 1:6 scale which is the ‘fashion doll’ or Barbie doll scale.