When life gives you lemons...make a lemonade stands!

Boy, those Mondays evenings come and go far too quickly.  I keep trying to get to the blog, but you know how it is, life gets in the way.  And sometimes it's the fun things in life.  What kept me busy last Monday evening?  Playing with the mice!

When you have collected for 22 years and been a dealer for 16 you are bound to end up with a few broken mice, and by a few I mean a couple of boxes of them.  How does this happen?  Sometimes I'm just clumsy, some happened in shipping, some happened while digging through the inventory bins, and a few I even bought that way.  Oh, and let's not forget that I have pets...I have found several dragged from a desk still in their plastic bag and found later in pieces around the house.  My darling yorkie even managed to tear open the corrugated cardboard box from Her Christmas Music Lesson and gnaw the pieces off their base.  Thankfully, she has not repeated that experiment.

Many people would be upset that their expensive little hobby had met with such a tragedy.  Most dealers would file claims with insurance companies (if you do, they keep the mice).  Some dealers even sell off their broken pieces.  I have a hard time parting with any broken pieces because each represents a new potential.  So every so often I play with my broken mice and create new mice from the parts.

Now if a mouse has just come apart at the glue spot on the base, then I give it a quick dab of glue and it is good as new.  I don't consider that broken.  I'm talking about pieces that need actual repair work.  The majority have broken legs, one or both.  Sometimes it's the bases that break or the ears or another part on the piece.  I'm no expert at repair and I am always reluctant to just glue it back together the way it came because it usually looks awful.  Add to that the fact the heirs to my collection have said over and over that the first order of business after I'm in the ground is to sell off the bulk of my collection and I'd prefer they were selling pieces in good condition, not poorly repaired items.  And with those reasons comes the fun part.  OK, so maybe I also enjoy doing this just a bit too.

I float most parts from the original piece and then glue the broken parts back together.  Now I am left with a bunch of bases, mice and parts.  As I am working I look at a piece and get an idea of what it looks like it might be doing.  For example, you can see in the photo I have taken the piano from Her Christmas Music Lesson.  The bench seat was beyond repair, but made a good footstool.  I had a Hipster whose hula hoop had broken from his body, but left the part still glued to his body.  I put the three together and the Hipster was the perfect height to play the piano when on the footstool.  It also hid his hoop remnant stuck to his belly.  I added a broken Christmas Belles mouse and a couple of packages and voila!

I don't re-paint the pieces so they have some chips and other flaws where the paint has been removed, but most are hidden well enough for my taste.  If there is a glaring white spot I'll hit it with a little chalk to tone the color down.  It's mostly just simple rearranging of the parts.

This photo shows a broken Dragon Dress Up and Halloween Night.  I soaked their broken feet off, re-glued them on, made some base repairs and then swapped them.  The old Halloween Night is now a Hagrid's Hut with his dragon Norbert.  I have it in my Harry Potter Wizard School scene.

The little mice left one the one base are in my Tricks or Treats display.



So as you see, when life gives you lemons (or broken mice), make lemonade.  I'm still waiting for a broken Kissin' Katie.  When life hands me that lemon, I am making a lemonade stand...

Cookout Series...

One of the first lines introduced by Of Mice & Mini's was our Cookout Series.  It all started with a little chef mouse called Come & Get It.  It was summer.  He needed a BBQ to cook outdoors.  So after a trip to hobby lobby, a wooden bowl, nails, screen, glitter glue and black sand later, I turned him into a pit master.  We added a fimo hot dog and hamburger to top it off.  From there we went on a food theme and created a BBQ Meat Table with hamburgers, hot dogs and roasters.  Of course you also need something sweet so we made a S'mores Table with marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate bars.    I'm not the most talented food artist by any means, but these get the message across and make for a fun little summer outing for any of the mice to enjoy.

Mini Mondays...

Of Mice and Mini's is a line of miniature accessories designed to complement and enhance your Wee Forest Folk displays.  Every Monday we will be blogging about our latest creations, new finds, our current inventory lines, display ideas, tips, other artists and all kinds of things regarding miniatures when it comes to Wee Forest Folk.  For those who don't know, Wee Forest Folk are a line of collectible animal figurines, mostly mice, that do what people do. They are made in Carlisle, Massachusetts by the Petersen family and their team of employees.  Each figurine ranges from 1"-2" in height and is a tiny work of art on it's own, but some of us like to take things a step further.  We create homes and scenes for these little creatures.  Some of them live better off than we do.  Heck, most of them do.

Making displays, scenes and accessorizing your mice, as we call them, isn't all that hard.  But it isn't all that easy either.  No one scale works perfect with them. Some 1" scale miniatures, while large, will be okay in some circumstances.  Half-inch miniatures are the truest scale for the body size, but not the height.  The mice are stubby little critters. Half-inch scale tables and chairs, while a good width, will be much too tall.  Quarter scale furniture works nicely for the height and while they are smaller in scope, they let the mice be the star of any display.  Mix and matching scales is the best approach when looking for miniatures for the mice.  It's a process that requires some patience and flexibility.

I've been collecting the mice since 1990.  I started selling them in my shop in 1996.  I was buying displays, but started making my own in the late 90's and that's when I became a miniaturist.  I am now a miniature artist in some respects.  You will see in our inventory and future blog posts some of the items I have created. But I don't only make from scratch.  My talents are limited.  So I like to find items I can repurpose to work with the mice.  I put together some items from kits that were created by other miniature artists.  I also eye some pre-made items that I know will work as something else for the mice.  I snatch them up and add them to the line as well.  Our inventory is an eclectic mix of all of the above.

We hope you will enjoy our Mini Mondays and come back to see our miniature treasures featured that week.