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Miniature Marvels
Published 12:00pm Monday, November 17, 2008While many women decorate their homes for the holidays with diminutive houses, like the Dickens and Snow Villages® miniatures, Cheryl Evert of Battle Lake has personally created her own tiny villages. Beginning with the shell, she affixes the siding, shingles the roof, stencils and papers the walls, and lays the flooring. She proceeds to the furnishings and pieces the microscopic quilts, needlepoints the rugs, cross-stitches the wall hangings and fashions tiny books on Lilliputian shelves. She has truly created marvels in miniature.
Enter this miniature wonderland by walking down the street of shops: reminisce at the antique shop over half-inch copper kettles and three-quarter-inch books, shop the quilt store where Cheryl has rolled over 180 different fabrics onto two-inch bolts, and finish at the Doll House Miniature shop where you can view her “dollhouse in a dollhouse.”
Next, leave the city streets to venture into a rural setting with a visit to her classic American farmhouse. Peering into the four-inch, working double-hung windows, you don’t feel like some giant creature invading a town, but rather like you have been invited into another world. Through that window are furnishings that she has hand made, such as library shelves lined with more elfin-sized books, a roll top desk, a braided rug, softly upholstered furniture. There are seven more rooms in this farmhouse, all built and furnished by Cheryl on a 1:12 scale – one foot in the real world is one inch in this small world.
You might wonder just how an interest in miniatures takes shape. Cheryl remembers getting a windfall in the 70’s and using it to purchase the shell, siding and shingles for this farmhouse. The shop owner gave her excellent advice, tips and information, which fueled her curiosity. She told us what keeps her interest and drives her to continue. “I think it is the awesome variety of techniques, styles, and challenges that engages my interest and continues to fascinate me,” Cheryl says. “I like to try new techniques and there doesn’t seem to be anything in the real world that hasn’t been tried in miniature. The endless diversity is intriguing, but also sometimes overwhelming.”
Some of her furnishings and items have been purchased, like an antique looking stove and refrigerator with working lights. Her antique shop is furnished with treasures from Cheryl’s own antique shopping. “These tiny ‘found’ items are very special to me,” she says. “It is a treat to discover them and dealers always wonder why I even want such a small thing.” Cheryl is always on the lookout for items that might add a special something to one of her rooms.
A supportive family has been important. Encouragement and appreciation from her husband, Chuck, and her two daughters has been significant. Cheryl says, “I am going to try to complete another big project so each daughter has one, but I think it might even be a burden to have such a large piece. They may wonder where they would put it in their homes. I have, however, made them promise they will not sell the furniture at a garage sale for a nickel each!”
Gazing around the living room you see the eight-room farmhouse, the four-room Christmas carousel, the street of shops, the summer gazebo, the kitchen in a bread box, the free-standing porch and a cupboard full of diminutive furniture that is still waiting for a home. Is there a favorite among her projects? “It is hard to choose”, says Cheryl, smiling. “They are all so different. Each project was an exercise in something new, like weathering, stucco, copper patina, or unique painting approaches.”
Cheryl has kept a detailed history of woman hours and costs for all her projects, along with albums filled with photos of the progression from framing to finished product. “The farmhouse has the most hours, so far,” she says. “The exterior finishing was 276 hours, 40 of those hours for the shingling, cedar shakes, one at a time.”
Consulting her records, Cheryl can establish the hours she spent on the entire project, from the shell to furnishings to the wiring for electricity. (Yes, the house is wired for electric lights and she is adamant in saying her husband did not do it!) “It took almost three years to completely furnish the farmhouse, about 425 hours,” says Cheryl. She made quilts (all hand sewn with pieces as small as one-eighth inch), upholstered chairs and sofas (using leather from gloves bought at sales), built furniture (all with hand tools), needle pointed wall hangings and rugs, and framed miniature photos of her family and other artwork for the walls. “That adds up to about 700 hours, give or take a hundred,” she says.
Although she likes to include cats in her projects, people are noticeably absent. This is a debate among miniature artists and Cheryl has her preference. “Some artists have miniature people in their houses, but I just like the idea that the house looks ‘inhabited’ without having dolls,” she comments. “Touches like open newspapers or knitting left mid stroke indicate someone suddenly left the room. That is more important to me.”
New projects are never far away from Cheryl’s mind. Her next big project is an Arts and Crafts-style house called the Craftsman Bungalow. Mission and Shaker furniture are on the list and, if that isn’t enough, the super-small 1:144- scale models intrigue her. That would be small enough to be a furnished dollhouse inside of a dollhouse.
Leaving this amazing world of wee wonders, there is a realization that this is more than a hobby. The attention to exact scale, the precision of executing furniture and furnishings so small, and the requirement that it all look authentic is the work of a dedicated artisan. Visiting Cheryl’s “small world” has revealed that these creations are not a pastime, but rather the work of a true craftswoman.
