Meet the Yorkshire Woman Handcrafting Miniatures for Dolls Houses
In the heart of the Yorkshire Wolds, Pauline Millard meticulously crafts tiny, doll-sized, versions of household items for the dedicated customers of her business, Weaverthorpe Dolls House Miniatures
'It’s incredible how appealing even the most mundane
of everyday items become when they’ve been
so meticulously recreated in miniature'
It wasn’t long before her tiny creations began to attract admiration. ‘People were asking “Can you make me some?” so I began thinking I might as well just start selling them,’ she explains. Since then the business has grown and grown. ‘There are 200,000 different items,’ says Pauline. ‘It’s quite big scale in the miniature business.
‘Everything in your real house, I make in miniature,’ she continues. ‘If I’m looking through a catalogue, and I see a real, life-sized cabinet, I’ll sit and make it in miniature.
‘At the moment, we’re making a seaside resort,’ she continues. ‘Hook the duck, and chase the horse: all the stalls on the show ground. We went to the seaside and took photos. Now we’re making them in 12 scale… that’s our project at the moment.’
For the uninitiated like myself, 12 scale means reducing dimensions items to a twelfth of their usual size (ie. a foot becomes an inch). ‘If you’ve got a six-inch doll, you’ve got to make a cabinet for that six inch doll,’ she explains. ‘I make a set [to display the items on] first, and then I take them up and down the country to exhibitions. I have it on display and then have boxes of other ones I’ve made when anyone wants to buy one. So we take these things to exhibitions at least twice a month; Devon, Cornwall, Scotland… everywhere!’
It’s incredible how appealing even the most mundane of everyday items become when they’ve been so meticulously recreated in miniature. ‘At the moment I’m making a carrier bag,’ says Pauline. ‘I like making little carrier bags. I make them out of card, and print the name on. At the moment I’m making wool shop and flower shop ones, these are only about an inch high.’
So what are Pauline’s favourite projects? ‘I like doing the village shop ones,’ she says. ‘I do a village bike to go with it and I even put all the food in the bike.’
Pauline’s work draws in enthusiasts from far and wide. ‘They come from all over: Holland, Germany. You wouldn’t believe how many people are into it,’ she says. The main challenge Pauline faces is keeping up with demand, but the amount of work doesn’t seem to bother her. If anything, the doctor underestimated just how much focus she would end up finding. ‘It’s very addictive,’ she laughs. ‘I just can’t stop!’
