Welcome To The Tiny Pantry

I've recently rediscovered the joy of miniatures after a long break. I have a three-quarter finished Georgian doll's house (just the attic still to decorate) but my real passion lies in creating miniature food.

I've always been the same. As a small child when fimo and other specialist materials weren't so readily available, I would spend hours making tiny flat plans of food packaging out of paper and card. Cereal boxes, packets of biscuits, if it could be miniaturised I would make it.

Then a couple of years ago my Auntie Pat, who is a crafting wizard and an absolute inspiration, told me about Angie Scarr. Angie is an amazing miniaturist specialising in making food. In fact she's turned it into a full time career, something I dream of. I bought Angie's book "Making Miniature Food and Market Stalls" and learnt about techniques like caning, which is the art of stretching an intricate design to turn it into a long layered tube, small enough to chop small segments off and use it as slices of miniature food. More about caning later.

This blog is so I can share some of my creations with anyone who might like to see them. I'd love to hear any feedback, even if it's bad, as I know I've got a long way to go towards perfecting my miniature technique. This weekend I had a miniature making frenzy - below is a photo of everything I made in a short space of time. I know the cupcakes are awful, I'm not pleased with them at all, I watched a How To video on You Tube and I don't think it was a particularly good one. But I'm quite pleased with how the candy canes and lollipops turned out. I've decided to make an old-fashioned sweet shop and would love any tips, links or suggestions you might like to share.

I always work in 1/12th scale, always sticking to Fimo so I can be sure exactly what colour I'm going to get. I also use clear varnish, cocktail sticks, coloured beads and whatever else I can lay my hands on!