Building a miniature life
Once upon a time mother Tracy and twenty-four-year-old daughter Stephanie had a wild and crazy dream to build a miniature kitchen with running water and a real working stove. “Everyone thought we were nuts!” states Tracy.
Check out this mother/daughter mini making team…
In the beginning
Tracy has fond memories from a very young age of playing with my miniature farm collection. “I would set up the barns, tractors, build winding roads, add people and cover the carpet with rolling pastures and fill them with farm animals. I have always been fascinated with anything miniature, that has never changed.” Having grown up Tracy married, had two children and began raising her family. During this time Stephanie had the coolest dolls house, purchased second hand. She and her friends spent hours playing with it and all of her dolls. “I had a hard time parting with it, although as she grew older, we really didn’t have a place to store it, so we sold it. I always regretted the day the new family drove away with it on the back of their truck.” Recalls Tracy. Fast forward a few years and the children had become young adults however Tracy stumbled upon
a second hand dolls house and in hopes to renovate it and started collecting miniatures again. A poignant time for Tracy, “Stephanie would giggle as she walked by rolling her eyes saying, Mom, aren't you too old to be playing with miniatures?”. Tracy soon became fascinated watching miniature cooking videos and would tease Stephanie by bombarding her messages with all kinds of miniature cooking videos. “It soon turned into, wouldn't that be cool if you built a mini kitchen so we could try cooking in miniature?” says Tracy, “That's when we started to DREAM! The more cooking videos we watched, the more we were inspired to start our own YouTube Channel. And so our My Miniature Life journey began. I'm sure our friends and family thought we had lost our marbles and couldn't understand WHY ON EARTH we would want to cook in miniature and how we would even make it all happen.”
Building the foundations
January of 2018 saw Tracy start to build the miniature set, even purchasing a teeny tiny table saw and miter saw to help in the process. “I laid real miniature ceramic tiles on the floor as well as the backsplash in the kitchen, and we began collecting miniatures for our scenes”. During the build, Tracy made some of her own miniatures including updating an old kitchen cabinet with new doors and opening drawers. “We built the kitchen sink so it has real running water so we can fill mini pots for the stove and wash dishes.” Tracy proudly states, “I also built our fireplace from cardboard and tiny ceramic tiles. It includes a very realistic looking cracking fire in the background. Since then, we have made lots of random miniatures to add to our scenes.”
Learning the ropes
It took just over a year to plan, build and learn everything there was to know about lighting, cameras, filming, editing and all the other equipment needed proving to be quite the learning curve. “I have to say at times, quite challenging and overwhelming” admits Tracy, “So much more goes into it than we ever imagined. We spend hours setting up different scenes and many, many hours photographing, filming and editing. It's truly a labour of love.” The very first YouTube footage was shot and My Miniature Life" started to spring into life in the spring of 2020. “Our main mission, was to make people smile AND try and confuse them thinking our miniature worlds, were life-size until they saw our hand enter the screen.” says Stephanie. It is for this reason a hand or finger is now always included to show the scale, even in daily Instagram and Facebook posts.
Together the pair managed to make seven YouTube films in the first few months before Tracy's elderly parents needed more of her time and caring for them became priority. It became more difficult to find the time to film and edit, so Stephanie came up with a plan. “I thought why don't we start an Instagram account and spread miniature joy through photos as they take less time to do than editing for YouTube videos right now?" Tracy recalls the idea, “I didn't even know what Instagram was or what a hashtag was... it makes me laugh now! Thank goodness for the young ones who are so up to date with all this social media stuff.” And so, with Covid at full swing, the pair set out again on a new journey, with hopes to brighten people's day and started My Miniature Life on Instagram. “Never in our wildest dreams did we think we would gain over 22,000 followers in just over 10 months!” says an amazed Tracy, “We are simply a mom, and a daughter who have great passion for anything in miniature. Just like so many others who have the same passion.”
Story time
As visual storytellers, Tracy and Stephanie now enjoy bringing everyday scenarios to life with their miniature scenes. “It makes it more fun when people can relate to their own life experiences” says Tracy, “We like to include real props like coffee in a miniature cup, stuffing, mashed potatoes and even bake and slice our own teeny tiny loaves of bread. Oh the endless hours of fun my daughter and I have together… we laugh for hours!”
With obviously very creative minds behind it, stories on My Miniature Life are constantly evolving. Thoughts such as ‘what would a miniature home be without miniature pets?' lead to exciting additions. “We have several dogs, two cats, some rodents, an aquarium and a cockatoo parrot named Luna” Stephanie mentions.
Teaming up
Tracy and Stephanie are always searching for unique miniatures to add to their scenes and have met some incredible artists from all over the world. “We are forever grateful for each and every one of them for helping make our miniature scenes possible” Tracy says, “We like to mention many of them in our daily Instagram posts so others can locate where we purchase some of our miniatures from.”
It's clear the entire journey has been a labour of love. Hours have been spent setting things up and knocking them over. “You certainly have to have lots of patience when working in miniature” says Stephanie, “The endless gut wrenching laughs we have had and the memories we have made together are memories we will cherish a lifetime. I'm so incredibly grateful to share such a wonderful hobby with my daughter Stephanie. We make a wonderful Mom and daughter team. Keep spreading those smiles.
Who says dreams don't come true?
Don't ever give up on your dreams.”