About

I started making charms back in 2010, focusing on food (mostly sweets and baked goods) - hense the name 'SugarCharmShop'.

In 2011 I found out about the world of 1:12th scale miniatures and didn't look back. I mostly focus on food but enjoy creating pieces within a variety of categories such as dolls, animals, furniture and ceramics. 

Why miniatures?

If you had said to me, when I was a kid, that one day I'd spend the majority of my time making tiny replicas of real life objects with the focus on food, I probably would have given you a strange look.. Not because it doesn't sound like the coolest thing ever (it does), but because I didn't know it was a thing. I had no idea that there was an entire community of dollhouse collectors until 2011.

When I think about it, it's not necessarily an odd surprise though; I've always loved and been inspired by the "visual" of food. As a kid, I had lots of plastic food to play with - and quite a lot of Barbie sized food as well. If it was summer time and my dad was getting the grill ready - my dolls would be grilling too. If it was Friday night and we were having pizza or McDonald's - my dolls would be having pizza or burgers as well. I would cut some of the hair off my "Betty Spaghetti" dolls to make pasta, and I even at one time gave polymer clay food a go (Chicken legs made with brown, shimmery clay,... quality I tell ya,.)

I loved going through cookbooks and looking at the different recipes - even when there weren't any pictures - because reading the names or the titles was still interesting somehow... And though food is one of the biggest sources of inspiration when it comes to my miniatures, it's not just food - I gain so much inspiration from almost any aspect of life; Animals, people I see on the street,.. I am so addicted to TV-shows about antiques that my boyfriend has started calling me 'an old lady' - which I'm totally okay with, by the way.

There's something satisfying about recreating life in a small scale.

Today I had this thought; I asked myself how the way I felt about making miniatures now compared to 2011 when I had just started. Do I still enjoy it as much as I did in the beginning?,. Have I gotten even remotely tired of recreating the same types of food multiple times throughout the years?,.. No. If anything, I am enjoying it so much more than I did back then.. Part of that has to do with the progress I've made. but it most definitely also has to do with the fact that I'm less limited now.

As an example; Back in 2011 when I used to buy miniature ceramics off ebay, it didn't take long for me to think ''how cool would it be, if I could make ceramics myself?''. At that time it seemed like a very unrealistic thought - I didn't have much knowledge when it came to that type of equipment, the only reference I had in my head of a kiln, was the big kilns they had in the 'art rooms' of schools. I was living in a small apartment, which I moved into with my boyfriend in the late summer of 2010 - clearly not spacious enough for such a kiln and I most definitely wouldn't have been able to pay for it either. The area I was sitting at the time, when working on my miniatures, was a desk in the corner of our living room.

Fast forward to now; We still live in an apartment, but slightly larger,. I have a craft room/studio to work in,. I've since 2011 learnt that kilns come in much smaller sizes - which are not only a better option financially, but make a lot of sense for someone who only wants to fire miniatures. I now have the supplies and tools needed to work with wood, metal and other materials, which then offer new inspiration. So if anything, I am loving what I do, more than ever before, and I am truely grateful that this is something I get to do.