Honey... I Shrunk Myself!

When Margie Wall was a little girl, she spent hours outdoors creating castles, habitats, and villages in miniature for imaginary creatures. "I even imagined myself shrunk down and living in these habitats," she says. Today, together with her husband John, she's owner of Stick People Miniatures in Waldport, OR, and has made a career out of building miniature tree houses and furniture.

In "Treehouse Habitats," Volume 19 of the multi-part Master Miniaturists Video Instructional Series, Margie shares with you many of the techniques she's perfected throughout the years. In this video you'll learn how to build a 2-story 1/2" scale bark treehouse made from common items such as pebbles, twigs, moss, and nuts that you can gather during a family outing.

"A lot of the fun for you in building a treehouse of your own," says Margie, "will be finding the materials." Your treehouse will become a home for bunnies, mice, fairies, elves, miniature people, and other imaginary creatures.

Although for the most part the materials you'll need to build your treehouse habitat will be found in nature, you'll also need a few other tools to help you complete the project. Section I of this video covers these in detail.

Once you've gathered your tools, you're ready to prepare the raw materials such as bark and moss. If you've gathered your materials in the wild, you will first need to de-bug them. "You don't want anything hatching out of them and eating out your house afterwards," says Margie. She then goes on to explain one of the best and easiest ways for de-bugging using very common items found in your kitchen.

You'll then begin building your treehouse from the bottom up... starting with the base, and followed by the bark which you'll prepare and cut according to Margie's detailed instructions. Next you'll move on to the first and second floors. Using the cut bark as your guide, you'll trace the outline for the second floor using grid paper.

Once the bark is glued onto the base, you'll add flooring material to the house using landscaping material, sand, dirt, or any other product of your choice. You're now ready to add the second floor. Of course, your house won't be complete without windows and doors. And in the next section of the video, you'll learn how to hinge and attach the door to your treehouse, and trace, cut, and attach the windows.

"Now for the fun part," says Margie, "Landscaping. For this you can use those things that you've collected... the rocks, the trees, the mosses... and incorporate them into your treehouse. You'll watch as your treehouse "comes to life" as each piece of landscaping material is added. You'll even build a couple of benches for your miniature creatures to rest on when they stop by for a visit, and a ladder to make it easy for them to go upstairs if they should want to sleep on one of the beds you'll prepare for them.

And speaking of beds, Margie also demonstrates a variety of furnishings you can add to your house, including a walnut shell cradle, beds made from avocado shells, birch bark table, clothes tree, and a seashell wash basin. And just in case your miniature friends get hungry, you'll learn a few recipes for fast foods made from their favorite staple: seeds.

"Treehouse Habitats" ends with a stroll down "Memory Lane" where you'll see a display of a variety of houses you can make using the same techniques you learn on this tape.