18 June 2020 V2

Miniature Time Traveller Magazine Issue #18 17 This shop was made as part of a club project for the 2018 Convention “Shop ’til you Drop”. Some of the members challenged me to get out of my comfort zone and build a 1/24th scale shop. Challenge accepted, but what a shock when the kits arrived and I realised just how much smaller 1/24 scale is. I had been reading about how some wealthy and learned gentlemen of the 18th and 19th centuries would collect interesting artefacts from around the world, and display them in curiosity cabinets, and how these were the precursors of the natural history museums. Realising there was money to be made, a few middle class entrepreneurs opened establishments that charged a penny to look at their collections of curiosities. I decided that a retired school teacher called Tabitha would open a shop called Tabitha’s Antique Books and Curiosities, and fill it with interesting things sourced from around the world. I had lots of fun sourcing ideas from Pinterest and making things for the shop. The Roman section has pieces of frescos from Pompeii, Roman vases and a slave collar. There are boomerangs and didgeridoos from Australia, and Maasai shields and masks and a djembe drum from Africa. The Egyptian section has a mummy in a coffin, pieces of Egyptian wall art, scrolls of parchment, a stone plaque, a gold statue of the god Anubis, and a leather covered archeologist’s journal. In the corner cabinet there are a Weta in kauri gum, shells, a dinosaur fossil, bejeweled vases and boxes and a real amethyst geode. In the front corner of the shop is a bookcase filled with books, a few scattered on the floor, and a tiny little cat sound asleep on a chair. The shop counter, in the middle of the room, houses an open Egyptian scroll and various antique books including a book of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings. On the top of the counter is a shrunken head in a glass case and a Medieval illuminated manuscript in a glass cabinet. What fun I had with my computer, paper, cardboard, glue, Fimo, air drying clay, paint, wood, thin leather and a few jewelry findings . Shop ‘til you drop Vicki Morris, Palmerston North, NZ