What are miniatures?
In the most general sense, a miniature is any copy of a real-life item that is smaller than the original item. So you can have a miniature of just about anything. Think of the Eiffel Tower key chain you got on your trip to Paris or the blender refrigerator magnet your co-worker gave you for your birthday. Miniatures have existed for centuries. From the elegant cabinet houses of the wealthy Dutch families to the utilitarian miniature kitchens used by the Germans to teach young girls their household duties; countless people have been fascinated by these tiny settings. Miniatures have even been found in Egyptian tombs where it is speculated that the Egyptians believed they would be needed in the afterlife. In the last few decades, the term miniatures has been used to describe the hobby of collecting and creating items in a specific scale. The most common scale used is 1:12, also known as one inch or one twelfth. In this scale, one inch in miniature equals one foot in the regular world. So
