The Biggest Little Christmas Showdown on HGTV!

BREAKING MINI NEWS! A new @HGTV show about #MINIATURES is about to premier and features Darren T. Scala (me!) from D. Thomas Miniatures and my talented team partner, the delightful May Burnett, as we face a fierce tournament-style competition to build winning miniatures! (Press Release http://bit.ly/BLCSHGTV).

The Biggest Little Christmas Showdown is a fun, quirky, reality-based four- part series hosted by Tony Award® winning actor James Monroe Iglehart from Broadway's Aladdin and Hamilton.

Each week only one team will wow the spirited panel of judges which includes HGTV designer Genevieve Gorder, Dave Asling, best known for his work on Welcome to Marwen, and our own darling of the mini world June Clinkscales!

Winning teams will advance to the next round of this cheerful competition and in the final round, the top contenders will craft their most extravagant mini holiday houses ever for a chance at the ultimate victory: a grand prize worth $50,000 and the surprise of a lifetime when their winning miniature is replicated into a full sized magical vacation home decked out for the season.

Mark your calendars, this show premiers on Friday, November 27, at 9 p.m ET/PT on HGTV and is expected to be AWESOME and the BIGGEST thing to hit the MINI WORLD in a long time!

On her Harry Potter's Greenhouse piece featuring live plan You have to be a carpenter. You have to be a builder. You have to be a painter. You have to do plants

Meet the Miniaturist: Louise Krasniewicz!

We had a casual chat with Louise Krasniewicz on a Meet the Miniaturist Zoominar on Saturday, May 30, 2020.

Louise is an author, educator and a miniaturist. Her work has been featured in several exhibitions in our gallery including BadAss Miniatures and WeeResist. We were also privileged to have her award winning work, Rear Window, on display.

We learned more about her work in miniature, discovered what inspires her and we talked about some of her theories about miniatures.

"I’m interested in the idea of world making...I’m interested in miniatures, as makers, as people who create worlds that they invite you into and then you get to experience their vision of that world."

We talked a bit about her award winning REAR WINDOW, a 1/12 scale replication of the studio set from the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock film.

"If you make a miniature it should be about a story so that you put elements into your scenes that are hints or keys or clues to what your story is but you don’t tell the whole story so that people have a way to enter your world and try and figure out what’s going on."

On her Harry Potter's Greenhouse piece featuring live plants:

"I’m not a skilled artist. I mean I never took art training at all  but what I like about miniatures is you have to do everything. You have to be a carpenter. You have to be a builder. You have to be a painter. You have to do plants. You have to do all those things so that's one of the appeals of miniatures, to me, is I don’t think I would be good at any one art form but I like combining all these together."

How did she make all those birds in her miniature replication from this famous scene from Hitchcock's The Birds (1963)?:

"What I love to do when I make a miniature is do the research and then figure out, do problem-solving, like how am I going to do this? How am I going to get this done? That’s where the new technology has really helped me because I don’t want to be inhibited in what I do because I can’t make something."

Regarding technology and the use of modern tools and techniques used to make miniatures:

"What it has done to the miniature world, however, it’s not always positive... because you see now a lot of the kits that are laser cut but you don’t get the beauty of something that is totally handmade... in some ways all this technology will help us value more the people who can make these exquisite things by hand and I hope that’s what happens."

Catch the entire Meet the Miniaturist broadcast here or learn more about Louise on her blogs and websites:

Flower Show Minis

Krazy Miniatures

The Wonder Of Miniatures

A BIG thank you to Louise for joining us for this call - we look forward to having her back in a future broadcast!

Meet the Miniaturist: Chris Toledo!

Join D. Thomas on Saturday, May 16th at 4pm EDT for a live ZOOM interview with the awesome L.A. based artist and miniaturist Chris Toledo!

Chris is best known for his work crafting realistic 1/12 scale historically accurate dollhouses and room boxes which are mind-bogglingly realistic treasures! He has been featured in numerous mainstream online, TV and print publications including the Los Angeles Times, ABC tv and Insider. He has a large and growing following of miniacs from all over the world and we’re thrilled to be able to host him in our virtual studio!

Hop online for our casual chat with Chris this Saturday as we get to know the artist, learn more about his work and talk about our favorite topic…miniatures!

We’ll learn more about his process, his inspirations and what’s next for this talented miniaturist.

To attend, simply download the free ZOOM software/app to your smart phone or computer and log on by clicking the following link at the appropriate time:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4528361304

Attendees will have a chance to ask Chris questions at the end of the interview! We’ll also be live streaming on the D. Thomas Fine Miniatures Facebook page - so you can ask questions in the zoom chat box or in the FB comments section, we’ll try to get to all of them!

See you there!