Trying to explain MicroMiniatures to someone who's never worked in this scale is not easy. Most can easily envision standard dollhouse scale or 1/12 where 1 inch in miniature equals 1 foot in real life. That's fairly straightforward for most people. But when it comes to MicroMiniatures, most people who are not miniaturists will say, "Don't confuse me with the math. All I know is . . . it's tiny!" Understanding the MicroMiniature scale or 1/144 where one inch equals 144 inches or 12 feet is not that difficult, but working in this scale does cause one to have to measure in very minute fractions of an inch. Oftentimes, if one understands the metric system, it is much easier to measure in millimeters or even fractions of millimeters. To give an example of MicroMiniature measurements, the average man in this scale would be about ½ inch tall (or 12-13 mm), the average child about 5/16 inch (or about 8 mm) and the average toddler would be about ¼ inch tall (or about 6 mm). The average room would be about ¾ inch tall (although we often make rooms a little taller to make it easier to see into them) and a two story house would be about 2½ - 3 inches tall (or about 65-80 mm). All of the structures I make are fully decorated, furnished and landscaped. It's difficult for me to make just a house - most of my miniatures are fully realized and detailed scenes that either tell a story or have a "back story" to go with them. They are fully populated and often the people have names and personalities. It's just more fun this way! I belong to an online community of MicroMiniature artisans. It's nice to know that there are others out there who also work in what is commonly known as "that insanely tiny scale" (although we tend to think of standard dollhouse scale as "insanely huge"). I've learned much from the members of the group and we have fun sharing our creations with each other. All of us "suffer" (actually enjoy) an affliction known to us as M.E.S., or Micro Eye Syndrome. This syndrome causes us to look at everything for it's potential use in our miniatures. For example, did you know that cat whiskers are absolutely wonderful for painting details on our miniatures? They're tiny enough to make detailing easy and yet stiff enough to handle easily. I have friends who collect whiskers that their cats shed and share them with me for this purpose. Other items that work well in miniature are tiny little rivets (planters), false eyelash clumps (flowers), decorative staples (furniture), wooden coffee stirrers (wood planks), and bullet shaped pierced earring backs (tables). Nothing is discarded without first considering it's potential use in minis. One starts to see flower pots in tiny seed beads, wine glasses in price tag holders, birds in no-hole beads, and mirrors in metallic confetti. M.E.S. makes one see the world around us in a whole new way. Once you become a real MES Sufferer you will wonder why it took you so long to give MicroMinis a try!  It's amazing how quickly one's family can also develop M.E.S. My husband and daughter often come to me and say, "Before I throw this away, I thought maybe you could use it to make . . . " The syndrome is quite contagious and we love spreading it to others. So, now that you understand this "insanely tiny scale" just a bit more, sit back and check out the links below to see some of the projects I've completed. There are others in progress and I will post photos of those as they are completed.