Cornwall General Store
Hedgehogs aren’t particularly known for their mercantile skills, but after a trip to Germany in my mid-twenties, I found a number of wee ones (made, I believe, by Steiff) and so decided to give them a try at fulltime employment as the staff of a small general store. So, for the past 37 years, a hedgehog shop keeper, baker and butcher have more than adequately staffed a small general store in my living room. Incredibly, one particular lady hedgehog has faithfully shopped the store daily all this time too. Quite a testament to the store’s longevity and to the unswerving loyalty of a patron! The store itself was made by my father in his basement wood shop. I explained to him that I wanted a room box with shelves to display miniatures I’d collected. He decided to make one that would maximize the minis’ visibility by angling the side walls out at a 115 degree angle. The end effect was rather like a theatre set where all the props would be visible to any member of the audience from any vantage point. He added a sliding glass panel for the ceiling of the shop to allow light to illuminate the room and another for the front wall so the viewer could look inside the shop. I painted the interior wall white for brightness and painted and glued in some turquoise-colored shelves. Filling them, of course, was the easy part!
A trip to Spain and Portugal provided me with some wooden wine caskets and a ‘bota’ or a portable, leather wine bottle common in the Basque region. A miniscule clay mouse from Mexico was the inspiration for including the U.S. mail office, where, if you look closely, in one of the slots you can see a mouse brashly reading a letter in broad daylight. (Hopefully, he’ll spot the mouse trap at the far end of the mail counter and take an alternate route home!) All throughout the store are tiny mementos from travels to Germany, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Colombia and India.
Ms. Hedgehog has her cart loaded with food stuffs, including a loaf of hedgehog bread and knitting yarns to make some striped socks. The hedgehog baker and butcher take time out for a chat while a little beagle looks expectantly at the yummy sausage hanging from the butcher’s hand. The hedgehog store keeper has his keys dangling from his hands and his stepping stool at the ready should he need to ring you up. At 3.5” tall, fetching things from the higher shelves and ringing in the sales has its challenges!
My sister Amy painted the headboard sign, ‘Cornwall General Store,’ for me with oil paints. This normally sits at the top front of the store. With a screw eye on either end, hooks attached to the upper sides of the roombox swing into the screw eyes and thus hold the sign upright. The sign also hides and keeps both the top and front pieces of glass in place. My other sister Leslie made the little postal cards and packages and the record jackets from mailer record advertisements and these line the top shelves. My mother made small flour, tea and sugar canisters from wooden spools topped with beads and I crafted two or three pocket books from folded felt and glass beads, some teeny dolls from toothpicks and a basket of oranges amongst other things. You could say this room box was a family affair! Of course, like any other miniaturist with a fervent penchant to collect, I periodically add little ‘wudgets’ or minis, as my mother used to call them, to my general store. And nobody smiles more broadly than those little hedgehogs when I do.
-Eleanor Kilham
Read MoreA trip to Spain and Portugal provided me with some wooden wine caskets and a ‘bota’ or a portable, leather wine bottle common in the Basque region. A miniscule clay mouse from Mexico was the inspiration for including the U.S. mail office, where, if you look closely, in one of the slots you can see a mouse brashly reading a letter in broad daylight. (Hopefully, he’ll spot the mouse trap at the far end of the mail counter and take an alternate route home!) All throughout the store are tiny mementos from travels to Germany, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Colombia and India.
Ms. Hedgehog has her cart loaded with food stuffs, including a loaf of hedgehog bread and knitting yarns to make some striped socks. The hedgehog baker and butcher take time out for a chat while a little beagle looks expectantly at the yummy sausage hanging from the butcher’s hand. The hedgehog store keeper has his keys dangling from his hands and his stepping stool at the ready should he need to ring you up. At 3.5” tall, fetching things from the higher shelves and ringing in the sales has its challenges!
My sister Amy painted the headboard sign, ‘Cornwall General Store,’ for me with oil paints. This normally sits at the top front of the store. With a screw eye on either end, hooks attached to the upper sides of the roombox swing into the screw eyes and thus hold the sign upright. The sign also hides and keeps both the top and front pieces of glass in place. My other sister Leslie made the little postal cards and packages and the record jackets from mailer record advertisements and these line the top shelves. My mother made small flour, tea and sugar canisters from wooden spools topped with beads and I crafted two or three pocket books from folded felt and glass beads, some teeny dolls from toothpicks and a basket of oranges amongst other things. You could say this room box was a family affair! Of course, like any other miniaturist with a fervent penchant to collect, I periodically add little ‘wudgets’ or minis, as my mother used to call them, to my general store. And nobody smiles more broadly than those little hedgehogs when I do.
-Eleanor Kilham
