Tiny Treasures: Amazing Miniatures You Can Make! (American Girl Library) [Spiral-bound]

Geri Strigenz Bourget (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Series: American Girl Library

This book shows girls how to turn everyday items into dozens of amazing miniatures. Make pies from bottle caps, plates from buttons, a table from balsa wood and golf tees! Includes a special feature--a "little room" in the back of the book folds out to give girls a place to display and play with their tiny treasures. Full-color illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When it comes to miniatures, kids and grownups have very different tastes. Kids are unlikely to relate to the elaborate Victorian highboy and delicate crocheted tablecloth in Grandma's dollhouse, but they'll delight in the itty-bitty accessories that fill this clever book. A yogurt lid, cardboard jewelry box, and lollipop sticks become a bed; a mini loaf pan, clip-on earring backs, and crumbled Styrofoam make a bubble bath in a claw-foot tub; and a vending-machine prize capsule, a pizza-box lid support, and a bit of screen become an ingenious barbecue grill, complete with wafting smoke (a wisp of cotton) and grilling hamburgers (dried lentils). Excellent directions with step-by-step drawings on gatefold pages make everything easy; good color photos show off the finished project. Most items require only basic craft supplies and throwaway materials, and most can be handled almost entirely by older kids, as long as they have a reasonable amount of patience; younger ones will naturally need more supervision. Very occasionally a grownup's help is definitely required (ironing, cutting screen); these steps are clearly marked for adult involvement.

Now, what's a girl to do with all this cool little stuff? She can create wonderful miniature tableaus around her bedroom, or she can, of course, outfit a dollhouse. Or she can simply turn to the back of the book, where a fold-out section turns into a stand-up room, ready to be filled with her own tiny treasures. --Amy Handy

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Spiral-bound: 88 pages
• Publisher: American Girl (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156247667X
• ISBN-13: 978-1562476670
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 6.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #268,746 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A barrel of tiny, tiny monkeys, May 8, 2000

By 

S. J. Goodwin (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tiny Treasures: Amazing Miniatures You Can Make! (American Girl Library) (Spiral-bound)

A savvy friend gave this book to me after discovering that I'd found a Barbie Doll that looked like me (mortifyingly enough, in my mid-twenties). I opened this little hardcover/spiral combo and gasped aloud--exquisite little how-to's on oft-neglected areas of dollhouse fun...a Twister board, a Christmas Tree, flowerpots, wedding cake, croquet, team pennants... Some conceivably Barbie-sized, and many more traditionally dollhouse-sized, like the ballet tableau and the tiny bathtub scene. (There's definitely a scalable quality to the crafts, either way). Best yet, you're not paying $20 a pop in a toy store to have impersonal pink-&-purple logo-labelled uberfeminized fluff. Instead, the book gives you 21 little projects to create with common household/hobby items, and causes you to gaze speculatively at your old tinkertoys, wondering where your glue and paints are.

I highly recommend this for a creative doll-oriented child, and the whimsical adult (who knows better, but starts building a Barbie condo on the pantry shelves).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creative and Fun, December 17, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Tiny Treasures: Amazing Miniatures You Can Make! (American Girl Library) (Spiral-bound)

This is absolutely the most precious book. All the craft ideas use items that are easy to find. And the projects are not only easy to make, but a lot of fun. Definitely recommended.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unbelievable book!, April 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Tiny Treasures: Amazing Miniatures You Can Make! (American Girl Library) (Spiral-bound)

It's just amazing what a child can make using these instructions. Two important points, though: The items are very intricate, so it's definitely not for every child; only for one who really enjoys making things with her hands. Also, it does require a list of supplies for each project.