Creating a little bit of birthday magic
Shannon May wanted to challenge herself to see if she could bring an idea to life and her twinkling birthday scene proved she could
BY PAM NORTH
Shannon May’s interest in miniatures and introduction to the hobby began simply – atelevision ad for a doll’s house kit she saw, and she decided she wanted one. Although she never bought that one, she was already hooked. Her current career involves designing her own range of laser-cut 1/24th scale miniatures, which she mostly sells online.
Her only formal training for the miniature field encompasses painting lessons from a professional ar tist for the last six years, which she discovered helped her beyond just the obvious improvements in painting techniques; she also learned about colour, composition, shape, scale, and form, all of which are very useful.
For inspiration she takes endless photos of buildings, furniture, gardens, and uses Pinterest and Instagram. “There is so much out there, you just have to look,” she said. “Although the flip side to that is it can also be very overwhelming!”