I’ve always wanted to have a 1:6 scale grocery store set, but I’ve always been daunted by the amount of tiny packages needed to create a realistic market. Therefore I started with a produce section, thinking that I could leave all the other sections to the imagination. [Funnily enough, I said pretty much the same thing, in much the same words, when I first started this set.]
According to my records, I first started work on my produce section back at the end of 2018. It looked something like this…
The Magister poses with fruit made from Aves Apoxie Sculpt, novelty erasers, and heat mold plastic.
The grocery store set increased in sophistication last year with my purchase of a 1959 Wolverine tin lithographed toy grocery store backdrop and deli counter.
Here’s Little Night in Cooking Pizza IV, the photostory in which the deli counter debuted. As I said in that entry about the deli counter, “It originally [stood] just about 2 or 3 inches high, so I washed it with some warm water and dish soap and then mounted it on the counter of my Mattel Barbie Coca Cola Soda Fountain. I covered the scratched, stained countertop with white paper. The red on the deli counter matches the red trim of the counter set, creating a convincing deli.”Here’s Emeraud [left] and Little Day [right] in front of the grocery store backdrop in Cooking Pizza IX. As I said in that entry about the backdrop, “Because the backdrop is just 11″ high, I chose a shorter customer to appear with Day in the store.” The backdrop also has two fold-out walls with built-in shelves, barely seen here.
Recently inspired to return to the grocery store set, I started with a photo census of my produce.
I’m pretty well stocked for fruit, but I have frustratingly few vegetables. I also don’t have enough containers to hold the produce. To solve this problem, I bought some vegetable/tuber staples [potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots] and a crapload of miniature baskets, which should be here eventually.
I began to lay out my new and improved produce section. The fold-out shelves on the grocery backdrop gave me some much-needed shelf space. I thought that I could expand the produce section with displays of local foods and food-related things. I want to make some signs for the fridge advertising local salad kits and salsa inside. Some of my cookbooks, with covers taken from vintage or antique produce crates and canned goods, are on the floor because I thought I might make a display of them.I figured that I could make the produce section seem convincingly full by making some boxes for produce to put under the tables and on the lower shelves. I spent quite a few hours today constructing miniature boxes, printing out labels and stickers, and gluing everything together. Fortunately I already had beautiful labels from my forays into miniature cookbooks and canned goods, so I used those.
The two pictures above show the current status of the grocery store set. With the addition of the deli counter, the room seems more full and realistic. [Ketch, behind the counter, is saying hi to Frossinaffe, who has the cart.]
I’m not done yet. Besides the vegetables, tubers, and baskets, I’m also awaiting a table with an awning over it from @natalunasans — perfect for holding my veggies on top and some produce boxes below. Fridge also needs some signs, as does the deli. I also want to stick the cookbooks somewhere.
