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Metro Mini Makers host annual show this weekend

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By David Burke | Friday, May 2, 2008 11:33 AM CDT | () comments

Terry Cook has created a 3-foot-high and 5-foot-long dollhouse that would be perfect to pass along to her grandchildren.

There’s just one problem.

“I only have grandsons,” the 50-year-old grandma of three said, “I have no girls.

“I don’t know who’s going to take this stuff because my daughters aren’t interested,” she added. “I hope to have a granddaughter one of these days.”

The Davenport woman said she has her young grandsons “trained” to be around her handiwork.

“They want to touch everything and it’s not made for little hands,” she added.

Cook is a member of Metro Mini Makers and among the members who will be showing off their miniatures work today during the group’s annual show at the Isle of Capri Conference Center in Bettendorf.

She started with miniatures when she was “about 19 and poor,” but when her children came along, she had to give it up.

“Little kids don’t mix with miniatures,” she explained.

She had all but abandoned the idea of making it a hobby until about three years ago, when she and her husband — also named Terry — were looking at miniature displays at a show in Chicago. The artist she talked to happened to be from Moline and told her about the Metro Mini Makers.

Now, Cook, a school attendance keeper for Monroe Elementary, is in her third year of creating miniatures with the group.

“There were a couple of wonderful ladies that really took me under their wing,” she said.

Besides the dollhouse, her creations include a miniature Harley-Davidson shop designed for her husband, a Harley rider. The shop includes a shrunken picture of the two of them on a bike trip through the mountains.

“This is kind of his little room,” she said.

Cook says she does about “99 percent” of the work on the miniatures with her husband handling the balance, including the laying of copper wire for the roof, where she later added shingles by dipping small pieces of wood individually so they could be glued together.

She said her husband warned her he wouldn’t be much help with the new hobby during their trip back from Chicago to Davenport three years ago.

“He said, ‘There’s no doubt in my mind you can get that together yourself,’ ” she said. “In other words: He’s not helping me.”

Since the only place to find miniature materials, with the exception of this weekend’s show, is out of town, “it’s a lot of road trips,” her husband said.

“Anytime we’re out of town anywhere, if she sees something anywhere, we’ll stop.”

Among the items she’s showing this year is a picnic scene with an Iowa Hawkeyes theme. Members decided together to have a theme for a display, with each person making their own variation. They all learned to make small picnic baskets, cheeses and sausages to put in their display.

Cook says she enjoys “making something out of nothing,” but adds that the prices for miniatures pieces can vary drastically.

“The hardest part is when you find something and you really like it and it costs as much as your car did,” she said. “It’s a hobby that can be as expensive as you want it to be or as cheap as you want it to be.

“It’s knowing that you can do it yourself.”

David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.

IF YOU GO

What: Metro Mini Makers’ “Heart of the Country” miniature show and sale

When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today

Where: Isle of Capri Conference Center, Bettendorf

How much: $5 adults, $2 children