who is elsa?

My name is Emma, I’m the founder and creator of Elsa’s Mini Emporium.

I guess you might be wondering why my emporium isn’t named after me? ….. let me explain!

My grandmother ‘Nina’ (pronounced: N-‘in’-ah) passed away in 2019. We always referred to her as Nina, as she detested all the traditional labels that would allude to ‘old’ age such as Gran, Granny, Grandmother, Nana, Nona: you name it - she hated it! .. so after the birth of my older brother, she devised her own plan to stay young forever, and from that day, the title of Nina emerged!

Nina was an eccentric artist, and an undeniably talented one. I would always fondly admire her bold Balinese paintings, delicately precise Japanese watercolours, high-end 50’s fashion designs, crocheted teddy bears, cross-stitch masterpieces and beautifully crafted silk embroidery - and that is just to name a few! She was creative, she was unique.

With me? .. not so much. I never had a desire to delve into the ultimate world of craft, it just wasn’t my ‘thing’.. Not that I had anything against it, but looking back, I guess generationally I was drawn to alternative ventures. Although I admired the beguiling universe of crafts, I just didn’t possess an ambition to drive me towards it, or to absorb it. In my troubled times, Nina would regularly encourage me to “take up a craft” and that “it will help me” … but I never did, while she was alive…

With Nina’s many talents aside, she was delightfully peculiar, and we often shared a common indulge in lewd and risqué subjects. We used to giggle with excessive immaturity at pictures from the 1970 book Peter Fendi: 40 Erotic Aquarelles which contained, well.. the title explains itself! As we would chucker at such vulgar content, like two mischievous pre-teens buried in a makeshift pillow-fort during a sleepover, I always remember and cherish the kittenish glimmer in her eyes.

Shortly after Nina passed, Covid-19 reared it’s monstrous head, the world turned upside down, and swiftly I found myself in isolation. Along with many others who reside on this fragile planet we call earth, my mind began boggle with sporadic ideas brewed from a trove of subconscious treasures I’d yet to ever acknowledge beforehand. Then on a rainy, early-covid day I remembered when I was younger I had this teeny little silver toaster where I could press the toasting lever down just like the ‘human’ version… I felt such a warm sense of nostalgic giddiness. I had to have more.

What began as a simple fishing expedition for a little toaster emerged to an obsessive spiral into the wide world of miniatures, and the more I scrabbled, the further I delved. I explored all corners of the internet, and I couldn’t stop. I found my passion. Being a noticeably short person at only 157cm, I’ve always encouraged my height ‘restriction’ in comparison to the phrase good things come in small packages, but miniatures have led me to embrace a new admiration to the locution.

The basis of my business is the sale of unique, conventional dollhouse, unorthodox, handcrafted and peculiar miniatures predominantly in 1:12 (1 inch) scale, with a large and growing range in 1:6 scale.

Nina, I finally found my craft !!

My Nina’s name is Elsa Gamboni, and this is HER emporium