Suzette and MauriceBoyer - Tales in Miniature

A Miniature Bakery of Christmas Magic

by Pam North

Suzette and Maurice Boyer live in a small village in the Netherlands. Under their business name, Tales in Miniature, which aptly describes the focus of their endeavors, they make miniatures based on stories Suzette writes. Maurice is interested in architecture, and loves creating fantasy scenes, and Suzette’s talents are decorating and writing stories, so their talents mesh perfectly. Suzette works at a health insurance office and also writes books for children; Maurice works in the window film branch. Suzette explained how their involvement with miniatures began: “Last year I bought a few stuffed toy rats for my grandson to play with, and, of course, the rats needed a little room to live in, so that room grew into a sort of a ‘Rat Mansion’.....”
Combining home life and miniature life is easy for them because their children are grown, and both Suzette and Maurice share an interest in the miniature world. They find inspiration in small French villages, and despite no formal training, they manage to crystallize their ideas, creating all kinds of alternate worlds while in their kitchen workplace. Maurice finds that the greatest difficulty involved with working in miniature is that there's always something they cannot make yet themselves.
The Boyers’ bakery project is based on a small Christmas tale Suzette wrote a few years ago, which they thought would be nice to turn into a visualization. They display the miniature bakery with a copy of the story, and invite viewers of the bakery to read the story to learn the context of the bakery’s theme. The story involves a bit of Christmas magic surrounding a little stone figurine in a Christmas scene under a decorated tree in a real bakery (the story follows this article).
The entire miniature bakery, inside and out, from bottom to roof, was handmade by Maurice. Suzette created most of the bread, pastry, candy, fruit, plants and flowers, of polymer clay. She also finished out most of the interior of the workshop, the outhouse, and the attic, and sewed the mattresses, pillows, clothes, and aprons. The completed bakery is a trip to another world, complete with all the ambience and perfectly executed details, and lacking nothing but the smell of delicious fresh breads and pastries to further stimulate the appetite.
The basic material of the building is 9mm plywood. In creating the walls and roof, Maurice used a technique they had employed to decorate their garden; it's based on the ideas of the Disney theme parks. The walls are covered with a special plaster that is normally used to repair walls. For the roof tiles, Maurice used the same plaster, but painted them in another color. The floors, stairs, and ceiling are made of wooden paint-stirring sticks. Painting the walls to achieve the effect they desired was the most difficult part, but their patient and determined efforts realized exactly what they had envisioned.
They did include the work of a few other artists: the bakery lights were purchased from Ray Storey at a dollhouse fair; some accessories, such as keys, doorhandles, and cupboard displays are from Artofmini; the barrels, ladder, and rusty bucket are from Ashtown; and the French toilet is from Fennicole Ceramics Miniatures. As it was their first project, it’s rather special to them, and they have decided not to part with it. However, they say, if anybody is interested and willing to pay a good price, they will be happy to build another one!
The Boyers plan to visually construct other tales Suzette has written over time, and next will be a set of stories that are situated in an old inn, so the project will be an inn. “I'd like to run workshops,” Suzette remarked. “I'd love to be able to visualize my stories for everyone to enjoy. We would like the readers to know that we are over the moon for this opportunity to show our work in this magazine!”

Christmas Tale  (written by Suzette Boyer, edited by Pam North)
The heavy sound of the church bell echoed six strikes into the cold darkness, landing together in the snow that had fallen slowly all night into the empty streets and alleys. Inside the small houses everything still was dark, and here and there someone would yawn and cuddle more under the warm blankets. All was quiet. Or was it?
Halfway down one of the narrow alleys, there was a shimmer of light, a warm glow from inside a bakery's workshop that made the snow look like gold outside the door . Here the baker and his boys had been working since four o'clock that morning. All sorts of breads, baguettes, and croissants, still hot from the oven, were lying on the shelves beside salty pretzels and raisin breads filled with nuts and plum puree. There were baskets filled with almond biscuits, chocolate cakes, and braided bread with powdered sugar. On a plate placed on the wooden counter top, were a heap of pains au chocolats, different kinds of chocolate sweets and bonbons, and a small whatnot held five big bundt cakes with red and green candied fruit sprinkled on them. A delicious smell filled both the bakery and the alley outside.
Alongside the counter on an empty yeast barrel there stood a Christmas tree, decorated with all kinds of treats. Small dried apples and cloved oranges were hanging from the branches, as well as cinnamon sticks, gingerbread men, small pretzels, and  red ribbons holding sugar biscuits.
A closer look revealed something else. Partly hidden among the green branches was a small stone figurine of a sweet little girl, wearing an elegant skirt and sturdy black boots. Around her  shoulders was a shawl to protect her from the winter cold. Her hands were upheld, as if someone was about to give her something, and her eyes curiously looked around at all the pretty decorations that surrounded her. 
The baker and his boys, by now covered from head to toe in flour as white as the snow in the alley outside, were finally done. They placed the last baked breads on the shelves, and stretched. “Time for breakfast boys.” the baker said, and they went upstairs where bowls of oatmeal and big slices of lard-filled bread awaited them.
In the dimly-lit bakery, the little figurine girl twirled in circles among the branches of the Christmas tree, while her skirt swirled around her stone legs. 
One of the bundt cakes on the whatnot, the one that had been brought in last, had not been placed securely, and as a result, a piece of its candied fruit dropped off, bouncing on the wooden counter top and rolling to the edge, where it fell off. Startled, the bundt cake stared at the spot where the small red piece had disappeared  between the dried apples and the cinnamon sticks. Suddenly he saw the little girl.
He saw her dreamy eyes and her upheld hands, and, if the bundt cake could have had a jaw, it would have dropped on the floor. He immediately fell in love in a way that only a bundt cake could fall in love with a charming little stone figurine. He wanted to say something, do something, anything, but all he could do was stare at her and sigh. She  didn't see him, as she slowly twirled in little circles between the green branches. 
Outside the bakery the church bells tollsd eight strikes, and the baker’s wife and her two young daughters, rosy-cheeked like their mother, came from their house and into the bakery. The baker’s wife lit the gas lamps, their warm light making the breads and cakes on the shelves look even more delicious. She and the girls put on clean aprons, then she unlocked the door. Moments later, the first customers rntered. Soon the baker’s wife and her daughters were even busier than the baker and his boys had been earlier that morning. All the customers wished to get special treats for Christmas eve. By noon, the bread was sold out, and the baskets with pretzels and other pastries were almost empty. The baker had awakened his boys again, and for the second time they rushed to the workshop, lit the oven, and worked to get more bread, cake and pastries ready. On the whatnot. only the bundt cake with the missing piece of candied fruit was left.
The bundt cake wasn't interested in all the fuss in the little bakery. He didn't see the rosy cheeks of the baker’s wife getting even more rosy as she smilingly filled the baskets of the still-growing number of customers with raisin bread, braided bread, croissants, and almond biscuits. He didn't see the baker’s two daughters, each holding a plate filled with small slices of butter cake and cinnamon bread for the waiting customers to taste. He saw only the little girl still twirling around. In his bundt cake fantasy she wasn't made out of stone. In his imagination  he saw her standing at the counter, together with other children who were clutching their mothers’ skirts, gazing with big, round eyes at the decorated Christmas tree and the baskets filled with treats and chocolate sweets, and pointing at the gingerbread men and the cloved oranges. He thought how the little girl longingly stared at the bundt cake on the whatnot, and how her eyes would light up if the baker’s wife took him from the whatnot and put him in the little girl’s upheld hands. He sighed, wishing this could really happen.
Suddenly there was a commotion at the counter. A small boy, eagerly trying to get as close as possible to the pains au chocolat and other sweets on the counter top, tripped and almost fell, hitting his knee on the yeast barrel. The small Christmas tree, placed on the barrel, wobbled dangerously, and the cloved oranges, the gingerbread men, and the sugar biscuits hanging from their red ribbons, started swaying heavily. All the women, including the baker's wife, simultaneously let out shrieks. The small boy's mother, accustomed to reacting rapidly, in one movement slapped her son and grasped the leaning  Christmas tree. Luckily. only its red paper star on top fell off.
The shaken little boy started crying. The baker's wife quickly came out from behind the counter and tried to comfort him. “There there,” she said, “it's all right. You didn't do it on purpose. It was an accident.” She picked up the paper star from the floor. '”See? It's just a fallen star.” She smiled at him, and he looked up at her through his tears. “'And did you know,” she continued, “that you can make a wish when you see a falling star?” He nodded bashfully.
She reached for the plate of pains au chocolats. “And I’ll bet I know what you've been wishing for,” she said, smiling. Just as she was about to get one of the pains au chocolat, she suddenly noticed something else. “Well, that's strange,” she mumbled, staring at the empty whatnot. “I could have sworn there was one bundt cake left.” For a few seconds she looked around. “Maybe, with all the fuss just now, it fell off the whatnot.” she said. Then she shrugged. “It probably fell underneath the counter. We'll get it later on.”
She handed one of the pains au chocolat to the little boy. “Here you go.”
“Say thank you,” his mother said.
“'Thank you, ma'am,” he whispered. He looked up at the baker's wife, and pointing at the Christmas tree, he softly added, “When that star fell, the bundt cake also made a wish.”
The baker's wife looked at him, not really understanding what he meant, but she didn't have time to think about his words. She quickly stroked his head, then squeezed herself back behind the counter again. “Next customer, please,” she said. 
In the small Christmas tree among the dried apples, cinnamon sticks, and pretzels, the little girl twirled in her dreamy circles. Now, In her upheld hands, there was a bundt cake – a bundt cake with one piece of candied fruit missing.
The  little boy took a bite out of his pain au chocolat. He had seen  the magic - just him...

Contact information: 
Maurice and Suzette Boyer
Email: suzetteboyer@hotmail.com
Address: Vlierbeek 60  5501 AK  Veldhoven. The Netherlands
Phone: -