(Danielle Muller)

A Farewell Piece in Miniature – Dany’s Lavender Shop

by Pam North

France is known to be a beautiful country, especially the south with the tourist magnet of the Côte d’Azur. There are lots of cities and villages to visit, magnificent beaches, and splendid hotels and restaurants. A notable part is the geographical and historical region of southeastern France called Provence, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhone River to the west, to the Italian border to the east, and is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Lavender is its symbol, as the fields there are  seasonally abundant with the tall, highly fragrant, light mauve-purple spikes of flowers that are perfectly complemented with gray-green foliage. Some locals say that lavender is the soul of the region.
Danielle Muller has been a regular contributor to American Miniaturist and Dollhouse Miniatures magazines in past years, and she wanted to make one final project before retiring from making miniatures. Danielle lives in Germany, but during many vacations with her husband to Provence, Danielle fell in love with the region, and found much inspiration from the many lavender shops of Provence. One in particular caught her fancy; not only was it filled with the overwhelmingly numerous things that can be made with the fragrant lavender blooms, it also was painted, inside and outside, in that color. “At first I thought that it was a little too much,” she reminisced, “but the more time I spent inside the shop, the more the color grew on me.” Even though her visits to the shop were many years ago, the image and ambience of the shop became permanently fixed as an image in Daniele’s mind and memory, and finally, in 2017, she decided to create its likeness in miniature.
Lavender’s uses are many and reputed to be effective: its oil is used to heal burns and insect bites,  soothe headaches when applied to the temples. act as an antiseptic, cure acne, and scent bathwater; its fragrance helps lull one to sleep; is desirable in aromatherapy; and is used in room fresheners and other home products. All of these uses translated into the many different products that were sold in Danielle’s favorite real-life shop in Provence, but her miniature shop unfortunately was not nearly large enough to accommodate all of those. Choices had to be made.
She began by thinking of a name for her project, which is Dany’s Lavender Shop, and she also had to create all the tiny labels for the products featured in it, which involved many hours on the computer, along with the time required to make all the boxes, which had to be printed, cut out, and glued together. 
She made all the furniture for her shop, partly because she couldn’t find anything to fit in such a small space, but also because she had discovered mat board at that point. “It is so much easier to handle than wood, especially when it comes to cutting, and once it’s painted, one really can’t tell the difference,” she explained.
:The first thing I made was a little shelf for my perfume corner, then the one for the soap corner, and finally the larger shelves. The best part about making one’s own furniture is that the size, width, and height of the shelves can be adjusted to perfectly fit the items that will fill them. All those items were exclusively handmade by me, and encompassed bottles, jugs, boxes, baskets, jars, candle holders, pillows, paper napkins, soaps, cupcakes, jam, liquor with fruit pieces, shopping baskets, gift wrap paper, tablecloths, lavender in pots, lavender bouquets, chocolate, nougat, meringues, perfumes, scent bags, and many more. The bottles and glass jars are filled with ambiance perfume, linen-freshing water, shampoo, body lotion, shower gel, bath salts, bubble bath, liquid soap, lavender oil, and others. I made many baskets, either to display my items or to be used as gift containers. Suddenly I realized that I needed to stop because the shop was too small to display all the items that I had made! In the end, however, I managed to fit everything into and around the shop. I also made sort of an outdoor area, and placed a few shelves and tables outside the shop. The weather in Provence is  usually quite good, and such an outdoor area attracts customers.”
Despite the success of her creativity, there was a touch of nostalgia in it. “I was a bit sad at the completion of my little lavender shop” Danielle admitted wistfully. “I so liked making it, as it allowed me to escape to another world, so I always will love it.” Danielle is closing her miniature store, but she  will continue to create minis for her own enjoyment.