Simply
Delicious
Miniatures
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Just looking at
Mary Eccher's foods
can destroy a diet!
You probably would not be surprised to learn that Mary truly loves to cook. It is the secret to Mary Eccher's success as one of the miniature world's best known creators of authentic foods and beverages. It's the reason her work can be found in miniature settings all over the world. And, it all began some 30 years ago in a around about sort of way.
"I was into all kinds of crafts all my life, and as my children were growing up, I would go out and buy the supplies for all different kinds of projects," Mary recalls. "I used to envy people who zeroed in on one thing. Then I found Barbara Meyer's book on bread dough, fruits and vegetables, and I said to myself, I ought to try this." Mary made up the bread dough and created her first efforts on her kitchen counter, standing up," she recalls, " because my children were little," and she didn't want them to think the tiny items were edible.
Mary left those first efforts on the counter to air dry, and the next day found them scattered and partly eaten. "I thought the children might have gotten into them," she remembers, " but a field mouse had come in and eaten most of the things on the counter. So, I realized I had to find a different compound." At the time, Fimo was quite new on the market. Mary had seen it advertised, so she drove from her home near the New York-Connecticut border to Molly Brody's miniature shop in Westport , and bought three bars of Fimo.
One of those bars was blue, "I probably have the original blue bar somewhere," Mary reminisces, "and I'll tell you why; There are no foods except blueberries that are blue. So, why choose blue? That was dumb," she laughs. But she loved this new medium, "and I just made foods and foods," she recalls, mostly for her own enjoyment. Mary also became intrigued with the miniatures she saw at Molly Brody's. She went there to buy Fimo, but seeing the miniatures reminded her of childhood memories.
Mary grew up in Brooklyn, New York, one of seven children. Each Christmas her mother set out a dollhouse, a store and a Nuremburg-type kitchen, each filled with items she had brought from Germany. The children were allowed to play with them only during the holiday season, and then they were packed away until next year. "It was my mother's treasure," Mary remembers.
Later, her mother gave Mary the kitchen and the dollhouse, "but they went into the attic because I didn't know what to do with them," she explains. "The interest wasn't there then and my children were still little." Her visits to Molly Brody's shop prompted Mary to display both the items in her home. It was the beginning of miniatures collection that has grown considerably in the years since, as has "PANNIKINS" by M.E., her miniature foods and beverages business.
October 1996
Handcrafted Collectible Dollhouse Scale Miniature Foods, Beverages and Accessories
IGMA ARTISAN
NAME ACADEMY of HONOR AWARD MEMBER
Member of CIMTA
I will celebrate your life for the rest of mine....
