Trees, Houses, Eggs Come in Small Sizes
Linda Schwartz thinks small in a big way.
The one-time real estate broker is dabbling in miniature home construction and as an aside, teaches classes all year on how to build miniature Christmas trees.
Her trees are distributed internationally at Fiddily Bits, a shop in London that sells her decorated miniature Victorian Christmas trees at $90 each.
“I’m so flabbergasted I’ve gotten as far as I have,” said the Huntington Beach resident. “I didn’t think it would get this far and I don’t know where it’s going to lead to.”
Although she sells some of the Christmas trees she makes, Schwartz doesn’t plan to market other miniature items, including the houses she builds.
“I don’t want to become a dealer and travel from one show to another selling what I make,” said Schwartz, who is a member of the National Assn. of Miniature Enthusiasts. “There is a tendency toward burnout trying to make a living out of it.”
In fact, she added, no matter how much time anyone puts into it, “it’s not a great living.”
The houses she has constructed, each taking about nine months, are donated to a children’s charity, a practice she began after the death of her daughter, Cheryl, who had Down’s syndrome.
“I don’t have that much cash to donate myself, so I do it this way,” she said. One of her miniature houses was donated to the Make A Wish Foundation, which auctioned it for $2,000. The group grants wishes for seriously ill children.
Her miniature home-building career started four years ago after Cheryl’s death.
“I needed to do something and saw this kit for $39 to construct a miniature house and $1,000 and nine months later, I built one,” she said. “I loved it. All my frustrations of becoming an interior decorator went into the house.”
Schwartz said her engineer husband, Howard Schwartz, thought the new hobby was a fine idea.
“He figured it was cheaper than a psychiatrist,” she remarked.
Miniature home building, along with her other hobby of building miniature scenes inside various types of egg shells, may include her husband.
He currently does the electrical work for the lighting in the tiny houses.
“Lately, I have been thinking that when my husband retires, we both could be involved in this,” she said. “Neither one of us likes to be idle.”
When they travel, the Schwartzes also shop for miniature household furnishings.
“Each year, we intend to buy something special,” she said. Last year, it was a $700 miniature sterling silver tea set.
While miniature home building can be expensive, “it’s also very soothing and pleasant,” said Schwartz, noting that she works every day “doing a little something.”
She also gets similar pleasure working on eggs.
“They are almost equal to one another,” she said, but points out, “It’s wonderful to work on the eggs and finish without breaking them.”
Besides working on the miniatures, Schwartz teaches classes in egg decoration and Christmas-tree building and plans to increase the number of classes from three to five times a month in both crafts.
She said the Christmas tree classes that she teaches throughout the year at Piecemakers has waiting lists.
“I’ve always loved Christmas trees and it’s fun teaching the class,” she said. “It’s also kind of unusual since I’m Jewish.”
Edward Arrioja Jr., 11, has been in and out of Children’s Hospital of Orange County since age 4, a victim of cystic fibrosis.
While in the hospital, his spirits have been lifted by clowns who entertained him and the other kids.
It only seemed fair, said Edward, a sixth-grader at Holy Family School in Orange, that he give something back for the help the clowns gave him.
So he attended a class at Under the Big Top in Placentia and became a clown at age 10.
When his health permits, “Tuff Eddie” (his clown name) dons his costume and heads to CHOC with adult clowns to entertain the hospitalized kids.
“I feel happy when I see the kids with a smile on their face,” said Edward, who plans to become a marine biologist.
‘We are very proud of him,” said his parents, Diane and Edward Arrioja.
