Last Tin: German Bread Box

The bread box  was a common accessory in 19th century miniature shops.  And lucky for me, one of the tins was the perfect bread box size and shape.

I could have left it as it was, but I decided to decorate it with this Edward Gorey illustration as a tribute.

Devon helped me affix the picture to the top of the tin.  (Thank you, Devon!)

I put an antique cake inside as a reward for anyone who is curious enough to open the tin. The cake is most likely German, circa 1890. Read here for more about Antique and Vintage Dollhouse Food. 

Third Tin: Mini Jigsaw Puzzle

I would be remiss if I did not use this pig.

I found him while cutting up the Tempura Wok and Cookery book for the Words and Sentences game.  I considered turning him into a Victorian era Sliced Animals set, but I decided to go with the less morbid picture puzzle.

I added light color and mounted onto cardboard for stability. 

Then I cut into pieces, and shrunk down a photo of the picture for the box cover.

Final results below.  I left the pieces loose, so it's fully operable.  It has 70 pieces total, but it's harder to solve than it looks!

Second Tin: Mini Word Game

I used the second smallest tin to make a word game.  I had originally thought Scrabble, but Scrabble was not invented until the 1930s, which was too new for my shop.  So I found a few anagram histories online, and settled on an 1877 version of  Words and Sentences by Milton Bradley. 

I cut out recipe titles from the Wok and Tempura Cookery book and glued them to a piece of carboard for stability.  The titles worked well because they were all in caps. 

Then I cut up the letters as shown.

I found clear pictures of the original box cover and instructions from BoardGameGeek and shrunk them down to size.

Results are below.  I left the letters and instructions loose, so it is technically playable - but it's short a few letters.  Perhaps a food-themed game?

Nesting Tins

During the kickoff I chose three tins as part of my inventory.

But when I unpacked the items, I found that additional tins had been nested inside each other as shown.

I was delighted with my discovery, and secretly hoped that Gorey himself had taken the time to layer them.  With this in mind, I took extra care with the mini tins.

Mini Tiddlywinks

I used the smallest tin to make a miniature Tiddlywinks game.  Tiddlywinks originated in 1888, which makes it roughly the right age for my project.  Also, the pieces were simple enough to execute in miniature.  You can read about the history of Tiddlywinks here.  (I did!)

I went back to the books for the game pieces. I used a 1/16" hole punch to make the smallest pieces ("winks"), and a 1/4" hole punch for the shooters ("squidgers"). 

I found pictures of original instructions and game boxes from the Tiddlywinks site and shrunk them  to the size of the tin.

Then I used one of Devon's red plastic pony beads for the cup.  (Thank you, Devon!)  Results are below.