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Camp Mini Ha Ha 2025 Miniature Project
Hello to all you intrepid travellers! It's time to give into that wanderlust you're harbouring and make your way to Nova Scotia to join your travelling buddies for a lot of laughter, mini- making fun - and chocolate, of course!!

The theme of CMHH 2025 is 'Road Trip: Your adventure Awaits!' with the project and the three included workshops providing just enough challenge to make it interesting and giving an opportunity to learn new skills to add to your already impressive talents.

 
 

 

This year's project is a vintage, compact travel trailer, familiar to most of us from our childhood memories of travelling the roads with our families for summer vacation and seeing these little beauties on every highway and byway across the country. While this project prototype adheres to the theme of 'Road Trip', it can easily be adapted to another theme depending on your imagination.

 
 
 
If you choose to stick with the theme for this year, there is plenty of opportunity to reimagine and personalize the interior and exterior of this little piece. Campers can create their own travel memories from their own childhoods, or perhaps trips taken when their own children were little. However, once the creative juices start flowing, if you would rather another theme anything, is possible. Perhaps you see this as more of a travelling little shop or business: a mobile pet grooming business? How about a pop-up flower shop? food or coffee vendor? mobile command centre for a neighbourhood medical clinic? temporary lodging for a lonely archaeologist working at a remote site? a fisherman's dream weekend getaway? ---- the possibilities really are endless.  

Your little trailer might be a vintage wood-sided one like shown in the prototype but perhaps it's a sleek aluminum model like the large airstreams coveted by so many. Or a simple, modern vinyl-sided number we are all familiar with. Maybe your little trailer will be sitting on a lot in a permanent campground space, allowing a little space for a wee patio space and flower pots like we see in places where RVers and other outdoors lovers set up a permanet spot to use as a sort of 'cottage experience'. Of course you can also make your project just like the prototype! Whatever your chosen style and theme, just have fun!

Kit Description:

This Year's project is a compact travel trailer. It's small size makes it easy to take anywhere. The 1/24th scale option kit has the same dimensions as the 1/12th scale kit. The only changes will be that the door will be 1/24th scale as well as the wheels.

In 1/12th scale the kit is a tiny teardrop trailer with just enough room inside for queen size mattress for a good night's sleep but, in real life, a person would not be able to stand up in it. In the 1/24th scale version it would be a full size camper where you are able to stand up. The back of the trailer wouldn't open as it does in the 1/12th because the kitchen would be inside.

Whichever scale you choose, there is plenty of room for your own unique modifications.

The kit is made of wood, with 3D printed tires and fenders. The interior comes with basic shelving and cupboards leaving room for your own personal touch. The kitchen hatch also leaves room for customisation with a countertop and 2 cupboards below.

Kit Dimensions and Materials:

The exterior trailer dimensions are 35 cm long, 18 cm wide and 15.5 cm high, including the trailer hitch and wheels.
The exterior body of the trailer is 27.5 cm long, 13 cm wide and 12 cm high.
The sleeping/interior space is 16 cm long, 12.7 cm wide and 11.5 cm high.
The kitchen counter is 5cm deep and 12.7 cm wide and 4.5 cm above the trailer floor.
The trailer body, interior walls and cupboards are made of 1/8" plywood, with a wood veneer roof.
The wheels and fenders are 3D printed.
Material to make the trailer hitch, signal lights and tail lights are included, as well as hinges for the door and kitchen hatch.
Soft furnishings are NOT included. The door window is also NOT included.

For those who like to think in half scale, there will an option to cut a scale door and modify the wheel size to make it a full size trailer in half scale.

Included in the kit will be the trailer itself, the body, wheels, hitch, reflectors, and basic cupboards. No unattached accessories or soft furnishings are included in the trailer kit. Things to consider purchasing or building yourself could include a propane tank, camp stove, picnic basket, food, or many other accessories, depending on your vision of your little camper. Our mini workshops (below) will also provide you with useful items and perhaps add a few new skills to your repertoire!

 
 
In addition to the main project, Campers can take advantage of "side" workshops provided during Camp:

1. No matter what you choose as the theme for your own project, everyone could always use instruction (or a refresher) on lighting your precious miniature projects to show them to their best advantage. This year we are offering a mini workshop on lighting with Camp alumnus, Shelley Acker, who will lead the group through general lighting techniques and procedures.

Instructor Bio: Shelley Acker has been making miniatures for more than 25 years and brings a diversity of skills and experience to her workshops. With a keen interest in sharing whatever knowledge she has acquired through trial and error and informal learning, Shelley is also the owner and artist-in-residence of Freedom Miniatures , in Kentville, NS, one of Canada's few brick and mortar miniature shops. Learning how to make a scene look realistic has lead to the ongoing development of tips, tricks, and techniques to add everything from effective lighting, such as she will be teaching to Campers this year, to signs of gentle use or the reality of weathering and decay. You can find examples of Shelley's work on Facebook and Instagram as Freedom Miniatures, and also as a contestant on Season 3 of Best in Miniature available on CBC Gem.

 
2. Our 2nd bonus workshop will be the making of a leather backpack - exactly what every intrepid traveller needs! Using fabric, leather, metal findings and wood, you will make one of a camper's most useful and essential items.

Instructor Bio: The workshop leader, Jo-Ann Shaw, is also a Camp alumnus. A potter, sculptor (in both bronze and clay) and leather worker, who lives in her old farmhouse in Meagher's Grant Road, part of a rural community located in Nova Scotia's beautiful Musquodoboit Valley, Jo-Ann is a member of the Miniature Crafters of Nova Scotia and the International Guild of Miniature Artisans, which holds a week-long workshop in Castine, Maine every year. She is also a member of the Nova Scotia Potters Guild and has given workshops in the art form. In 2016 Jo-Ann achieved Artisan status with the International Guild of Miniatures in the filed of leather, an accomplishment to be proud of, indeed. You can check out Jo-Ann's work at her site Kilnworks Miniatures.

 

 
3. Last, but certainly not least, our dedicated and talented all-around artist and special in-house Camp carpenter and Jack of all trades, Wayne Dieleman of Grandpa's Dollhouse, will lead the group through the building of a tailer hitch box in aluminum and copper - a nice little addition to our little homes away from home! Wayne will provide the materials and walk you through the steps to complete this little mini project. What a great piece for your camper to store all their necessities - and perhaps to keep their food safe from marauding bears!

Instructor Bio:Having spent many years working in idustrial metal design and fabrication and possessing excellent skills in woodworking and general problem solving as well, after retirement Wayne found himself becoming more and more immersed in working with miniatures as his lovely wife, Liz, is owner and operator of Grandpa's Dollhouse miniatures in St. Thomas, Ontario. Packing up the store and accompanying her to Camp Mini Ha Ha each fall, Wayne began helping out at Camp in small ways which has since grown to him being an indispensible "go to person" for solving all our miniature-making problems at Camp. His knowledge and talent have save many a Camper from seemingly insurmountable road blocks or issues and his kindness and humour highly appreciated by all. CMHH is so very lucky to have him with us each year!  

 
As mentioned above, the theme this year is Road Trip: Your Adventure Awaits. Bring accessories with you to enhance the theme of your project, whether it adheres to the theme or you choose to go in another direction. There will also be lots of items to choose from on the sales floor to bring your vision to life.

While a Camper's project design does not have to adhere to the theme, the theme can be useful to help plan for Camp's costume dinner which always provides a lot of fun and laughter. Here's your chance to get creative with the theme, even if your project has a different focus. Will you be a hippie on a journey? A travelling busker? The owner of a pop-up storefront??? or maybe just a member of a family enjoying a nature-based vacation? Have fun and let your imagination reign!

 

 

Last updated 10 Feb 2025