A 1/6 Scale Store to Make Life Size Ones Jealous!

Barbie shops. Often. Right? But where does she go? How does she come home loaded with new items? She goes to the store of my imagination, of course! I have put together a store box room to allow Barbie to shop to her hearts content. But it also serves a practical use. This store of mine holds my minis. Neat and orderly! Walk through the steps with me, and I will show you how I created this room. 

Do you watch My Froggy Stuff on YouTube? No? You are missing out! That lady is super talented. My husband says even crazy to some degree, as her builds are SOOOOO DETAILED! There are things she will build that I'm thinking... Nope. Not necessary. But I keep watching, because more times than not she makes something that I'm thrilled with. She has a ton of printables on her blog that you can find HERE. For this project, I used the Target wall background under the Shops and Stuff list. It will take you to her Google document list where you can print those out for free.

I glued those to foamboard that were cut to create a 3-sided room box. On the right-hand side, the wall isn't full. I'm considering a door option to go there. 

I used dimensions from My Froggy Stuff that were in one of her videos to create the free standing shelving unit. The platform is 3 1/4" wide by 8" long. The middle part is 5" wide by 9 3/4" tall. I think the base ones were about a 1/4"? I didn't write those down and mostly eyeballed it. The shelves I made just to fit.

Then I covered mine, because I haven't been able to get smooth cuts on my foamboard. If any of you know a trick to doing it smoothly, feel free to leave me a comment! I like that these can move around while offering extra shelving. I think they will also work well for photos. But they take me a really long time to make. Partially because of everything else I have to do during a day... The wall on the left-hand side has shelves that go from top to bottom, as well as all the way across.  

One thing I found is that some of my minis are a bit on the large size. As long as we aren't talking mega here, I was thinking it suits that family or economy size. Back when I was a kid, it was also called institutional size. How do I know this? Because I'm the oldest of 10 kids and we bought that size before places like Costco and Sam's Club were cool. But I'm not satisfied with calling these larger minis by those names. I'm thinking... Survival Solutions. A play on the prepper mind.  

My daughter has helped me with setting up this store. We found that attaching the minis to a clear plastic piece by using glue dots worked best. Once the layout was just right, I hot glued the strips to the shelf. This way, I can remove minis and move things around as needed. However, you can just glue them down too. Or if you have doubles sitting one in front the other, just glue the front one down and make the back one removable. Do it how it works best for you. 

The first set of moveable shelves are being used for the toy aisle. Don't mind the naked doll in the background. I asked my daughter to grab a doll for comparison in heights. That was the only one she could find apparently. *insert face palm here* 

Next, was the checkout counter. I just used foam board to create the open-sided box. That was then glued to the floor. I used various card stock and paper to make it look prettier. I had a small cash register piece that I painted and glued on as well. The card reader that we have came from a Mini Brands capsule. As you can see on the left side, I tacked the Mini Brands coolers to it with Glue Dots. This way, I can remove them if I want to later. They hold juices and sodas, like you would see near checkouts normally. 

For the rest, like that cooler you see in the back, I'll be leaving you with this video to see. I'll walk you through it and show you how it looks on a closer level. Hope you like it!

 

I still have not decided on a name, so if you have one in mind, leave me a comment below!