The apothecary was created as a part of a small town the miniature club in Greensboro made to display at various shows. This was my contribution to the town. Each building resided on its own piece of real estate consisting of a grassy area, sidewalk, and a curb. When the town was shown, each piece of real estate with its building was placed together and street lights added to form the town.

I decided it was time to work on my apothecary shop that I made about 15 + years ago. As I redo and clean the apothecary, I will tell how I made some of the things in the shop. The actually shop was made from a purchased miniature store. I had to reattach one of the windows along with the trim work. Both windows were in need of cleaning as was the glass in the display case.

The store fixtures I made out of basswood. The drawers are fake drawers with the heads of white straight pins as the drawer pulls. I cut them all the same size and beveled the edges.
Most of the bottles on the shelves were made from the insides of various sizes of light bulbs. If you break a light bulb, you will see a tiny glass part in the center with the light bulb's filament.

Carefully cut this glass part out and sand the bottom smooth. Use glass stain to stain these "mini" bottles and  mini-wax to close the bottom and adhere to the shelf . The image on the right is what the inside of a standard light bulb looks like. Different light bulbs have different shaped "bottles." The one on the right doesn't have a neck. If memory serves me correctly, the test tubes and beakers were also the tops of the "inside of light bulbs". Round candy sprinkles fill some of the containers.

Some of the bottles were fashioned from purchased miniature bottles. I created a mold for the bottles and then poured liquid resign that I colored into the molds. Let harden, added a label.. more bottles.

The miniature counter was made from basswood as well. Blocks of wood covered with white paper with scribbling form the boxes of OTC medications. There are some purchased containers. Tubes are metal pieces that are painted and have scribbled labels attached. In the case, you can see four "pots." These are made from wooden beads that have been painted to resemble pots.

The miniature ledger book is made from light weigh cardboard and ribbon coverings. there are actual pages within the book.

The original flooring was made from paper and as such, impossible to clean. I purchased new flooring that looks like the black and white checkerboard pattern you would find in an old store. I mended the windows then removed all the bottles and containers and cleaned the shelves. I placed the bottles, etc. back on the shelves. Cleaned the display case and placed these back in to the apothecary. I placed store-bought oak chairs and the plastic chair from the original apothecary. Below is the "almost" finished apothecary. I still have to fix the trim that frames the window at the top of the room box.

Shop without the door

Apothecary Finished