REDMOND, Wash. — Makes sense that Rachel Johnson's workshop in Redmond is in a tiny corner of a tiny, studio apartment.
"When I was a kid, I loved miniatures, but I couldn't really have any of them," she says.
Rachel makes books. Books that look like any others, if you're a mouse. They are each about two inches tall. Her mom wanted to indulge her daughter's love of all things small. But...
"We were pretty broke. You don't really get to have all the fun stuff on a waitress's salary," Rachel says.
But now that she's all grown up?
"I began gettin a little more into making the things I like. And I was sewing. I was cooking. And then I saw this video and I was like aaaahhhh!"
She saw a YouTube video featuring miniature books.
"When I found the tiny books, I was like miniatures, books. Oh my God!"
She dove right in, making about 20 mini-photo albums as family gifts.
"This is literally events, family events through the year for me. And everyone in the family got a tiny book."
They were such a hit that, five years later, she finds herself making two or three a weekend to sell at "Artisans Mercantile" in Snohomish. She doesn't want to make many more than that.
"If I have to try and live off these, it goes from being a thing I do to feed my soul and makes me happy? To being the thing I have to do to try and survive."
Her latest works feature a dragon's eye peering out from what appears to be a leather-bound cover.
"They give that look where it's staring at you. "
Each of her creations for her company Lovely Little Boo is one-of-a-kind. And she adds a chain or string, so you can keep it around your neck.
"You can wear it. And take it with you and cherish it. You can fill it with memories or you can fill it with fluff. It's up to you."
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