Let’s Get Crafty!
I feel like you should all know little about me before we get into the meat of this one. I wear a lot of hats. I’m a writer and reviewer, sure, but I’m also an artist, a pet owner, a collector, a cook and baker and an avid hobbyist.
I do lots of things and love trying out people’s hobbies to see what scratches the itch to learn more about all manner of things. So while I sit here today typing away about the next cool product I think you should try, I’m also likely to set the keyboard to the side and fill the desk with whatever craft or kit the has caught my eye lately. Crafting is the at the core of so many cool hobbies so I find myself poking around craft stores pretty often and something I’ve noticed popping up more and more frequently lately are these little miniature house kits. They come in a few varieties like small buildings, usually greenhouses, bookstores and bakeries, book nooks, which are small scenes designed to fit between books on your shelf, and actual doll house components, rooms designed to fit into a larger house setup. The little kits I’ve been seeing lately are pretty neat, and they’ve always caught my attention as I wander the aisles. They have gotten so popular that they’re showing up in other stores now as well, Barnes and Noble sells them, Target, Walmart, they’re everywhere!
The thing that finally got me to try one of these out was the moment my significant other emitted a squeak of excitement upon seeing a miniature crafting video on YouTube. When I asked what on earth had caused such a sound to come out of her, all she had to say was “It’s so tiny, I could cry!” The itty bitty little table and chairs on screen were indeed tiny, and I realized that this might finally be a craft the two of us could do together!
How I Found the Anavrin Hanok Bakery
This crafting journey started as many do these days, on Amazon. I thought the book nooks were a great place to start, because I have a shelf with a good bit of space left on it and these could be a really fun way to fill them out without buying random books and becoming one of those awful people who show off their big book collection without having read even half of them.
I bought one book nook and put it together. It was a lot of fun, but it really felt more like a wooden puzzle than a model kit. The back came with a stack of wood boards with shapes laser cut into them and instructions on how to fit the shapes together to make stairs and furniture and whatnot. Very cool, but the finished product felt more like a high school theater set than an actual space. Very cool, but I craved more fidelity, so I spread my search out into the wide world of Tic Tok and Instagram. Turns out there are a lot of people making crafting videos out there! Like way more than I thought. I eventually found a few different videos of people building the set we’ll be talking about here today. The wood sheet cutouts were there to be sure, but there were lots of great little props and lighting and all sorts of details that made it look like a real place, not just a wooden set. Was it more expensive than the book nook? Yes. At $99 I was a little hesitant to pick it up but the Hanok Bakery was so interesting and detailed I just had to give it a try. Went to the site, ordered it and now here I am, bursting at the seams to tell you all about it!
How to Make a Korean Bakery
First off, let’s talk about the box. This, and other kits like this I’ve seen around, look really nice on the shelf. The photography of the finished product is super nice, the printed paper sleeve around the patterned box just beg to be picked up and inspected so before we even get into the build, well done, Anavrin. Well done.
Once the box is open, the difference between this and the other set I built was immediately clear. There are some wood sheets on top just under the instructions, but beneath that there are bags and bags of little props and shaped bits. There is so much here and I was excited to play around with all of it! I particularly love all the little loaves of bread, I’ve never wanted to eat plastic so badly.
The wooden parts fit together with a tab and slot system, very much like the laser cut elements in that first book nook, and I’d recommend using a dab of glue here and there to make it all nice and sturdy. These elements are the walls, floor, basic display stands and other furniture, the big stuff. The bakery is built in two sections, the rooftop and the main floor, and the two are connected with a couple of nice little hinges. This means you can swing open the top to look inside, kind of like Lego building sets that let you take off top sections to see all the little details inside! The lighting is handled with completely pre-wired LEDs connected to a battery pack, and the floor is set up in a way that hides all the wires once everything is assembled. It’s a great little bit of engineering!
What Else You Will Need
This thing is mostly packed with everything you need. It even comes with a little set of tweezers to help you hold and assemble the smaller bits. It is important, however, to know that you will need to pick up a couple of things to really make this work.
What you’ll need to buy before getting started
- Fast grab tacky glue (I used Aleene’s brand, as it seemed to be the most popular)
- Some small bits of sand paper to fix rough edges
- A craft/Xacto knife to help with some of the trimming
- Small scissors
- Two AAA batteries
What you need if you really want to push this to the next level
- Wood repair markers (the kind you use to fill in scratches and such) to make the bare sides of some wood parts feel more complete
- Fine tip paint pens (for adding your own little details here and there. Don’t go too far though, as this set is already very detailed!)
- A soldering clamp or small craft vice (to hold onto the really tiny bits so you can work on them with both hands)
- Reading glasses or a craft magnifier on a stand (so you can see what you’re doing at an itty bitty scale
Scale and Other Specs
- Assembled Size: 9.1″ (H) × 4.9″ (W) × 7.1″ (L)
- Scale: 1:24 (Helpful to know if you want to add more props from other sources)
- Piece Count: 169 pieces
- Difficulty Level: Beginner
- Estimated Build Time: 4–6 hours
My Final Thoughts
This is a big win, in my opinion. While it may not be for everyone, what with the need for glue and extra tools and lots of patience, it was a whole lot of fun for me and my partner to build. The quality is very high, the end result looking incredibly good, especially with the lights on inside. If you want to get more into building and crafting but are a little afraid of being a beginner, this is a great set to start with. It looks so good that you’d expect it to be a difficult build, but it’s really not. You can be a complete beginner and, with a little time and a lot of squinting, you can make something that looks like a pro made it. I highly recommend this for first-time model crafters. For those of us who have been tinkering and making things for longer, I still call this a win. If you are the sort to make a lot of your own props to replace the ones this comes with, you will be left with tons of really fun extra parts to use in your other builds. Tiny plants, wee little breads and buns, all sorts of nice pre-made props go into this model! It is a bounty for the kitbasher.
In short, beginner or pro, solo builder or couples crafters, dedicated hobbyist or craft-curious, this is a great set to pick up. If you’re not sure if you really have the patience for crafting, though, I’d recommend finding a smaller set made specifically for beginners so you won’t get tired of glueing things halfway through such an expensive project.
