At one point or another, every crafter will hit a creative roadblock. It’s not always easy to come up with new ideas or unique designs all the time. But whether you craft home decorations, gifts, or even a small business, you will always need to find ways to keep things fresh and interesting.
A great way to invigorate your crafting projects is miniatures. Tiny versions of everyday objects often breathe new life into your art or home decor. While there are practically limitless possibilities when it comes to miniatures, one fun option is mini wooden bowling pins.
Bowling pin crafts are not a brand new idea, but they are certainly one that will have you feeling like you bowled a strike with your creativity! But since mini bowling pin art and decor is not something you see in every household, you may have a few questions. For instance, how big are regular bowling pins compared to mini bowling pins? What constitutes a “mini” bowling pin? Can you get mini bowling pins and balls together? Finally, where can you find high-quality, unfinished mini bowling pins for painting, crafting, and decorating?
In today’s guide, we will answer all of these questions and more. So let’s get started!
What size are miniature wooden bowling pins?
Standard bowling pins are 15 inches tall and 4.75 inches in diameter (at the widest point). While you could theoretically find mini bowling pins in a variety of sizes, they are most commonly designed to be about one-third the size of traditional bowling pins. Having the ratio of height to diameter scaled down proportionally makes it easier to paint and even arrange your miniature pins. At Woodpeckers, for example, we offer 3-inch by 1-inch mini bowling pins, as well as a larger 5-inch by 1.5-inch variation.
How to use small wooden bowling pins
Since mini bowling pins replicate real-world items (albeit in a smaller size), they can be both functional and decorative. This opens the door to many different creative uses and fun crafting projects. In the sections below, we’ll look at some of our top picks for using small wooden bowling pins in your own crafting projects. But remember, these are just a few ideas to get you started. There are plenty of other ways to put miniature bowling pins to good use!
Bowling pin trophies
Do you participate in a bowling league? Do you have a friend or family member who is really into bowling? Or do you simply need a fun and unique way to present accolades at an upcoming event? Regardless of your needs, mini bowling pins can help make your plans even more entertaining!
When using mini bowling pins as trophies, you can go in a lot of different creative directions. For example, you could paint unfinished wooden pins like standard bowling pins (a white base with one or two red stripes at the “neck” of the pin). This would be ideal if you don’t have specific awards to give out, but simply want to have fun keepsakes on hand. Alternatively, you might want to decorate each pin with unique awards or winning order (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc) to celebrate how people performed in a bowling championship.
It’s also important to consider that mini bowling pins don’t have to be trophies for special occasions. If you run a business, you may want to use bowling pins for temporary offerings or practical items. Decorated wooden bowling pins can function as bathroom key attachments, prize tokens, fun table pucks (for restaurants), and much more!
Miniature bowling
While mini wooden bowling pins are great for keepsakes and decorations (more on that later), they also have functional uses. Considering that they are literally miniature versions of standard bowling pins, it stands to reason that you could use them for a child’s birthday party or simply as a mini bowling game to have around for a rainy day.
Since smaller children often can’t enjoy traditional bowling (the bowling balls are too heavy and the lanes are too long), you can set up a mini bowling alley in your very own home! All you need to do is acquire an equally small wooden ball to accompany your mini bowling pin set, decorate the ball and pins as you like, and let the kids start bowling! If you want to get everything in the same place and ensure that you’re buying quality items, you can get small wooden balls and mini wooden bowling pins together at Woodpeckers!
However, when creating a mini bowling alley, it’s important to consider the environment. While you can set up a mini bowling alley on a carpeted floor, this will cause greater resistance with each roll. On the other hand, a wood floor will be very similar to the look and feel of a real bowling alley, but you may not want to risk scratching your floors. For this reason, we recommend setting up a mini bowling alley lane with sheets of Baltic birchwood.
Board games
Though mini bowling pins are inextricably linked to bowling for obvious reasons, there are plenty of other games that can utilize fun wooden miniatures. Board games that require game pieces, including common games like checkers or chess, can easily utilize DIY bowling pin game pieces. Just keep in mind that games like chess require unique types of pieces, so you may need to decorate or craft different pieces using the bowling pins as the base components.
And even if you don’t have a specific board game in mind, it’s always a good idea to keep a few extra DIY pieces on hand. This way, if you lose a piece or have more players than expected, you’re still covered!
Holiday crafting
If you have children or you work in an environment with kids (like a school), there’s a good chance that you’ll need to put your DIY crafting skills to the test around the holidays. Fortunately, mini wooden bowling pins are already shaped in a way that makes them perfect for human-esque creations. For instance, you can paint and decorate your miniature pins to look like snowmen, Santa Claus, or a choir of angels — and that’s just for the winter holidays!
The truth is that wooden bowling pins can work for just about any holiday throughout the year. You can paint your pins red, white, and blue for the 4th of July, create spooky ghost or mummy pins for Halloween, or even make cute rabbit-shaped pins for Easter.
Decorative wooden bowling pins
It’s nice to change up your home decor with the seasons, but you probably won’t want to buy new decorations and crafting items every few months. Once again, miniature bowling pins can come in to save the day! When arranged properly and, in some cases, with the right accessories, mini bowling pins can make great centerpieces for coffee tables or bookends for shelves. A lot of mini bowling pin designs are even small enough to incorporate as part of more intimate or meaningful decorations, like photo albums and scrapbooks.
Did you enjoy our mini wooden bowling pins guide? Be sure to check out our miniature wooden bowling pin shop to find the perfect gift for yourself or a loved one!
