BEST IN SHOW!

WHOOO HOO!

IT'S ME!

THE 2013 WEST COAST DOLLHOUSE AND MINIATURE SHOW
MY DISPLAY WAS

'GOTHICA'
a
 Modern Medieval Garden Shed

This is the text that I use to tie all the elements together ....

'GOTHICA'

Here is an overview of the entire roombox, which started life as a wooden speaker box which I had purchased over 12 years ago at Value Village.  I had decided at that time that I wanted to showcase some of my gardening bits and pieces and it was originally to just be a container with a loose  semblance of structure.  I guess more like a collage of gardening stuff not necessarily a representation of a "room".  It sat with a plastic bag over top of it's head for many years just waiting for me to become inspired. 
 I waited too.....

After all those years this is what it finally became.   

I made this lamp with a bubble container from a 25 cent vending machine (they are hard to find these days,) and the backside of a brass button.  I also used the bottom of a commercially made dollhouse chandelier which I turned upside down and re-strung the chain to hang in the opposite direction. I wired it with 2 grain of wheat light bulbs and painted the metal parts in black acrylic paint and aged.
The dome was over-laid with the fossil remains of Chinese Lantern flowers that left the fascinating leaded glass look when glued over the plastic dome.  I then highlighted the veining with paints and stains and gave it an aging with amber glass stain.  This was fun to do and I already have plans to make more.  I hope to give a tutorial in the near future if anyone is interested in learning how.

One of the very first things that I wanted to put into the box was this over-large picture of a  Renaissance Gardener. I framed it and glued it to the wall and although the majority of it is obscured by the old storage chest, I love the scale and the theme of it.  The colors are muted and yet the face of the gentleman is alive with light!
I found the religious icon in a grab bag at the thrift store.  Although I am not a catholic by faith I felt that it was an interesting addition that shows the viewer that there is a belief in God held by the mini gardener that inhabits this tiny domain.  As I began to fill this box the character began to find it's voice in a series of visuals that depicted both life and death almost in equal measure.  The more that I did the more the 2 began to assert themselves.  It stopped becoming the garden pastiche and collection of goods and began to become a story.  It took an entire year, Off and On, once I began to seriously work on it again and I found myself very early on having to edit, edit, edit!

The chest of drawers is from a Realife  bedroom kit that I put together and then decided it looked way too new and decided to age it.  I like roughing things up and it was fun.  I made new hardware for the dresser with brass jewelry findings and jump rings which I also painted and aged.  I wanted something tall for that picture wall which would also be functional as storage for the space.  Because of the eventual cave like atmosphere, it was good to paint it blue as it gives some needed color for the interior.  To fill the top of it I used some fresh picked berries in baskets and a dish of gourds,  along with an architectural fragment and a couple of lamps
 and a squirrel. Along the far side of the chest of drawers are a bundle of tied together newspapers that Janine (MINWORKS) had made and they are atop of an old wooden plant crate.

This is a close up of the harvested fruit at the end of the season. The gourds I made of some unusual beads that had that striping on and were already the pretty greens that you see in the photo.  The 'nuts' that you see interlaced with them are some dried flowers that looked interesting to me and visually completed the bowl.

A couple of years before I began this box, I found a magazine photo of a doorway that over-looked a canal in Venice.  The picture was of a redish peeling plaster wall which was inset with an arched doorway, that opened out onto a juliet balcony.  I saved the photo and eventually pulled it out and wanted to find a arched doorway as tall so that I could get started on the project.  I had begun to see a story-line developing, but  I couldn't find what I was looking for at the local miniature store and didn't want to order one and have to wait for it to be mailed, so I glued the magazine picture to some cardboard and cut out the arched door frame and lacquered and aged it and stained it to look like wood.  I liked the effect and it is rustic enough to work.  Sometimes 'fake' works just as good as the  real' thing!
I should probably say at this point, that I decided to cover the walls with full sized textured wall paper.
I had the pleasure of being totally abusive with the paints and slapped it on and wiped it off and slapped it on and wiped it off and slapped it on .....
I was wanting to use more red tones than brown and mixed up a variety of reds, browns, yellows, greys and blacks and kept re-adjusting the color to look sort of like the Venice plaster walls that had been in the picture.  After I got the colors I wanted I covered foam board in the pieces that I had cut for the walls and ran the electrical through the foam board and connected it to the wood walls of the speaker box.  I hadn't done any wiring for all those years but once I started it all came back to me.  I used the tape wire system and also hard wire and solder.  I bought a used transformer from Value Village and cut the push plug end off of the connecting wire and then split the cord and exposed the wires and soldered it to the wires from the lights which were then connected to two brass pins plugged into the the electrical tape.  Buying the transformers from the thrift store is a big money saver and it is a great way to recycle rather than having to buy brand new ones.  The voltages are engraved into the backs and they can run from 2 to 7 dollars on average and there are usually lots of them on one rack at any given time.  Try it and see!

Okay, back to the interior fittings;  I  bought a Mexican miniature display (from the thrift store) that had some potato sacks and some over sized ugly potatoes hot glued to the tops.   I ripped them out and filled the bag with 'apples' that I made from beads!
The veggies were some that I bought in Seattle at the show years ago and they are made of porcelain and are so detailed. I love them!  I have the bell peppers and lettuce and carrots in the bushel baskets which I painted and aged to blend into the rug (that I found at the thrift store) which was a tobacco premium in the long long ago.  I strew dried straw and dried plants all over the carpet.
  Stuff that the cat dragged in.  

 Well actually, stuff that the chickens dragged in.  I love the chickens and right from the beginning I was determined to use these two.  I posed one on a chair that I aged and wore the threads out with a good scrub of sandpaper on the seat cushion.  The hen has laid an egg on the chair and the rooster now has something to crow about!  I made a lap robe by buying an old shirt at Value Village and cutting out a square and glued a piece of tin foil onto the back side to allow it to drape and I positioned it repeatedly until I found what I liked.  All the furniture that I used, "use to be 'nice' and was cast off and scavenged from the 'Manor House' to live in this out building.", so I could mix the styles to my hearts content.  I had this dollar store sideboard that I had painted and decoupaged to look French and Formal.  I layered the top of it with Medieval accessories such as the iron grotesque and the candelabra that I made.  An old silver pitcher with books and painted silica gel grapes (see my grapes tutorial) to snack on and packages of seeds to be planted and a cup of tea to take the chill off, which are just some of the items that litter the fancy desk top.  Oh!  and Books!  Books on the desk as well as under it where it is difficult to see!  How could I ever have a display without including them!?

The mirror that sits on top is a repainted Christmas ornament that I purchased several of from the dollar store, all those years ago and this is what inspired the title of the roombox.  Gothic mirror = 'GOTHICA'
It is funny that once I got a working title for the space things really began to gel.  When cleaning out the garage and in the course of rediscovering the contents of long forgotten boxes, I discovered a set of medieval weaponry.  The scale was right and I chose 2 of the 7 that I had and placed the trident and a tasseled spear, into the corner.  "Swords into plowshares" began to seriously run through my mind.

I found a scull that was not too scary( "Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well") and moved it about until I found the right spot on the lip of the stereo casing.  The manuscript was from a cut out in a magazine that was stained and torn and glued to the outside corner. A tiny turtle was glued under it just because I liked the effect.  I found the sword in a bag of junky bits.  'Swords into plowshares' was fast emerging, by now.

This grotesque was originally a fridge magnet that my sister found at the thrift store (it runs in the family) and although too big for anywhere inside the box I wanted to use him anyway and found that the lower left outside corner was a good place for it.

The same thing applied to this lion which I painted and aged and that I found at the thrift store. 
 Hey, guess where I shop a lot? ..... 
 At the thrift store?

(How'd ya know?)

Anyway, the lion was glued to the top of the box and is finally at rest.
(and I ain't lyin)

I made 2 finials for the corners out of wooden beads topped with a fancy head pin and painted it all and stained and aged it and the base around it. 

Meanwhile back inside again.
Here is a closer look at the wall finish and the iron chains that are holding the mirror in place.  I had painted the mirror to look like a really solid wood and for it to just SIT on the table was not enough security for anyone who might be sitting in front of it.  Heavy chains were in order and water marks from the damp in the walls generated rust stains too.  A flattened embossed button of a viking is mounted above and in between the still alive ancient vine that has worked its way across the ceiling and along the mirrored wall.

about the vines ....
I was walking the dogs during the winter months and someone had thrown out an uprooted rose bush.  As I passed I marveled at the interesting shapes of the roots that were now sticking up into the air, and then right away I tried to remove some of it.  But roots are tough and I wrestled with it in the alley for a good 5 minutes before I finally won the day.  I gleefully took it home and washed and dried it and wondered how I could use it.  I got up the nerve to try a tiny piece in around the door of this hideaway and before you know it I had used up the whole thing and then had to return to the fallen rose bush and wrest off some more roots to further enhance the corner with a more earthy cave like 'hobbit' atmosphere.  It was looking like it could be carved out of a tree hollow or a cavern in the side of a hill.  This space was constantly changing on me! 

This wasp began as a novelty pin and when I had purchased it from Value Village, I had thought of wearing it on my lapel, but I then didn't want people hitting at me trying to knock it off!  I liked it but others would Freak!  It used to have one wing but it fell off a long time ago. Just to make GOTHICA more interesting I decided to stick my little 'killer bee' in the corner close to the viewer for added perspective.  The wasp is life-sized but the interior is one twelfth and the scenery is even smaller.
  
Just behind the wasp is a button ornament glued onto decorative strips of wallpaper border in a gold tone.

Magazine cutouts of regency garden plans that I rolled after staining and  aging and I placed them in  another old flower bucket along with some old garden tools and yet Another sword.

Finally I added a plastic sheep that I remove at will and placed him just outside the door of the building.  There are a pair of wooden garden clogs on the threshold which are right under its nose. The clogs use to be earrings ( thirft store)  The sheep (thrift store) was added the night before the Miniature Show and so I was working on this project right up to the wire.

The landscape is a mural that came from a book of trompe l'oeil.  Guess where I bought it?
YUP!

So after a very long time and through many transformations over the course of a year, this is the project that I took to the 2013 West Coast Miniature Show.  I am very proud of it and I hope that you have not fallen asleep through the viewing of it.  I thank all the public that voted for my project and I have to say that I felt ELATED after they announced my name at the end of the day! After more than 12 years absent.
BEST IN SHOW!
What a wonderful feeling and what a wonderful blessing!

God is good!

elizabeth