Room Boxes by Denise Morales
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When I was cleaning up my workroom after I completed this project, I found a bunch of odds and ends that I had not incorporated into the room box. So, I made a needlepoint canvas basket and filled it with the miscellany.
These metal mini shoes are painted then flocked with pink glitter flocking. The jewelry on the green flocked display is made with millefiori, string and no hole beads.
The three center Santas are porcelain blanks that I painted with acrylics and the two other Santas are made with Shrinky Dink ink jet paper. Pinecones are from a tutorial from Lesley Shepherd's About.com. Stationery was inspired by one seen in a Spanish magazine.
These angels are made from plastic bottles and embellished with lace, trims and beads. I got the idea for these from life size ones when I was looking at a beautiful blog.
Paulette Svec taught the snow people in a class and she also crocheted the pillow. I printed the black and white pillows onto ink jet fabric paper. I bought the crocheted Santa at a show.
Glitter house kit from Cynthia Howe. I thought this forlorn-looking mouse looked sweet next to the house.
Shoes for St. Nicholas Day---painted and flocked metal mini clogs filled with sliced millefiori canes (Designer Canes by Tamara), candy sticks made with twisted embroidery floss that is hardened with liquid super glue. Suitcases---stacked wooden discs glued together, sanded on bottom and covered with 1/2" scale paper from Robin Betterley.For this white resin St. Mary, after I washed it with Folk Art antique medium, I then, washed it with acrylic paints that had been watered down to a water paint consistency.
The white wooly St. Nick I purchased at a show decades ago. I repainted the pink and blue inexpensive plastic Santas.
The Christmas tree is surrounded by wrapped presents and stands in a old-looking green metal crib from Texas Tiny. Some of the ornaments on the tree are ones I made 25 years ago. My children had given me a surprise 50th birthday party and I incorporated the 50! confetti into the room box that I was making at the time. The large box ornaments was a class by Sherrill Jenkins of Dollhouses Unlimited.
The three center snowmen are metal minis and the two end ones are made from Shrinky Dink paper.
"Ric Rac " trim is glued around a paper cone, and a toothpick glued into a round wooden flat bead make the base. Pink crochet wreath is from Paulette Svec and I furthered embellished with beads, bunka, and bow. Rhinestones and glitter embellish a plain pink bead.
I used metallic sewing thread to make the curling ribbon around the cards.
Christmas bulbs and tree topper are from the craft store and made from clear plastic that I painted with Pearl Ex powdered pigments and water.
This bulletin board that displays gift wrapping embellishments was a lot of fun to make because I got to use bits and pieces from my overflowing stash of supplies.
This gift wrapping station is probably my most favorite part of this room box. Blue cameo ornament is a gift from Patti Caster. Snowman bag is a gift from Paulette Svec.
Well. . . I guess I have a little bit of everything on this Chrysnbon mannequin. So many ideas and such little space that I had to combine fancy Christmas jewelry with a workday Christmas apron. I even had to throw in some ornaments and vase for the mannequin's head.
Silk ribbon ornaments hanging on string were another wonderful group project that took about four weekly meetings to complete. Merry Christmas sign was a rub-on transfer from the craft's store.
Cheap plastic skates are painted with a pearlescent white, embellished with bunka, lace, paper punched flowers, and gold beads. Towels,on the right, are embellished with a pine cone water-slide decal from Miniature Luxuries, here.
Swag garland is made from green floral wire , different colored landscaping foam, no hole beads and glittered pearl beads with attached gold seed beads.
The beautiful needlepoint stocking was a gift from Carolyn Denning. Christmas angel pyramid was a kit from Robin Betterley and can be found here.
All of the santas, snowmen, and churches are metal minis, plastic, or porcelain blanks painted in the same way that I described above. The angel on top of the books was by Valerie Casson.
Snowman was made from Crayola air dry clay, toothpick for nose, sequin, black bead, wire and glitter.
Glitter houses were a group project taught by Nancy Gaiser. These patterns were reduced from a site called littleglitterhouses.com.
Reindeer from left to right: True 2 Scale kit, pewter deer, confetti deer, and 2 plastic deer that have all been glittered.
The laser cut Santas were a kit from Cynthia Howe. I glittered the Merry Christmas confetti.
The perfect stocking on the left was made by Paulette Svec.
How I did the star/snowman garland: I covered star confetti with no-hole beads, glued no-hole beads around Santa and snowman millefiori, then glued these on a string. Snowflakes are punched from scrapbook paper and glittered star and flower confetti are glued in the center. Christmas trees are made from cut, shaped and painted bump chenille pipe cleaners with glittered stars and no-hole beads glued inside the branches. Poinsettias are made from a Bonnie Lavish kit and I used the leaves to make the paler flower. Hand mirrors were a club project that were inspired by ones made by Lori Potts. The flowers on the metal mirrors are nail decals.
The Christmas trees, nutcrackers, nativity and angels are all metal miniatures and the Santa is an inexpensive plastic piece. This is the technique that I use to paint almost all plastic, resin and metal mini pieces: I spray them with white primer, then wash with Folk Art antique medium, then paint with acrylics, then wash again with the antique medium, then coat with Mod Podge. "NOEL"decoration is kit from Robin Betterly. I made the wreath in the picture frame by shaping a heart with cloth covered wire, then layering with leaves cut with a leaf punch, then glued no-hole glittery beads on top.
This large bookcase/fireplace unit was initially challenging to decorate. I was able to unify the unit by first placing the old books on the shelves and then placing all of the Christmas Santas, snowmen, angels, nutcrackers, and ornaments. It was further unified with the placement of the evergreens and the icicle trim, made by True 2 Scale.
I had already completed two half inch scale room boxes in the traditional red and green color scheme a few years previous to this box. I had always wanted to do a Christmas themed box with pinks and sage greens, so when I saw a fellow club member bring in a shabby Christmas table that I admired so much, I knew that I wanted to bump up this themed room box on my long list of miniature projects. Below are lots of detailed pictures of a room of some imagined shabby chic Christmas shop. I completed this shop in 2012.