Rosy & Daisy — a Christmas roombox

Squeezing in one last post for 2024! The blog has been neglected lately because I have been hard at work on a secret project. I surprised Geoff with this roombox for Christmas.

I’ve been wanting to make this vignette since our sweet girl Rosy died last year at the age of fifteen. Not long after that, I saw a Facebook post about Lucy Francis, a talented artist who makes miniature dogs, and I got the idea to memorialize Rosy in front of the fireplace, but I was too sad to get started on it. After we adopted Daisy this summer, I decided to add her to the scene and I emailed Lucy to start the process.

Lucy was very responsive and wonderful to work with. She even made Daisy a duck toy.

The scene is set in a 12″ x 12″ x 5.5″ box from PinkSeagullDesign on Etsy. The dogs came out a little larger than 1:12 scale and our house has 8′ ceilings, so the scale of the scene is between 1:12 and 1:6. (I guess that would be 1:9?) The lights are powered by a 9-volt battery hidden under the hearth.

Here’s our fireplace. Rosy always loved to lie next to the fire, and when we moved into this house, Geoff built her a platform since the hearth is elevated.

I bought the samovar and metal bowl from DrevcaUS, the water bowl from BucketOfMiniatures, the rawhide from Dollhouses and More, and the light switch and power outlet from JW3DForge. (My Etsy Insider subscription really paid off for this project — I saved more than $75 in shipping!)

Alexandria Gold at RiaArtWorld crocheted three dog toys for me, using a smaller hook than usual to make them as tiny as possible. Daisy has a broccoli toy in real life, so I was psyched to find one in miniature.

I bought the basket from TeenyDreamhouse. The Kong Wobbler and a couple of toys in the basket came from MiniPetsAndEffects. (The Kong Wobbler is a favorite in our household…) I made the snuffle mat out of plastic needlepoint canvas and DMC floss, to match Daisy’s.

This is one of Geoff’s favorite pictures of Rosy. When I sent Lucy pictures of the dogs for reference, I told her this was the one I wanted to recreate.

She got the pose just right.

Daisy’s a long dog with short legs, and she lies in the sploot position.

Lucy captured this, along with her left ear that flops down.

We currently have the TV over the fireplace, but in past houses my cross stitch of Klimt’s The Kiss has hung there. You can see it in this pic of our living room in San Francisco (with Rosy looking intently out the window), along with two framed airplane ads that I also included in the roombox.

I got the mini Kiss pattern from 4StitchLV and stitched it over one on a scrap of black evenweave left over from the life-sized version. I also substituted in some metallic threads so it would look more like its real-life counterpart.

I made the mortars out of dreadlock beads (!) from SunshineDreadBeads, with pestles cut down from Houseworks spindles. Neil at MiniLumber made the mantel for me out of walnut.

This wall clock is hanging in our dining room (the bricks are the back side of the fireplace). Geoff always comments that he wishes he could see it from his chair in the living room, so I decided to recreate it in the roombox too.

I bashed a House of Miniatures Tall Case Clock to make this, with a working clock face from Dollshouse Emporium.

I’ll do some additional posts in January to show the process of making this vignette. Until then, happy new year!