When I bought the shadow box from PinkSeagullDesigns, I had an option to get it painted or unpainted. The painted ones looked nice and I would have liked to save myself some time, but none of the colors offered were quite what I had in mind, so I got the unpainted one.

I unscrewed the hinges and clasp, sanded with the mouse sander, and stained it with blue/gray water-based Minwax stain that I’ve had forever.

The grain was very visible initially. I did a few coats, sanding between coats, and then waxed it. I left the front off so I could reach inside more easily.

As a reminder, here’s the fireplace I’m recreating.

I’d started by making the platform and the front of the hearth.

I used more strip wood to form top and sides of the hearth.

The pieces I used for the sides weren’t the same depth, so I put the mismatched edges on the inside.

Before I could build the rest of the fireplace, I needed to know exactly how tall it should be, so my next step was to build a false ceiling and floor to hide the wires. I made both the ceiling and floor out of the same piece of 3/16″ foam core I’ve been using for false walls and ceilings in the Mansard Victorian.

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When I ordered my miniature dogs from Lucy Francis, I sent her reference photos and measurements for Daisy (as best I was able to get them on a wiggly puppy, without Geoff’s help) and some I had for Rosy from when my sister knit her a sweater years ago.

The dogs’ sizes came out good relative to each other, but they seemed a bit bigger than 1:12. Here they are on a 1:12 sofa:

Compared to real life:

And with 1:12 figures:

Compared to me:

I didn’t have any Barbie dolls to check them with, but they seemed closer to 1:6 scale. I mentioned this to Lucy and she actually offered to redo them, but I somehow missed the email until it was too late. But that’s okay! Since I was planning to build the fireplace from scratch, I could fudge the scale.

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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.

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