Do you know the curiosities table Kassandra has in the drawing room? I wanted to do a natural history cabinet after seeing this magnificient piece of furniture from The Miniature Maker:
As you can see, it is a very modern style, but the antique looking ones were out of my desired price range. So, I started by staining it with a Scalecolor ink (I used the Inktense Chestnut shade), and let it dry. I love how intense and soft the color of this shade is; and then I replaced the wood knobs by brass handles, to give it a more antique look:
Finished this, my favorite part started: assigning a theme to each drawer and designing them. Originally I wanted to divide the drawers with wood slots as the original one has, but I finally decided that that would rest space for the collection, as the drawers are not that big, so I decided against it; and instead, I was content to line the drawers with textile-textured scrapbook paper:
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| Trying out the pattern |
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| Lined drawers |
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| Pattern for the big drawers |
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| Final look |
So awesome! Now the real fun begins: the collections for the drawers! I started with some minerals and gems. Some I had around; some others were kindly donated by a co-worker. I wanted to do just one drawer, but I ended up doing two because I liked so many of them I could not fit them all in just one. I organized them, and then I started making little labels to identify each of them. The labels come from Vectoria Designs, simply reduced to the minimum expression. Even though once printed the lettering was not readable, I assure you each of them has the name of the specimen, a date, and whether or not they are donated and by whom.
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| Trying out the labels |
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| Aren't they amazingly pretty? |
Two done, four to go! The next one had to be, of course, marine specimens! I used real tiny shells, and I glued a faux pearl to one of them to simulate an oyster.
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| Spell under the sea! |
The next one came as a surprise. I was talking to another co-worker about this project, saying I wanted to try and find real fossils for one of the drawers, and she was so generous to offer to donate a real fossil she found in a trip when she was cursing her biology degree. Naturally, I accepted immediately! It was a little big for a 1:12 scale standard, but there are big size fossils too in real life:
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| It fitted just well enough! |
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| See the label attached to the back of the drawer? |
On to the next one. This time, butterflies! I found a very pretty butterfly classification chart, and searched for suitable pictures of each one that I liked. Then I made the labels with the common name, the scientific name, and the distribution of each species. It was a challenge to cut and glue each one! I even added little antennae using the bristles of a toothbrush, which I painted black:
And, there is one drawer left! This one is going to have a collection of bird eggs. But, since I have to sculpt and paint each egg by hand, I still haven't started with them, since it is going to be time consuming. But I wanted to share what I have thus far.
More pictures when I finish the last drawer!
