In Memoriam: Mourning in Miniature

A peek in the window.

 It may be past Halloween, but I decided to keep working here and there on the miniature Funeral Parlor. And... it's finished! (Click photos for full size.)

 I have to admit, I had to laugh seeing it done. Yes, it's a bit weird and death isn't funny, but there's enough terrible and sad things going on in the world, so hope you get a chuckle out of this. 

This idea started with the gag coffin hubby found at Goodwill. A great find as it's the right size and I'll never find something like this again! It actually is a stop smoking gag gift and has a button you push for corny sayings. But it fit my purposes!

Someone remembered her with roses....

In my project stash, I had this Arched Roombox kit I bought a super long time ago. Since I lost the top front arch piece (of course!), I had to figure out what to use instead. 

I decided to decorate the building front using a plastic brick sheet. I painted part of the top and edged the windows with hat straw I also painted. I wanted to make it look like a reclaimed old store so I added light lace curtains in front and added an old-looking General Store sign. I like the two-tone brick.

You can see a slight edge on the sides from the plastic corner edge moldings (from Menards in the wallpaper section) we glued to the sides and bottom of the box with Quick Grip. It worked perfect to hold the front in place and also let me slide it out if needed.

We also cut a top cover for the roombox from plastic out of a large poster frame (Hobby Lobby 40% off sale) and glued that to the corner edge moldings to fit over the sides of the roombox. These glue well using JB Weld Plastic Bonder. (We use the tan formula which leaves a slight opaqueness but holds super strong.) 

(FYI: the poster frame plastic and the corner moldings also can be used to make a more reasonably priced dollhouse case. I cover my houses so I don't have to dust them and to avoid the dog hair! We made a cover for the Witch Cottage this way (since the hardware store wanted to double their acrylic prices!) and also glued in reinforcements along the inner bottom of the case from thicker 1" acrylic strips we cut. A lot of steps with measure, cut, glue, but it ended up not as pricey and a decent case.)

Initially I'd thought of making this roombox into some kind of store, with green paper on the bottom of the walls. Then I put it away and decided to use wood wainscoting instead. I like the old-fashioned wallpaper as it gave it a vintage parlor look. 

I think the door was a great addition. I used doors I took from another dollhouse kit and made a fake entrance. There's a garden calendar scene behind the lace to make it look like it goes somewhere. I added vintage landscape art on the walls to fit the look of the room. The pillars are plastic cake decorating pillars that we painted gold and part-gold.

Right side of the room:

I used a couple vintage furniture pieces - one of those black and gold Chinese lacquer tables from part of a set, and a gold Petite Princess chair which fit the decor here perfectly. Funny how you end up saving furniture pieces for a long time (years!) and then finally, they fit just right into a certain project! ha!

The mourners and the "deceased" are of course those strings of plastic skeletons from the Dollar Tree. (I keep stashing them as they keep getting scarcer  (remember when you got 12 on a string??) and somewhat cheaper made (if that's possible? ha!) I painted them white and made eyeballs from Crayola Model Magic air-dry clay. I also made their clothes and wigged them. Even skellies like to be fashionable, you know. 💀😀 But they're fun to dress and just make me smile. We can all use that. 

The Exterior:

On the sides, I decided to continue the painted brick on top with some stucco-like paper painted the same shade on the bottom. Since I didn't want plain walls, I added a mortuary sign on one side and "ghost" brick signs on the other side to give it some interest. The back is covered with the painted stucco-like paper, too.

The full room: (I didn't turn the lights back on.)

So for now, this is how the room will look. I may add a sign-in register and desk, and a few more chairs and mourners yet. I'm going to leave it this way for a while, I think. I have the other roombox that I like to decorate as a Christmas scene with my vintage mini dolls. I'll set that up next.

Hope you enjoyed seeing something a bit different! I'll be back working on the Park Ave. Mansion next. The ceilings are papered, I'll attach the lights and then we can glue the floors in. Hope to show some progress on that soon.

Thanks again for visiting! Be sure to come back to see what's next!