Miniature Structures

In the dollhouse miniature land, there are vignettes, roomboxes, and dollhouses. Your Dawnorama can be created in any of these structures.

A vignette is a little scene that is usually only about four to eight inches deep. If you have a small display shelving unit that hangs on the wall or is built into your wall, this is the perfect place to create a vignette. Vignettes can be detailed--with wall and floor coverings in addition to furniture and accessories--but, by nature of their size, are limited in what they can contain.

Roomboxes are larger structures, containing one or two rooms. They have an open front and sometimes an open top (though these openings can be covered with Plexiglass to protect from dust). My Dawnoramas are most like roomboxes. Usually roomboxes are 9 to 12-inches deep, and between 10 and 20 inches long, though they can be larger. You can create a roombox out of foamcore, Gatorfoam, or plywood.

Dollhouses are just that--complete houses full of rooms. Usually they have one open face (though some are hinged and can be closed completely). Dollhouses range from the simple to the elaborate. You can buy a dollhouse from a kit or build your own. Kits range in price from $50 to $1000, with the easier-to-assemble kits starting around $200. Dollhouses allow you to create a complete environment, which looks fabulous, but they also take up a lot of space.

For my original Dawnoramas, I created what looks kind of like a four-shelf bookcase, made out of 1/2" foamcore. Each apartment is a different floor. It's lightweight and fairly sturdy, and I can cut windows in the walls when I want. The walls between rooms in the apartments are cut from 1/4" foamcore, and then I set dollhouse doors into these walls.

For my future Dawnoramas, I want to use Gatorboard, which is sturdier, and create each apartment as a separate roombox. I then want to slide these into a bookcase, and slide them back out to photograph them. This way I can "remove" the ceiling from each individual apartment, which is a big help when trying to get enough light in for a good photograph.