My Magic Box!

This has been a project I have been sitting on for a long time. Part of the reason being I needed to wait to find the right pieces, part of the reason being that I wanted to do this justice, and the other part being that I was not sure how to make it look nice. I was in the process of making this when I was on my favorite site (http://btvsfigs.proboards48.com/index.cgi) and I came across a person who made the Magic Box--his picture is below.

I am in total awe of this piece. This person made it for a donation!! It is to scale with the 6 inch figures. It even has an outside part. I inquired how he made this and he gave me some good advice (but wouldn't share how much he would charge to do another one for me). I'm sure he's like most people and won't do something twice. Practice makes perfect, I say!

I toyed around with the idea of doing the arch over the counter and the walls along side the counter but I finally decided to just do the counter and back display. I don't have a lot of room and my space is getting smaller with each diorama I make. So...having said that here is what I did.

My first challenge was trying to find shelves for the back shelf part. I thought the shelves you get with Tara, Bad Girl Wesley, and Illyria figures would be a good idea. I had 5 of those shelves.
Then I got into casting things so I casted some shelves. It was a good idea, but so darn hard to get it out of the mold once casted and the mold riped (AND THAT WASTED A LOT OF SILICONE!!) so I really struggled to make 4 more! I managed to do that and filled in the gaps with sculpy and shaved down the mistakes and came up with this: (sorry, photo is sideways)

I was pretty content. Then I was searching on ebay and found this shelf.
It looked like it would work so much better--but I'd have to get 5 (actually 6 now that I look more carefully) of these. I spent over $10 for this, I believe, so that wasn't going to happen. I really didn't want to try to get a mold and cast this shelf either. So I decided to go with what I had. Then I see this great deal for Bad Girl Wesley figures and I bought all the ones he had--giving me 3 more shelves--to replace the other trashy casts that I made. Then it came to me that I could add some of that foam board to the shelf (the board I used to make the stairs mentioned in an earlier post). I'm fairly happy with how it turned out.

But wouldn't you know that when I did a search today I saw this shelf for about what I paid for the other one--and it's 3 parts so I would have gotten 2 and this would have worked so much nicer!!! GRRR

So here are some pictures from the show and my version:

The items on the shelves were also hard to come by. I tried so hard to get my shelf to match the show but it is quite difficult. Most dollhouse items are way too expensive or not quite right. I did see some mini glass jars at Hobby Lobby and I picked up what they had. They are filled with random spices from my cabinet. The taller tubes are actually flexible tubing cut, topped with clay, then painted and filled with stuff. The rest of the bits and bobbles are pieces I get from other random figures and pieces from when I go junk shopping. It is not quite like the real show but I still think it's cool.

I didn't make any figures for this set. I used an OMWF Anya and a Giles figure. I may go back and make the Giles from OMWF to match Anya. I made the box on the counter. I made this because I had all those potion bottles that didn't fit on the shelves. I made it look like Giles is opening the box and restocking inventory.

My counter display turned out nice. This is, like, try 3 you are looking at. I tried different things but then I realized it was too small or not long enough. Third times a charm and I used a CD case for the glass with some rods for support. I had cut up a back wall pane (the plastic backdrop you get with random figures) and glued that for the lower counter. I had to sculpt the lines in the counter. I also made the stand where the register sits on. I needed to make it bigger to fit all 3 signs on. And, yes, the signs are hand painted!! I am proud of that.

Inside the display I painted the picture that's in the back. I tried to reproduce those geode rocks. I also made the knife display and added some other bits. I also painted the two signs on the glass display.


For the floor I sponge painted black and white. Then painted in greenish squares. (this was all on the poster board paper (what was left of it). I didn't want to use the scenic water to put on the floor to give it that shine so I used hair spray to give it a subtle bumpy shine. I'm not sure if it was from the wet paint or hairspray but wouldn't you know it the darn thing curled a bit!


Here are some pictures of the whole scene. I still am trying to figure out how to make the lights (just the metal covers--nothing that lights up) on top of the shelf display.