Juanita's Dress Shop Room Box

I have still been working on miniatures but not posting. Lately, I have been doing more buying and mental designing rather than physically creating. I bought the room box from miniLand.ca this summer just because I liked it and put it away in the closet, until I was ready to do something with it. Over the past months, I discovered wonderful dresses at TheLittleHatter shop and I started to find other things I liked on eBay, Etsy, miniatures.com and I realized that I had the makings of a dress shop! Along with the hat shop I made, I can now completely outfit my miniature ladies!

My mom has a talent for sewing and I thought it would be nice to do a dress shop in her honor. She likes "bling" anything ornate is good with her, the more the better. She also loves jewelry and perfume. The color scheme and design details are inspired by my sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Inc.

New Year's weekend, I was ready and this is the result..
Juanita's Dress Shop designs and makes custom one of a kind dresses for ladies and girls for all occasions (by appointment only) and she carries other exclusive items such as jewelry, perfumes, bath oils, purses, hair and beauty accessories for her upscale clientele.




I was going for a sophisticated shabby chic. I wanted age and wear but not country. I had not used the chalk paint before but I love it for miniature painting. The opaque coverage, I like the spread of the paint there is no build up like with regular acrylic, the finish is very smooth no brush strokes.
I decided to use the Michaels Craft Smart Multi Surface Premium Chalky Paint and Crackle Medium. I created the crackle texture using Multi Surface Premium Chalky Paint in ground cinnamon first layer, then Multi Surface Premium Acrylic in gold in final layer as a base. Then I used Multi Surface Premium Chalky Paint in "parchment" as the top coat over the crackle medium. I also used Art Deco's Dazzling Metallics "Venetian Gold" (Michaels), Folk Art's "Pearl White" and "Peridot" in metallic and Anita's "Princess Pink" and scrapbook paper by Recollections "Green Tiles" on the exterior with a gloss coat added to the exterior.

I painted used 3D stickers and wood appliqués to embellish the store's exterior and interior.

I already had the white glass front store counter and the mahogany display cabinet. But I customized mahogany cabinet by removing two doors in the middle and added a realistic plastic mirror sheet (JoAnn's) to the shelves.

I used the chalky white on the mirrored display cabinet and shelves I made for the shop.
I bought and made the dress pattern display and button display kits from miniatures.com. Fabric bolts from a kit (my mom is in the process of making those) will go the the area underneath the cabinet. I printed the other paper images from the internet and adjusted the sizes in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

I bought the bottles and jewelry in two bundles on eBay (I just didn't have the patience required to make them myself). I added backs for support and to make the stands made from small box latch parts.