On a sidetrack: natural history museum roombox - part 1

 At the end of May, the son of a very dear friend celebrated his ‘groeifeest’ (literally translated as ‘growth celebration’). This is a typically Belgian phenomenon. It is a secular confirmation ceremony, organized for children who do not participate in a religious confirmation. Both celebrations take place at the end of primary school, in the year the child turns twelve.

It was quickly decided that the gift for the guest of honor would have a miniature theme, since he has a soft spot for anything small and cute. Finding the right subject, however, proved more difficult. That changed when I bought a copy of Dollhouse Nederland and came across a 1:12 scale natural history museum featured in the magazine. Perfect for a twelve-year-old boy. Inspiration struck!

Because I had only seven weeks to create the entire museum, I had no choice but to keep its dimensions modest. I bought a tea box with six compartments, each measuring approximately 7 × 7 cm and 5 cm deep. Each compartment would become a museum gallery with its own theme. I decided to focus on visual appeal rather than accuracy of scale. After all, what is a natural history museum without a dinosaur skeleton (isn’t it what we all remember from our visits to the museum as a kid)? But if I had made all the other objects proportional to that skeleton, they would have been virtually invisible.

I chose the themes for the six galleries, designed the furniture in SketchUp, and gathered all the images I needed. My Cricut cut most of the furniture components. (I stupidly cut out all the parts in one go from a single sheet of heavy chipboard and then spent half an hour working out which pieces belonged together to make each piece of furniture…). I treated all the parts with wood stain before assembly and then applied a coat of varnish afterward. The cabinet bases were made from foam board and covered with black paper.

66 pieces and a lot of them are very similar in size...

Gallery 1 – Prehistory

The dinosaur skeleton! Of course that’s what I started with! I treated a toy skeleton with several shades of wood stain to tone down the bright white and make it look like aged bones, then built a pedestal to display the dinosaur.

I mounted prints of fossils onto cardboard and added small cardboard stands to the back so they could stand upright. These were displayed in a cubby-style shelving unit. A few informational illustrations and a cute velociraptor (well, cute in this scale) complete the gallery.





Gallery 2 – Human evolution

I definitely wanted to dedicate a gallery to human evolution. I made a display cabinet to exhibit artifacts. The "glass" is made from a piece of acetate from a cake package; when I saw that perfectly folded piece of plastic, I knew it would come in handy.

Our concrete garden paving is grouted with loose stones about 5 to 8 mm in size. I picked out a few that had the shape of the earliest tools used by prehistoric humans. One loose stone became a hand axe; adding twigs and string I made another axe and a spear. A twig that already had the right shape was trimmed into a club. They all found a place in and on the display cabinet.

The evolution from ape to human, along with the corresponding evolution of skull shape, is illustrated through wall charts. From his photograph, Darwin watches over the scene.






Gallery 3 – mineralogy

The Earth gives us beautiful rocks and minerals. My grandmother brought back specimens from the trips she made throughout her life. A few years ago, my daughter also developed a passion for minerals and could name dozens of them. That gave me plenty of inspiration for creating a mineralogy gallery in my miniature museum. I did not want to use too many items from their collections, however, so I bought a bracelet and a pair of earrings and took them apart. I built a cabinet with sorting compartments (cut out of wooden coffee stirrers) for the stones at the top and compartments for identification cards at the bottom. The green aventurine on top of the cabinet is the only item that actually comes from my grandmother’s collection. The “crystals” on the right are in fact earrings set with zirconia stones.







With this, half of the museum was complete. I’ll save the other three galleries for my next post and leave you guessing a little longer about the other themes I selected.

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