{"id":22080,"date":"2014-07-03T06:18:18","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T11:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=22080"},"modified":"2014-06-16T07:34:45","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T12:34:45","slug":"the-wonder-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=22080","title":{"rendered":"The Wonder Room"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/stonehengeterrarium-150x118.jpg\" alt=\"Stonehenge Terrarium\" width=\"150\" height=\"118\" class=\"contentimg\" \/>Intrepid commenter Sisifo pointed me to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.etsy.com\/shop\/Megatone230?ref=pr_shop_more\">this Etsy shop<\/a> full of &#8220;terrarium-style&#8221; dioramas.<\/p>\n<p>As a child, artist Tony Larson was heavily influenced by the special effects of Industrial Light and Magic, Ray Harryhausen, and similar movie magicians, and grew up to create miniature &#8220;worlds of wonder&#8221; to display.  His miniature vignettes are lovely little glimpses into fantasy worlds, depicting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.etsy.com\/listing\/99850497\/ancient-goddess-ruins-fantasy-forest?ref=shop_home_active_5\">ancient ruined statues<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.etsy.com\/listing\/158815369\/fairy-zen-garden-5-terrarium-diorama?ref=shop_home_active_14\">fairy landscapes<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.etsy.com\/listing\/126181278\/brontosaurus-garden-terrarium-diorama?ref=shop_home_active_5\">lost worlds<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The materials he uses are all either artificial or dried, so the landscape won&#8217;t change, but it might also be fun to do something similar with real plants.  If you&#8217;re handy with polymer clay you could sculpt your own ruined towers, gravestones, ancient idols, or other interesting features.  If not, pre-made miniatures abound; take a look at model train hobby sites as well as dollhouse miniature suppliers for various scales.<\/p>\n<p>You can either make the miniature the focus of the piece&#8211;perhaps a temple slowly being reclaimed by the jungle&#8211;or tuck them away in the foliage to be stumbled upon; something like a dinosaur skull weathering out of the ground or a fairy staircase hidden behind a fern could suggest a much larger story that the detail only hints at.<\/p>\n<p>This kind of desktop ornament would make a splendid gift, particularly if customized to the recipient&#8217;s interests.  This is also a gift that can be made well in advance, since it&#8217;ll give the plants time to settle in and look more cohesive.<\/p>\n<p><i>(Thanks, Sisifo!)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Intrepid commenter Sisifo pointed me to this Etsy shop full of &#8220;terrarium-style&#8221; dioramas. As a child, artist Tony Larson was heavily influenced by the special effects of Industrial Light and Magic, Ray Harryhausen, and similar movie magicians, and grew up to create miniature &#8220;worlds of wonder&#8221; to display. His miniature vignettes are lovely little glimpses [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-needful-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22080"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22148,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22080\/revisions\/22148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}