I have always loved Tonner's Sinister Circus line but there always seemed to be other dolls that were higher on the "to buy" list. When I heard that there were more coming in 2013 I decided it was time to buy the first round because there will be greater competition for them when the new ones come out. Like all Tonner and Wilde dolls pictures don't do them justice and when I got them home they really inspired me to create a nice display for them. Originally I wanted to do a circus tent. I looked into buying a dog tent and salesman sample tents but they were all too big. As I was doing some research on what vintage circus tents looked like I discovered that the early circuses were actually on the stage, in theaters. That made life so much easier. I decided to build them a theater.
I found this very heavy bookcase at a consignment store for $10:
I liked the look of the dark wood, I thought it would make a nice Victorian era theater. I removed the shelf and headed to Lowes to look for a cornice board. I found some great pieces of chair rail molding that would be perfect:
The top piece is 8 feet long, cost $14, and is what I used to make the cornice. The bottom piece is also 8 feet long, cost $10 and is what I will use to make columns on the sides. I cut the pieces to size using a hand saw. I spray painted them with the same walnut spray stain I used to make EG's attic. I then used a 24K Gold Leafing marker to add highlights (to do this, I used the same technique described in my entry on making miniature paintings for EG's library). When it was dry and looked sufficiently like a cornice in an old, seedy, theatre, I took a strand of battery-operated tiny wire lights off of EG's xmas tree and hot glued them to the cornice. It worked really well!
I bought a gold tension curtain rod at Walmart ($2) and 2 yards of panne red velvet at Jo-Ann's ($8 total after coupon). Panne velvet is perfect for this because it is so supple that it will make realistic, to-scale, folds in the curtains. It also doesn't fray so if you cut clean lines you do not need to hem every side. I cut two panels. I folded the tops backward about and inch and half and pinned it:
I zipped the panels through the sewing machine and hung them on the tension rod. I hot glued the cornice in place:
I still need to turn the other piece of molding into columns for the sides and my plan is to get a series of vintage landscape posters to use as changeable backgrounds, just as they did in turn of the century theaters. I may also add some gold fringe to the edges of the curtains and I may do a second set of curtains in the back as well. I haven't decided if I am going to add a chandelier or not, I could go all out and really pimp this one out. There are so many possibilities! I think it will be great fun to rotate the "act" on display and there will be updates as this set evolves!
