(Sandy O’Grady – C’s Kitchen- AM205)
An Inside Story on Cookbooks
by Pam North
Like many other miniaturists, Sandy O’Grady’s introduction to the mini world came about with a childhood dollhouse, given to her in 1953 as a Christmas present when she was four years old. It was a metal one with plastic furniture. Her second dollhouse was made for her by her grandfather in 1956, and her third one was self-built, beginning in 1977. That one took her several years to complete, and she has been making miniatures ever since, focusing on dollhouses, dioramas, room boxes nestled within sets of books, accessories and furnishings.
Sandy has spent the majority of her life caring for her family as a homemaker, and also doing volunteer work. Since her family takes up less of her time now that they don’t live at home, she can use her spare moments making miniatures. “I don’t have as much of that time as I’d like,” she said, “but I am able to finish several projects a year.” Her family, especially her daughter, are fascinated by her interest and encourage her, and they also are a source of inspiration for her. She makes almost all of her miniatures for them and her friends, enjoying her ability to surprise them with miniatures that reflect special meaning for them.
Only one item has she decided so far not to part with, and that is her Sherlock Holmes’ three-story apartment building that includes his flat (featured in AM185). It is the largest project she has completed, and is made entirely from scratch. She has had her dollhouses on display at her local library, and her Frankie’s Garage won a second place in Hobby Builders Supply’s 2017 Creatin’ Contest, She has received an award for her miniature needlework, and has appeared in several articles in American Miniaturist magazine.
She is self-taught, and works in a quiet, well-lit corner of her basement. “I am always thinking about making something different and unique.” she explained, “and I make almost everything from scratch.” Her miniature power table saw and her miniature miter box are valued tools that she has mastered and swears she can’t live without. “One of the major difficulties involved with working in miniature is keeping things in scale, making them as accurate as possible. I like realistic scenes, and the pleasure of creating something that has meaning for others.” She did precisely that with her most recent piece, called C’s Kitchen, which is a 1:12 scale rendering of a realistically equipped miniature kitchen sandwiched in between several cookbooks. The idea for it came from a conversation she had with a friend. “She and I had discussed a kitchen in a set of cookbooks. When I saw her mother’s handwritten sugar cookie recipe framed on her kitchen wall, I knew that would be the theme. Her mom was not well at the time, and since has passed away. I decided to make it to honor her memory, and I gave it to my friend as a birthday gift. I made all the items revolve around her mother’s recipe.”
Sandy purchased flea market cookbooks, and some of the items on the counter, the table, and the stove.  She constructed the room box, wired it for lights, made the cabinets and countertops, framed the recipe and pictures, and made the baskets from kits. Other materials used were gator board, cabinet hinges, LED lights on 9-volt batteries, basswood for the cabinets and range hood, acrylic paints, and computer printouts for the flooring and countertops, cabinet magnetic stops, and hinges for the room box.
She started with the cookbooks, choosing ones that were oversized so that she could fit a room box within their dimensions. She glued the outside of the pages with white glue, thinned with water, pressing them while they dried, and leaving one bookend cover unglued for access to the room box. Then she drew cutting lines on the books, lining them up evenly. She hollowed out the books by cutting the pages on the lines with a bandsaw. Out of Gatorfoam board she built a room box that would fit inside the cut cookbooks, glueing the books together around the box but not to it; large clamps were used to hold them together while the glue dried. She removed the box and finished the inside of it, painting the walls with acrylic paints. She added the lights, running two lights through each one of five holes she had drilled along the front of the room box, and one inside the range hood. After first starting with five single white LED bulbs that imparted a harsh, washed-out effect, she added another five amber-colored LED lights to balance out the illumination to look more natural. To avoid a cord that had to be plugged into an outlet, Sandy used two nine-volt batteries to power all the lights, adding button switches on the back of the end cookbook to turn the lights on/off. The batteries are contained within the unglued book cover on the outside of the room box, and the back cover is held closed with a cabinet magnet. The kitchen cabinets were built from basswood, painted with acrylics. Black glass beads were used for the knobs, and pieces of black electric 12-volt wire for the cabinet hinges. The tile floor and the marble countertops were printed via her computer. The printed flooring was glued directly to the Gatorfoam board floor. The marble print for the countertops was glued to pieces of mat board cut to size, and the work table was spray-painted red to honor her friend’s request that the kitchen colors be gray and red.
“I like to fill the cabinets and the table with objects before I glue them to the wall and floor,” Sandy explained. “I made most of the food item boxes after printing them on cardstock using my computer, and labels for cans and cannisters were made the same way. White, tan, and translucent FIMO modeling clay was used for the dough and cookies; the butter is made from white, yellow, and translucent FIMO also, cut into sticks and put in the box I had printed. The apron, oven mitt, and tea towel hanging on the oven are from cloth scraps. There is a red drinking glass on a saucer of sugar to press into the cookies as mentioned in the recipe; the sugar was made from glass beads, ground up by mortar and pestle. The flour in the bowl of dough and on the cutting board is baby powder. I reduced the pictures of the recipe and photos on my computer, and framed them. When all the items were arranged the way I wanted, I glued the cabinets, stove, and table to the walls and floor. I then placed the room box into the cookbooks shell and glued it in place, adding the window last.”
The hardest part about making this miniature was the lighting. “After experimenting with several types, the easiest solution was the LED lights used by model railroaders. I tried several different sizes and colors before I found the right combination. My favorite part about this piece was the kitchen work table. I like the color, and it was fun to arrange all the ingredients for the sugar cookie recipe.”
Her efforts turned out successfully if slightly different than she had envisioned. “I had an idea of what would please the friend for whom I was making this, but like most of my projects, over time and with many trials and errors, it evolved, as I had to tear it down and rebuild it to make room for all the objects I decided to put in it.”
Sandy is optimistic about the future of miniatures, saying, “I think miniatures always will be popular with the public. Who does not like looking into a dollhouse room, or seeing a mini-version of an everyday object? Anyone can collect or make miniatures, and there’s no limit to what you can do with them.”
She looks forward to the excitement of bringing new ideas into reality, and is presently working on creating a miniature computer with a screen that is illuminated by LED lights. Her daughter, a software writer, is designing a website (www.moonlight-miniatures.com) that should be up and running by May to showcase all of Sandy’s projects.

Contact information:
Name:  Sandy O’Grady
Email:  moonlightminiatures@gmail.com
Personal:
Email:  sjo778384@gmail.com (personal)
Phone:  (941) 224-5585||
Address:  1754 Sunlight Drive, Longmont, CO 80504