(Cassandra Rose – Sorceror’s Tower)
A Medieval Room of Magic

by Pam North

Tennessee resident Cassandra Rose has been fascinated by tiny things for as long as she can remember. When she was in third grade, her parents got her a Victorian dollhouse kit for getting straight A’s for the entire school year, but the dollhouse was never completely finished. Near the end of 2015 she decided to retrieve it from her parents’ house and remodel it. She had been a cake decorator years ago, and had really enjoyed decorating wedding cakes, so now she is translating that experience into miniatures by turning the rescued dollhouse into a bakery. “Once it is finished it will be filled with wedding cakes and desserts,” she vows.
As a career, Cassandra works full-time at a nature park and planetarium as an exhibit artist and 3D artist. She designs and builds educational exhibits as well as doing 3D modeling and animation for their planetarium shows. The majority of her time is spent working on the computer, but she loves that she gets to make things with her hands as well. The variety of work she does keeps her job interesting.
While Cassandra had no training in miniatures specifically, she did study digital media and art in college. She learned to use Adobe Illustrator, and that is where she goes when she wants to design pieces to scale. She uses it to get an idea of dimensions, and she can take her vector files and cut them out using her Cricut Maker. She also learned Photoshop in college, and she uses that to edit any images she wants to print for miniatures.
All of those devices and her talents help her in her spare time when she makes 1:12 scale miniatures. Her recent project, called the Sorcerer’s Tower, was inspired from a small jewelry box that she found at a flea market. It reminded her of a miniature treasure chest, so she created the room around it and included it as one of the objects in the room.
She invented a story behind the Sorcerer’s Tower: “Long ago, the sorcerer helped the king reclaim his castle from a fearsome dragon. The sorcerer vanquished the dragon with a magical sword. In return for his help, the king granted the sorcerer his own tower in the castle and a portion of the dragon's treasure. The skull of the dragon hangs on the wall above the mystical sword. The orrery (a mechanical model of the solar system, or of just the sun, earth, and moon in their relative positions), the stars on the ceiling, the telescope and celestial globe are a nod to my job creating planetarium animations.”
Cassandra made the piece for the HBS/miniatures.com 27th Creatin’ Contest. She had wanted to make a medieval-style room long before the contest, but felt she should finish her dollhouse/bakery before anything new. When she saw the contest kit, she gave in to the lure and fun of entering a miniatures competition. (Note: Cassandra became one of the first-time entrant winners of that 2020 Creatin’ Contest). 
The original basic contest kit was made of MDF (medium-density fibreboard). Other materials she used to make the piece included: foam coreboard, Kraft board, chipboard, mat board, polymer clay, acrylic paint, flat brass wire, brass tubing, beads, jewelry findings, chain, crystals, glue sticks, tea lights, flat-backed rhinestones. glass glitter, and resin. Cassandra designed the room, table base, and shelves in Adobe Illustrator in the size she wanted everything so she could print out full-size templates to cut the foam core for the walls of the room.
The hardest and most time-consuming part was making the arched roof. “I couldn’t figure out how to make it mathematically,’ she explained, “so I ended up making paper templates that I would tape into place and trim or add pieces to get them to fit together properly. As with anything handmade, there are small inconsistencies in dimension, so each of the eight pieces had to be custom-fitted, and then I cut out the final shapes from poster board using those templates.”
Cassandra made the room and almost everything in it, with the exception of a handful of small items that she bought, most of which she either painted or customized. Several of the china items on the shelves were purchased. She did follow a YouTube tutorial by Heather Tracy to make the open book on the table.
One of her favorite pieces of the Sorcerer’s Tower is the telescope. “I made it up as I went, and it felt really liberating as all the pieces came together perfectly, and assembling it was an organic process. Also, making the mounted dragon skull with polymer clay was fun. I loved painting and weathering it, and adding metallic paint to the horns really made it pop. I hand-carved the table’s spiral leg details from wooden dowels, and I am very pleased with how they turned out. After thinking about making a room box like this for a few years, it felt amazing to have actually made it. Making miniatures gives me a sense of accomplishment, and it is an endless source of fun and creativity. I would encourage anyone who is thinking about getting into miniatures to give it a try.”
She continued, “Miniatures allow you to live in different time periods or in fantasy worlds. With miniatures I can have incredible pieces that would not be feasible to have in real life. I can’t have a giant orrery hanging from my ceiling, but I can have one in miniature!”
Cassandra’s inspiration comes from her life and passions. She loves reading science fiction and fantasy books. She watched the entire series of Merlin while working on the Sorcerer’s Tower, and the Harry Potter movies were a big source of ideas for it.
She has no plans to sell the Sorcerer’s Tower. She intends to keep the room box, but might display it if there were a future opportunity.
She is optimistic about the future of miniatures. “Miniatures can only get more popular. With venues like YouTube, more people are being exposed to miniatures and their diversity. Miniatures are not just your grandmother’s Victorian style dollhouse anymore. People are branching out into fantasy, horror, nostalgia, and modern themes. Anyone can turn any interest into a miniature, and especially with the rise of laser cutters and 3D resin printers, there is no end to what miniaturists can do!”

Contact information:
Name:  Cassandra Rose
Business  name: Honeypunch Studios
Instagram: @honeypunchstudios
Email:  Cassandra.noe@gmail.com
Website:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/honeypunch
Phone:  (423) 921-2477
Address:  354 Tams Lane, Kingsport, TN 37664