Miniature Watercolour Paint Box

An art room needs its working clutter lying about, and this miniature watercolour paint box is one of those small pieces that makes a desk look used. It is a tiny paint box for 1:12 scale dioramas, made as a desk prop for an art studio, a study or a child's room, and it works just as well left on a workbench in a craft scene.

Because it is a prop rather than a large piece of furniture, it is the sort of item you scatter: one on the desktop, one on a shelf, one open as though someone has just been painting. The box comes as an unpainted blank. That is the interesting part of buying it.

You can paint the outer surface to match the desk it sits on, or paint the inside to suggest a row of colour pans, which is what makes a paint box read as a paint box at this size. A few dabs in different colours inside the lid will do more for the look of the piece than a careful job on the outside, and the bare surface takes paint without much preparation. One option is listed here, the unpainted blank, at $7.99, and the compare-at price is $9.99.

There is a single photographs, so you can see exactly the shape and size of the blank before you commit to painting it. If you are furnishing a studio scene, three boxes come to $19.99 rather than $23.97, and having two or three of them spread across a desk, a shelf and the floor gives an art room the untidy feel that reads as realistic. This is a 1:12 scale piece, the scale of the miniature furniture and props sold here, so it belongs with the rest of a room built to that standard.

It sits comfortably on the miniature study desk, next to other Stationery Props, with Mini Furniture for the rest of the room and Mini Plants if you want something alive in the corner. A watercolour box on its own will not carry a scene, but as one of several small items it does the work that large pieces cannot. Handle it by the body of the box rather than by an open lid, keep it out of damp conditions while it is still bare, and dust it with a soft dry brush.