finding a home for my Little Boxes of Joy

So as much as I love my Little Boxes of Joy, one problem I still need to solve is how to display them. At the moment, most of them are still in a shopping bag, separated set-by-set and grouped together by style. I still have one case that I haven't opened yet because I have to be careful as I think the individual boxes can be put together to make that sushi kaiten bar that I was so excitedly looking for, and I haven't had the time to do all of that. But, I don't want them to just be in the shopping bag, and really, I'm not even going to want them separated. During one session when I was opening a bunch of boxes (and the husband was helping me), I had a lot of sets open at once, and it was fun mixing all the stuff together. One set came with four oysters on the half-shell, so I was putting those everywhere - on the barbeque grill, in the cookie jar with the biscotti, in the coffee machine, with ice cream. If I want to be able to put a set back together, I still have the leaflet that comes with each set so I know what pieces came in any particular set.

Some time ago, a friend sent me a link to this article, which has a suggestion with pictures of one way to display miniatures similiar to my Little Boxes of Joy. I like them to some degree, though I do find the look a bit cluttered with them strewn randomly on the wall. The effect of having individual rooms is kind of interesting, but I'm not sure that would work with my current collection, which is all cooked food, and I'd also prefer the rooms to not be quite as deep. Once I eventually expand into some of the other lines (like the grocery store and the nursery, if that's still around at the time), the division of rooms would probably work better. The major problem I would have, though, is that the displays seem very static, especially since most are high up and not easily accessible to change. With my current lines of Little Boxes of Joy, I don't want them to be set and unchanging - I'm going to want to change out different foods and such, so the elevated height would be inconvenient for me.

Ideally, I'd like to just have all of them out on a table or counter or something like that, where I could rearrange stuff whenever the whim hit me. However, the major problem with that would be the Godzilla-wannabe that we have at home, otherwise known as Orkid. She is not allowed anywhere near my Little Boxes of Joy when they're out of the boxes, because at best, she would want to bat them around and chase them, and at worst, she would eat them. And most of the food is small enough that she'd have no problem eating them. She probably wouldn't eat the barbeque grill or the big cakes (though she'd definitely gnaw on them), but the sushi and the tacos and the little pastries would just be bite-sized morsels to her. I've thought about using a higher shelf to put all the sets on, but the problem is still accessibility. Orkid can jump from the floor to a shelf that is at least eye-level to me, so what would be accessible to me as far as being able to see it well and move stuff around would be accessible for her to jump to straight from the floor.

The picture in the article does give me an idea, though. Re-ment does sell a sort of one-room house that you can decorate yourself by putting in whatever you want. I've seen it in person, but I can't remember if it's a fully enclosed box or whether it's open on the side that's supposed to be a window. If it is fully enclosed, that would solve the problem of keeping access away from Orkid, and I could get a couple to stack together. At the moment, the only accessory I have is a pastry display cabinet. I didn't have enough similar food to be able to properly set a table so I didn't allow myself to buy any of the tables yet, but I've got lots of little food now. The bigger dining table is what I really want, but I also like the smaller cafe tables too. The next time I'm at my go-to Re-ment store, I'll have to take a better look at the housing accessory.

If the housing unit ends up not being secure enough to withstand Orkid, the only other solution I can think of is that I do have one small shelf that's a little higher than eye-level to me, but I can get to it easily with a step stool. It should be high enough that she can't jump to it from the ground or from any nearby counter, so as long as I remember not to leave the step stool where she can use it, I should be ok. She hasn't shown any interest in that shelf in a long time. I used to have a fish, and that's where he and his fishbowl sat, away from Orkid's prying paws and teeth, but his swimming around would catch her attention. Since my little sets of food shouldn't be moving on their own, she shouldn't even notice them. The only way they would be moving and subject to her eating them is if they got jostled enough in an earthquake to fall off the shelf, but then I figure if we have an earthquake bad enough to make them fall off the shelf, that means we've got way bigger problems than Orkid eating my miniature sushi.