Cool Hunting

Contrary to what you see, the photos you're looking at aren't just shots of the inside of someone's craft or music room. It's fine, go ahead and do a double-take. They're in fact miniature recreations of the real thing by Brazil's Rita de Cássia Baduy Pires of Ana Beatriz Miniatures, set on a ratio of 1:7.8 inches. The meticulous artist with even more nimble fingers has been working on her art for 20 years, conceiving her own scale to differentiate her work from regular dollhouse dimensions.

Pires actually makes every single piece in her artistic dioramas—violins, copper pots in a kitchen, Japanese teapot—which are created from wood, paper, clay and scrap metal in her atelier in Curitiba. She comes up with different scenes under their respective themes, with film and music the most requested and are those that happen to require the most detail. Custom orders always float in from clients who want miniature recreations of real-life places. When asked about the most difficult request she's ever received, Pires cites having to create 12 old businesses from her city for a show. The smallest she's done was a confectionery shop inside of a can (pictured).

The satisfaction of her work extends to the very end, when she's documenting the completed work on film, playing with angles to trick delighted viewers into believing her made-up world.

Her mini-dioramas come in three main sizes, 9x5.5x1.8 inches, 4x5x1.8 inches and 12x5.5x1.8 inches, and begin at $35. Orders can be made through her by writing to to the contact listed on her website.