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Friday, January 11, 2013

Dawn's Miniature Village

Dawn Weaver, of Cary, North Carolina, has graciously allowed me to make this post about her awesome Miniature Village project.
She says : The houses and shops, are from the Liberty Falls Collection. I started buying them in the fall of 2012, sometimes a single one, other times a grouping of 7 or 8, all on eBay. When I finally got them all in place I found I did not have one duplicate in the entire lot of 60. 
#1...Shows the jigsaw puzzle boxes that I used to make hill. There was a larger one at one end to give more space for the farm type buildings. The fawn/light brown material is one of those body wrap blankets that were so popular a couple of years ago. It was soft and gave some body to the green material that went on top.
#2...Shows some of the roads on the lower level. Note the people and cars that viewers put down where they thought appropriate. (once the full Village was up)
 
 
#3...More roads and the beginnings of the park that will hold the skating rink and the Village's Christmas tree.

 
#4... I put the wires between the green and the fawn colored covers as I did not want to cut the blanket. It was quite easy to put my hand down to the slits I had cut in the green material and pull the wiring through to the back of the Village.

 
#5...Shows a lot of the wiring laying on the fawn colored top. I did no more than 5 lights to one wire and most were two's and three's. One set of streetlights got lost in customs in NJ and did not arrive on time .I will be rewiring for next year

 #6...The roundabout where the important Village buildings were. The Town Hall, Library, etc. I put different street lights here. I took apart some others and used them in these lights. Worked very well, but the lights could have been brighter. All the lights were 3 volt.

 
#7...Downtown with the shops and service buildings

 
#8...The completed village. You can make out some of the lights

Miscellaneous: The roads were made of black foamcore which is 1/4" thick. I cut short slits in it for the streetlights. This gave me more body to glue them in. I also put some grommets down at the base of the lights to make them look more realistic.
The only figures that are glued down are the ones at the skating rink.
I made the Christmas tree from chenille stems. Am not satisfied with the lights on it (powered by AA batteries) so will use the 3v lights instead next year. Probably will use 20 lights in groupings of 4 lights.
These lights are powered by a coin battery. The lights themselves should last hundreds of hours so all that is needed are some extra batteries which also last a long time.