Some of my local garden centres really seem to go all out at Christmas and this particular one turns into one giant North Pole all through the month of December. It must take a huge amount of planning. But of course, the best bit is that they always have a really good Christmas Village, with lots of Lemax goodies. I think that this year's display was actually done by the Lemax people themselves, who have very expertly put it together. It certainly looked amazing and there were big crowds all around it, so taking this photo was quite difficult. My only criticism would be that the mountains looked a bit plastic, because of course they are made from plastic. They would have looked a little more realistic by spraying on some glue, lightly sprinkling some areas with green and brown scatter powder, and then spraying them with some snow spray - from a distance. It makes a tremendous difference and takes away the shine. So that's my top tip for this year!
Now that Halloween is well and truly over (I've just packed away my 'Spooky Town' village), you can most certainly turn your attention to Christmas and start planning your model village for this year. There's still plenty of time to try making some bits and pieces yourself. I've just made a small mountain platform using some fine modelling wire mesh and a couple of rolls of ModRoc plaster bandage. After it was painted grey, I sprinkled a little green scatter powder around the edges and stuck on a few pieces of reindeer moss, as well as some gravel, to make it appear more natural, and it is now ready to pop a house on top, with some trees of course.
I've just finished my model Halloween Village for this year and it looks really lovely. I have a string of LED bulb lights along the back, which cast shadows of the trees on the walls. To make these look all the more spooky, I coloured the bulbs in with some Spectrum Noir marker pens - purple, orange, green and red. To add some height, I just re-used one of my plastic Christmas village mountains and covered the snowy platforms and ski run with some tin-foil, which I'd first painted with a mixture of PVA glue and green paint, and sprinkled with lots of grass scatter powder. The result is a green hillside rather than a snow-covered mountain. I like to try and re-purpose as many of the festive elements as I can, because it helps to save money and storage space. However, I had to buy a few things, such as the Lemax Dead Man's Cabin, which looks very effective.Copyright and Privacy Policy 2000-2023
- by Martin Treasure
