the average designer: Displaying Nostalgic Houses and Shops by Hallmark

This looks like a festive picture taken of a 1970's nostalgic neighborhood right? Well you would be partially right if you thought this, the scene you see is actually houses from the Hallmark Nostalgic Houses and Shops line of ornaments. And are only about 4 inches tall!

You see, our family has been collecting the Nostalgic houses since the 80's when they were first available. And for whatever reason I really like decorating these into great looking scenes. Hallmark has never made individual figures or cars available for this line but they designed them to the same scale as HO train sets. So with a little digging I found www.woodlandscenics.com which is a company that makes pre-painted figures that fit perfectly to the line.

This is the first of a couple scenes I'm going to make and I thought I'd share a brief tutorial on how I like to display these nostalgic houses.

STEP 1:

Styrofoam board layers and road.

So first you need some Styrofoam board. This is not that hard to find for free. Its in boxes all over the place. The best stuff to find is thin sheets so you can add layers instead of carving it down. When placing the sheets you want to have layers to add visual interest. Make the buildings on the top of hills with front yards. If you look at my picture I made the building in the back on the largest hill. I sloped the sides using a box cutter blade to give them a gentle curve instead of jagged cliffs.

The road you see is simply black construction paper that I cut to fit the scene. You don't have to worry about being too exact because you will cover the edges with fake snow, this makes everything look more realistic. I outlined the front yards of my houses with thin cut pieces of Styrofoam held in with sewing needles.Those circular pin heads will become the column toppers on the brick walls.

All of this was held together with hot glue.

STEP 2:

Place your houses.

Place your houses wherever you want them, place them so it looks like a natural neighborhood. One thing I might have done differently was to put a house with the back facing the road so people could see the inside details of one of the houses, but this is all I had to work with. Also think about how many accessories you want, will it be a busy road or an empty one?

STEP 3:

Details, details, details.

Nothing sells a miniature diorama like this more than details. You can never have enough. I decided to add a whole bunch of shrubbery for an old classic looking neighborhood. This was achieved by using Department 56 garland and bows which you can purchase here: Dept 56 garland & bows . I cut up the pieces using a wire cutter and hot glued them into place. I also painted the brick walls and the pathways to the houses. Each path can be different, some could even be now covered. The paint if you were wondering is a simple acrylic that you can buy at any Jo-Ann Fabric's or Micheal's.

The telephone lines are from a local Train Hobby shop, you can find these online, they are for HO scale train sets.

STEP 4:

Put it all together. Finishing touches.

After everything is hot glued and dried it is time to put the houses into place. Next it is time to cover the scene with snow. It is important to use fresh fallen snow because the crystals are smaller and it looks far more realistic than other snow. I usually put it on using a spoon for better control. Make sure to put it everywhere, it really makes the scene.

Now you can place trees all over the scene. It is important to use trees that are true to size with the buildings. You can find trees that will work at most places that have cheap porcelain buildings for sale during the holidays. I'd suggest Jo-Ann Fabrics or K-Mart. You will only need the smallest trees. As you can see from my pics, don't be afraid to use a lot of them.

For a finishing touch I added the figures I mentioned I found at the beginning of the post. There are a lot to choose from. I would suggest snowball fight and general public . Also the cars are from the same site. There is quite a bit to choose from. Also, I held them all in place using tacky wax, it seems to work quite well, is really cheap, and promises to wipe clean.

And there you have it, a great looking display!

Here are a couple more pictures of my first display for you to enjoy. I should have a City and farm one in a couple days.