A new miniature hobby

It seems we have accidentally acquired a new miniature hobby over the Christmas period. Next December we will be assembling - somewhere in the house - a very small Christmas village made up of a few buildings, a pond and a tree. Wandering around in the snow will be Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, as well as Mr Scrooge.

For some reason it is a tradition in our family to visit a garden centre or two after Boxing Day - you never know what bargains you might be able to grab. While my mum was sorting through the reduced rolls of wrapping paper, my husband was eyeing up the half price model houses as he has done for several years now. 

The trouble with being accustomed to 1:12 scale hand crafted miniatures is that some of these looked rather crass to me. I am fully aware that an LED lit village with moving parts could be seen as a little (a lot?) tacky but as we throw ourselves into Christmas anyway, why not?

The beginnings of our Christmas village

The idea is that we'll buy a new building each year to slowly build our little village - always after Christmas though as I don't think I could bring myself to pay full price for them.

Having now done a little research, there seem to be several makes of models and scenery available and some people have achieved some amazing scenes. The films below should give you an idea of what we're aiming for (eventually!).

Comments

  1. Tim Knight29 December 2013 at 23:44

    I'm determined that we (a) stick to a Victorian/Dickensian theme and (b) ensure everything is the same scale. As much as I enjoyed the films above I did cringe whenever two pieces were seen next to each other and were obviously vastly different scales. I'm a bit of a geek-freak when it comes to scale models ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rachel Knight29 December 2013 at 23:46

      Well hopefully it goes without saying that our miniature Christmas village will be the best miniature Christmas village that has ever been created.

      Delete
    2. Tim Knight29 December 2013 at 23:55

      Only if we end up with banks of houses like in the films...

      Delete
  2. Unknown30 December 2013 at 14:57

    Its nice to at least see mainstream minis in chain stores, anything to perpetuate the addiction..er hobby ..yes hobby ;P

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rachel Knight30 December 2013 at 19:34

      That's a very good point actually Jane - if it gets more people into minis then it must be a good thing!

      Delete
  3. Rachel Knight30 December 2013 at 19:31

    More useful? So they could be used all year round?

    ReplyDelete

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