Surprise Construction Project

There's been some magical construction happening here on the farm... come see!

Over the years I have so enjoyed making miniature worlds of magic to share with the little people who visit the farm... fairy gardens, whimsical trails through the woods, and miniature gnome homes.  This Christmas season, when Jack suggested we do a train platform, I jumped at the chance to build yet another  magical world in miniature.

Years ago, before moving to the farm, and before grandchildren came into our lives, we would make a Christmas village each year as part of our decor.  Over those years, my collection of miniature houses grew.  Sadly, after moving to the farm, it seemed we had no place to display this adorable village, and so all of the parts remained safely packed away in Rubbermaid totes.  I had even considered gifting my village to anyone who wanted it.

Luckily, we kept the village.  I began unpacking all of the miniatures on the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I was pleased to find everything intact... and amused to see that a mouse family had taken up residence inside the tiny café.  It was filled with soft bedding and dried beans - a cozy bed and food for the winter!

I finished unpacking all of the village components, and Jack built a platform... so that this time we could build our village bigger and better than ever before, with a model railroad running around and through.

I set us several scenes on different areas of the platform... town scenes, country scenes, 

a village park,

 a church, and a farm.  I had SO. MUCH. FUN!  Oh, and don't worry, the town has a café.  It took a little work to move the mouse family's belongings and bring the café back up to code.  But, it passed the health inspection and is once again open for business.

Of course we had to add a special train car to our Pennsylvania Railroad Steam train... a tanker car with the movie "Frozen" as its theme - an item we knew the grandchildren would just love!

After the platform was built and filled with all of our miniatures, Hubbs decided we also needed a tunnel.  We bought the entrance plates for the front and back and I set out to build everything between them... a tunnel running through a mountain.  By sitting the entrance and exit across the tracks in our location of choice, I figured out the curve that I would need on the inside and outside, and formed those curves with cardboard.  I added a cardboard roof to the tunnel and then fashioned a mountain surrounding it out of pillow stuffing and plaster of Paris.  lastly, I painted it to be snow-covered rock, with alpine areas on either side where only low-lying plants would grow.  I spray-painted the interior of the tunnel black so that it would be as dark inside as possible.

Happily, this seems to be the kids' favorite part of the village.  They peer into the tunnel waiting for the headlight of the train to appear, then watch as it exits the tunnel in the front... chugging away with tiny puffs of steam coming from its smoke stack.

I think the whole project is magical.  The children are mesmerized... and I couldn't be happier!

The magic happens when the lights go out - so please join us for a nighttime video of our miniature world.  There's a little bit of precious humor at the end - don't miss it!!  

Feel free to watch it HERE on YouTube, where you might give it a thumb's up.  Doing so will increase the visibility of our farm videos on that platform.  Thank you!!