Ask:
Do any of you leave your villages up year round?
I collect dept. 56 and its very pricey! With all taht I have invested in it I hate to put it away every year. You can change it to go with all seasons so its possible to leave it out but then were woud I put it. I have it ontop of my roll top desk and I'm running out of room.
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I painted these myself. I bought them at Ben Franklin Crafts, they are plaster and paint yourself, so i got to choose my own colors or use what they suggest. I love doing them, you can find the smaller ones usually at Walmart for less than $4. each. I used to display them in our bay window at our old house.Now i display them on fold out table.
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We have Dept 56 Snow Village too - and lots of it! We can fill a 6 foot table with it and its tight. Needless to say, we dont leave it up year round, just dont have the room for it, nor would I want to dust it! We arent even putting it out at all this year - the dog is still in puppy stages, going into his "teenage" years and I dont want to take a chance of him knocking into the table or pulling at the tablecloth and yanking it all down. That would be a disaster.
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We do not have a holiday village, although I think they are so cool to look at! If it were me, I would not want to have them out all year. I am the kind of person that gets tired of seeing the same old thing all of the time. Having something out just during the Christmas season makes it seem more special to me!
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We have Dept 56 as well over 20 of the Dickens houses, that we have collected over the years. Plus the Disney villages, and A Grinch house that are Dept 56 as well. And I just got dh the It's a wonderful life houses for christmas. needless to say, we do not keep it up all year round....because my everyday stuff gets put away at christmas time just to put up all of these houses. But if I did leave it up year round I would probably set it up on top of kitchen cabinets....there is about three feet or so from the top of the cabinets to the ceiling. And it would be out of reach from the kids....but again not all of ours would even fit up there.
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I like your village its nice and you do a good job on them.
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I'm not that talented. I just brought mine. I have three sets. one all white, one regular one from Kohls and my pride and joy the mission of california that Mervyns did awhile back. WE no longer have Mervyns so much harder for me to get.
allgirls
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Originally Posted by 2littleladies
I like your village its nice and you do a good job on them.
Thanks!! I don't get to do them as much as i used too. They are pretty time consuming. I used to do the bigger ones as Christmas gifts to friends and family.
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I don't leave it out all year long. I usually put it up the week before Thanksgiving. This year I was a little late because I've been in a blah mood. My boys kept asking about it. So it has become just as much as a tradition as the Christmas tree and the nativity scene. I bought my houses at Fred's and the dollar store. I also got most of the extras like fences, mailboxes, trees and street lamps at the Dollar Tree. I've always wanted a frozen lake to put my lil people skating on it but couldn't afford one. My ds recently broke a picture frame but the glass didn't brake so I kept the back of the frame and sandwiched aluminum foil between them. Now it looks like a frozen pond. The shape is an octagon so I used the cotton snow for the bank. My sister recently bought one that played music and they actually skated on it for thirty bucks. I'll save my money and put it towards the boys presents with the satisfaction that I made something out of nothing really.
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No, we don't leave it up year round. We put ours up in November so Thanksgiving guests can enjoy it as well as Christmas visitors. Our village is HUGE and takes up three whole walls in one room. We put tables in every corner of the room and lay long pieces (12-15 feet long)of MDF to connect them. The fiberboard is 3 feet wide and we double up at the end of the room so it comes out 6 feet from the wall. Everything is covered with white tablecloths that hang to the floor to hide the wires. After that I lay the snow on and start building the village.
We collect the animated pieces from Dept. 56 and have quite a few...flying Santa, Ebenezer scrooge's house where the 3 ghosts spin around inside, another house where there is a party going on and the guests move like they are dancing, town square where the people walk around, skating pond with skaters that move, sledding hill where the kids sled down, carolers that move from side to side and the conductor moves as well, one where a boy is pulling his little sister on a sled in a circle, a swing that swings, seesaw that moves (this one is Lemax), a little elf that skates, a Santa's village one with an ice skating contest, we also have a house where the chimney really smokes! The other filler houses are usually bought after Christmas at Lowes or JoAnn fabrics.
All in all there are about 65 houses, all the animated pieces, and hundreds of trees (many of which light up), people, and other accessories to make it more realistic.
I LOVE my Christmas village! I keep telling my hubby that we need a bigger house just so I can have a bigger snow village! !