Displaying Your Collectible Houses. Displays By Number

Transcription

1 Displaying Your Collectible Houses Made Simple Displays By Number Book 1 Introduction Shelve Displays By Elizabeth Dinger 2006 LoMist Publishing

2 Table of Displays Shelve Displays... Size...Book #...Page Farm and Church...30 x Simple, But Sure, Seasonal Display...45 x Off To A Fire On A Frigid Night...36 x Country Farm Vignette...48 x Cabinet Display A Quick, But Beautiful, Cabinet Top Display...66 x Table Displays Country Church...17 x Busy Barn Yard Scene...24 x A Simple Country Display...30 x New England Country Scene...30 x City Scape...36 x Down By the Old Mill Stream...48 x Mixing It Up With Holiday Flair...48 x Special Displays Silvery Streets (on a mirror)...16 x Dining Room Center Piece...30 x Larger Table Displays A Ride through the Country...30 x A Busy Morning in Gate-Leg Square...48 x Circle of Churches...36 x Winter At the Pond...76 x Rockin Round The Christmas Tree...76 x The Land of Plenty...96 x LoMist Publishing 2

3 Introduction Thank you again for purchasing this ebook on Dept 56 Displays. We hope you will study it, use it and follow it to build many, many beautiful and memorable displays that will be enjoyed and remembered for years. Before we get into the meat of this e-book, we need to mention a few things. First, this ebook can be used in two ways: If you are totally lacking in skills or imagination in setting up displays, or you think you have run out of new ideas and are at a total loss, you CAN have a beautiful display by simply following the diagrams. This is the main intent of the e-book. However, if you are simply looking for new ideas, you can simply browse through the e-book and look at the pictures and diagrams. By doing so, you can be assured you will get some additional ideas to use in your displays. The name of this ebook is Display By Numbers. You may be confused by its name, so let s explain. You have heard of, and have probably done, Paint By Numbers, where you are given a picture to paint - except the picture is more than just an outline or silhouette. The picture is divided into different areas and each area has a number in it. Your job is to paint each numbered area with the color of paint specified for that area. For example, number 1 may be red, and number 2, may be blue, and so on. When you are all done painting each area as instructed, you will have a professionally painted picture with intricate shading, which really looks pretty good. Well, that is the intent of this ebook to diagram the details of a display such that you know exactly where to place each figure, house or accessory. Then, when you are done, you will have a beautiful display that will draw the admiration of your friends and families (and you don t even have to tell them your display by number secret.) This Dept 56 Display e-book is a compliment to our Display Tips for Collectible Houses e-book. (found at By that we mean that this Display e-book will not go into the details that are taught in the Tips e-book LoMist Publishing 3

4 A few examples of things which will not be taught in this ebook, but are discussed in detail in the Tips ebook are: How to place or hide the cords How to make rivers The reasons for displaying trees the way they are The whimsical things you can do to make a display more lifelike or funny and so on. (If you want these details and information you need to purchase the Tips ebook. You will only get a few tips in this Display ebook.) Many times in this Display e-book you will read about some accessories that were home made. Many of the instructions for these accessories are given as a free bonus when you purchase the Tips ebook. Now on to business Elizabeth Dinger, the author of this ebook, is also the author of the popular Display Tips for Collectible Houses. Many people have commented on how life-like her displays always look. They are just mesmerized as they stand there and try to take it all in. Her creativity simply draws the admirer in. As such, many wish they were as creative so they too could make stunning displays like hers. Well, that time is now here. Forget about all those flat and dull displays. By following her plans you can create eye catching and memorable layouts in your own home and do it by your own self! This ebook will show you everything you need to make beautiful and memorable displays. How can we be so sure? This e-book contains 20 different displays and each one has a detailed diagram showing exactly where every piece is placed. Additionally, each diagram has a bunch of high-resolution photographs to further emphasize the details. All you need for making wonderful looking displays is now in your hands. So, with out further ado, let s begin. Dept 56 and Department 56 are registered trademarks of Department 56 4

5 A Discussion on the Detailed Diagrams As already mentioned, each display as a detailed diagram showing exactly where to place every single piece. These diagrams were drawn specifically in some ways and generally in other ways. Let me explain. The diagrams were drawn to show things like: Where to place houses How to angle the houses Where to place tress What tree height to use. Where to place people and so on. However, we need to realize that not everyone has the same houses or accessories in their collections, so one can not very well be overly specific and say, Place the Sleepy Hollow Church here and the 3 Sleepy Hollow figurines here. Instead, we simply just show the houses as generic houses, the people as generic people, animals as generic animals and so on. This allows you to arrange the displays to fit what pieces you have. It is difficult to explain exactly how you would do this but we will attempt to do so in the explanations below. The bottom line is that it really is pretty simple. Simply select from your collection pieces that would look good together and put them together. We said above that the diagrams were drawn generally, but yet, specifically. We just finished discussing the general aspect so now we will look at the detailed side. Drawn to Scale Squares 1 inch Square The diagrams are drawn pretty much to scale. Every grid is a one inch square (every foot is marked with a simple 1, 2, 3 or whatever). Since the size of the figures vary, most of the symbols used for the figures and accessories are a size which approximates many of the figures. Since the diagrams are drawn to approximate scale, you could print them out, have them enlarged to the proper size, lay the copies on a table and then simply place the houses and accessories where denoted. We have not actually done this but it should work, if you wanted to try it. One final important note, before you begin laying out your displays it is best for you to print out a copy of the diagram to follow. The actual printed diagram will give you a much higher resolution picture than you get by simply looking at your computer monitor. 5

6 Matching Up Positions In the Diagram and In the Photos To help identify the locations of the houses and accessories in the photos, and link them up with the diagram, we use a simple little designation. In each diagram, the bottom axis is marked off in feet (like mentioned above) and on the left axis or left side of the diagram are letters, marked every 6 inches. A is always 6 inches up from the bottom, B is 12 inches and so on. The idea is to read the diagrams like you would read a map in an atlas. The first number will denote where to look on the horizontal axis and the letter where you would look on the vertical axis. So (1, C) would be one inch over and about 1½ inches up the axis. Simply find the numbers on the bottom horizontal axis and the letter on the left vertical axis. Also, please note that due to the complexities of the photos and drawings, these locations are only approximate and show the general vicinity of where to find the item in the diagram. House Symbols Now back to the symbols in the diagrams. Most of the houses are about 5 inches by 7 inches. Some are actually a little larger and some are smaller. To keep it simple, the symbols for most of the houses are generally 5 x 7, although sometimes they were made a little bigger and sometimes a little smaller. Position Details The details of the diagram are pretty near to the actual layout of the display. i.e., if the diagram shows the accessory to be 5 inches over and 3 inches up from the corner of the table that truly is about where the figure is in the actual display. Again, sometimes these distances are off a little and other times you may want to purposely place your accessories or houses slightly differently because of the type of house or accessory you are displaying. Other times you may want to vary the placement simply because you don t have enough accessories so you need to spread them out to cover the area. Use of Slate All through out the displays you will see slate. I like to use slate as a base. This slate is the very thin slate that used to be used for roofing material in the early to mid 1900 s (or maybe even earlier.) You don t have to use slate. You can use some of the other plastic roads or streets that are sold, or simply not put anything down. Snow Placement The main snow in all these displays is baking soda. If purchased in the big box (4 lbs) it is really rather inexpensive. None of the displays tell you where to place the snow. You can get an idea by looking at the pictures or just dump the snow wherever you think it would look realistic. Don t be afraid to pile it deep! Just make sure that before you put your houses and accessories away into storage (for the year) that you clean them off well with a soft brush. I have found that baking soda, left on gold paint, will turn the gold paint green (sad sigh). Also a word of warning I tried cleaning with a damp cloth and had some paint rub off, so stay away from water. 6

7 Stuffing Placement As you will see in the photos, batting (stuffing) is used many times to give the effect of a fog. Again, these diagrams do not show where to place the stuffing. Some people may not like it, but if you do, simply place the stuffing where ever it looks most realistic and where it won t detract from your display. Stuffing actually has been a wonderful filler and helps to hide those pesky electrical cords. We re not crazy about pouring baking soda over all that wiring so I came up with the stuffing idea. Just get the cheap kind at Wal-mart and go to town. House Elevation The diagrams will show that some houses are elevated up in the air. The diagram will note how high they are elevated but they will not show what is used to raise them. You can use whatever you have around the house to make the different elevations. For small elevations I use styrofoam. I also like to use old boxes for both adding height and also giving a different flair to the display. I have some rectangular bricks which are used for starting fires but they are also excellent for raising a house 3 inches. I also occasionally use old book collections for that literary look of course, Dickens would be best. I also have a collection of old wooden boxes that I frequently use in the smaller vignettes. I am a firm believer in using what you have at hand. Selecting Houses and Accessories Remember the idea is to use the ideas and diagrams to make memorable displays. You just take what pieces you have and use them. If you have the Puppets & Marionettes house but not the Scotties Toy Shop, just use that house and accessories or figures in place of where you may see the Toy Shop in the photos. Same with carts and wagons. It doesn t matter what the cart is, it is just the fact that there is a cart or wagon in the scene showing some kind of action. Just don t put your horse before your carriage or count your chickens before they hatch or our new favorite saying don t change streams in the middle of horses Simply use what you have and mix things up. If the pieces look like they might go together, when your display is all set up they WILL go together. Looking At The Big Picture Looking at the big picture, literally, the idea of these displays (most of the times) is to make small vignette(s). If you have a big display, you will want many vignettes or in other words, combinations of small vignettes. If you have a smaller display, you may have one or maybe two vignettes. 7

8 Vignettes Now what is a vignette? A vignette is a small display or group of houses / figures / accessories that go together. Examples would be a farm scene, which would include a barnyard and a farmhouse or a Sleepy Hollow town where all the houses / accessories are from the Sleepy Hollow series. Or perhaps you might have a city scene where you have houses, a fire department and other city figures and accessories. Depending on your display size you will have one or many of these vignettes. As you will see as you look through these displays, one will be just a barnyard scene and the larger displays will have a variety of vignettes as you traverse around it. These vignettes are just set up as you would set up an individual display except they are basically set up next to each with some kind of transition between them like mountains, trees, rivers or, the backs of the houses are simply placed together forming little circles or ovals with the action figures in the inner part of the vignette. Beginning Your Display When you start laying out the displays, you should first decide what you want to focus on whether it will be a special house, a river, a church or a group of houses in a series or whatever. This will be your focus and then start working outward. As you might notice in many of the displays, a water feature of some type is usually our focus. I will lay out the pond, made with an old mirror and slate and then the rivers. I use the rivers or creeks to separate the different scenes or vignettes in the bigger layouts. If you don t have a source for slate, try a craft or home improvement store and look for small rocks. (These rocks are 1 to 3 inches long and are often put in the small fountains that used to be so popular a few years ago.) I raided my old fountain that is never used anymore. These rocks were just the right size for lining creek beds, hiding cords, etc. If I m not using a water feature as focus, I might choose one of my favorite houses to highlight in the display. I ll place that first, most usually elevating it to make it the center of attention. Types of Displays Dept 56 displays can be on any flat surface around the house, like: tables, shelves, on top of the refrigerator or freezer, on top of the kitchen cabinets, on the fireplace mantle, or, you could even use part of your kitchen countertops if you are doing a small display. One of my favorite displays (unfortunately, no pictures in this book) was on top of my kitchen cabinets. I went out in the yard and cut magnolia branches, layered them unto the cabinets and nestled my houses in amongst the leaves. Simple and elegant. Put a couple houses in the middle of your dining table on a holiday runner, accessorize with candles and you have a great centerpiece. If you don t want to use any of your household furniture you can use a piece of 8

9 plywood (or other similar wood). With this option, you can cut the board to any dimension you like, or, keep it uncut and use the full 4 foot by 8 foot area. If you are creative or want something different, you can also cut the plywood board to any shape you want. There is no law saying the board has to have straight and perpendicular edges. You could cut an L shaped board or a kidney shaped board for the corner of the room, or, you could cut a circle or elliptical shape and put it in the middle of your room. (now my husband tells me this I could have had a heart shaped display!) If you are going to use or cut your own wood board, you can set the final shape on a table, but the use of saw horses is probably a better choice. If you have an end table that you would like to use, but it just isn t quite big enough, the easiest thing to do is buy a one or two pine boards and set them on your end table. Just cut the boards to the length you want and let them overhang the table ends a little. For the width, since pine boards come in so many different widths, you should be able to buy some combination so that they about the same width as your end table. We did this with our coffee table to stretch the length a bit. My coffee table got dragged home from a yard sale and is waiting for a paint job so we weren t careful with it, but if yours is the swanky kind you ll want to protect it. We ve found that the cushy foam wrap that they sometimes wrap electronics, etc. with is great for protecting furniture a word of warning, baking soda will soak through cotton tablecloths and eventually onto your furniture, so make sure you re putting down something solid. Lastly, your displays don t have to set on wood. You can make small, cute displays by arranging your pieces on a piece of glass or a mirror. These bases add a special little touch. One idea that we had that didn t make it into print this time was to place a mirror on one of those small tri-poddy things that you use to display special plates or small prints. By placing the mirror behind a house you can show the back side of it. We ve often thought that it s a shame to hide some of those neat little details that are on some of the houses. In this e-book, you will see displays made for variously sized tables and shelves. There also will be a few larger displays. Some of these were placed on a dining room table but they could easily have been placed on a plywood board. There also will be a display that could be used on your dining room table as a runner down the middle of the table and there will be a display using a mirror as a base. This ebook was written so that you could easily duplicate these exact displays, if you would like. But as was discussed above, not everyone has the same houses or accessories just as not everyone has the same sized shelves or tables. So, in reality, you may not be able to duplicate the displays in their entirety. In that case you have to do the best you can, and that means, make substitutions. 9

10 If the display calls for a 30 inch by 12 inch table and you don t have a table that size, but you have a larger one, just use part of the table. For example, center the display in the middle of the table. Or, spread the pieces out a little. If your table is just a little bigger than the display picture, you will never know the difference in the end if your pieces are a little further apart. If your table is much bigger than the display you want to make, you can spread the pieces out and / or add more pieces to it. Depending on the scene, you can almost always add more accessories like people, animals or carts. Or, you can add a small vignette from another display. This leads to another option for making your displays you can combine them or rearrange them. If you see two displays in this ebook that you like and have a big area to cover, you can combine both displays (or take parts of each display) and make them into one display. Remember, the important thing about the displays is not the size of the display it is the idea and arrangements of the pieces that is important. You want to make beautiful and memorable displays that are intriguing, whimsical or just plain fun to look at. We hope that this ebook provides you with enough ideas so this can be easily accomplished so onto the displays. 10

11 Farm and Church Displayed on a Hutch Shelf with dimensions about 30 x 12 Photo showing the overall display looking slightly down on it. I placed this on a built in hutch in my kitchen but the same layout could be done in a freestanding hutch. 11

12 Photo showing the display looking directly into the display. This shows the varying tree heights and types. Also note the stuffing (fog) placed behind the houses and trees. Also note the varying height of the fog as if it s lifting. Actually that was just serendipity (but don t tell my husband, he thinks I m a genius) Following pictures show slightly closer views for more detail. Location: (½, A) 12

13 Location: (2, A) This is the church in the display. Note the snow, varying heights. The snow is baking soda, dumped on and smoothed with a paint brush. You can see in the right hand lower corner, the little fox that actually goes with the fox hunting group. Don t be afraid to separate groupings of accessories to achieve a different look. Also, the above picture is a good illustration of that great design idea of the triangle note the three big trees spaced to the back and sides of the church and if you re really good, you ll have spotted the other tree triangle the small one on the left side of the church, the one with the fox and the one on the sleigh. But don t stress over that little stuff, eventually you ll find it comes naturally. You ll want to balance your people in the middle. Note the sleigh is not in the exact middle but a little to the side, the fox near the church and farm lady balance the ends. Little pieces of slate and small stones add an extra effect. 13

14 Simple, But Sure, Seasonal Display Displayed on a bookshelf with dimensions about 45 x 11 Photo showing the display looking directly into the display. This is the Spice Merchant (1, A) in the left photo with accessories in front. The right photo is the shop with accessories at (1 ½ - A). This house is elevated on a fire starter brick, but covered with batting to hide it. 14

15 These are the 2 houses in the middle with only a slight smattering of snow. This was one of my mistakes I really should have protected the wood a little better now you know I m not perfect. So when I tell you to protect your wood from the baking soda, you ll know I m speaking from experience. This is the church, off to the right (3-A). The stone wall in the front was made from the instructions in the bonuses that come with the Dept 56 Display Tips ebook. The extra little accessory adds some activity. You ll note my poor sign has fallen off the church. Those things can be pesky sometimes. 15

16 Off To A Fire On A Frigid Night Displayed on a Coffee Table with dimensions about 38 x 178 Photo showing the display looking directly in. And don t ask me how those poor firemen are going to get across my river. We ll pretend it s frozen and it s much easier to get across than the bridge. Remember at times you have to suspend reality this is make believe after all. I like the look of the acrylic trees against the red brick. I try to place these types of trees where the background color will show them to best advantage. 16

17 Here the East Indies Trading Company (½ A-B) is elevated on wooden candle box, with the firemen (A- 1) running below. Note the varying tree heights and types. This photo shows the details of the left side (2 ½, A). The red brick pathway, under the snow, is made from polymer clay as described in the bonuses of the Dept 56 Tips ebook. 17

18 Here is a better view of the firemen and bridge. Note the icy trees in the background which add a cold effect. The water is crumpled wax paper (shown better below) 18

19 Country Farm Vignette Displayed on a book shelf with dimensions about 48 x 17 Here s a country/farm vignette. You can see my affinity for water again or maybe I just need to use all the bridges I have. The cottage is up on another candle box and the barn is actually elevated on a couple foam tops from the packing box. I find those great for elevating just a house at a time. By inserting these little elevations (even just a little) you get more of a natural, interesting, up and down look as you pan across the display. 19

20 Location: (1- AB to 2 - AB) This the barn and house on the left The covered bridge at (2.5-A). Again the water us crumpled wax paper. The river banks are simply stone walls. You could pile small rocks if you don t have walls but they re easy to make, both of these are handmade. (Again, they come from the bonus section of the tips e-book) 20

21 The house on the right (3-A-B) is elevated on a wooden candle box with trees and accessories added. Again, remember you need to suspend reality like with the pumpkin wagon it is on the big side, in comparison but looks great as it heads toward the covered bridge-which of course, it will never fit! 21

22 Display Tips for Your Collectible Houses I hope you found many new ideas in this Displaying Your Collectible Houses Displays By Number e-book. If not, you can still learn more. I have written another e-book which is full of tips, ideas and know-how. It covers a lot of the details of things not explained in this ebook because its focus is to explain how to do things, why you want to do things and lists many other a sundry ideas for making memorable and stunning displays. The best way to introduce you to this ebook is to read the Introduction re-printed below: In writing this e-book, I really wanted to encourage new collectors who are facing the challenge of that first major display. Yet at the same time, I also wanted to give lots of tips that an old hand might be able to use. When listing the tips, I basically went down the steps that I take when I put my houses up every year. I ve been collecting and displaying for about 15 years now. I still remember that first major display though, wondering what on earth I was getting myself into. Hopefully, this e-book will help. At the end I include some miscellaneous tips about buying, storing, taking pictures, etc. I also include a list of things you might find helpful to have on hand when you start your display. Also, it might sound like I am speaking to just women collectors here. That s just my funny sense of humor. I know a lot of men are just as crazy as I am about collecting these houses. Just substitute wife when you read husband. It was a friend s display that first got me hooked on collecting Department 56. My first purchase was the Sleepy Hollow Church I was just going to collect churches. HA! That didn t last long. Now I collect mostly Dickens Village and New England Village. I must confess to having a Christmas in the City Toy Store that I couldn t resist and I won a Marie s Doll House one year. My husband won t let me collect anything else. If you would like more information or want some free tips for making displays, please visit 22