Kirk, How Lucky are you and YES, Karen is a Good Friend to Everyone!! She is a Very Special Lady! What a great collection you have and everyone else too! I never got into the village collections, kind of glad I did not!! Have so many collections, and it makes it so much easier to just look at all of your Beautiful Creations and Enjoy them! You all have done such Beautiful Jobs with you Villages.. Just Beautiful!! It must be like an Easter Egg hunt to be on the lookout for just the right piece for just the right place! Sounds like a lot of fun!! Keep up the Great Work and It is so Good To See Activity Here Again! Love The Fact that Karen found you the Bear Creek Village!! So like her!! So thoughtful! And You, doing such a fantastic job with putting it all together! Creek

My village is extremely custom in that each building in it is important to my family. FIL was mayor for 30 years and a veterinarian so we have a courthouse and an animal hospital.. Grandpa was a lineman so we have a train, MIL got the library up and going in her town so there is a library. My dad made the putz houses that are part of my display....my village has very few people and they are soooo small I would be nervous trying to paint them but for sure you should give it a try and yes acrylic paint is just what you would use.

Tally, I never heard of that magazine. I would be interested to hear more about it too. Gosh, I forgot how much I had to set up with my Village and its been a project the last two days. I emptied 4 of the 5 shelves in the huge china cabinet. And tonight I finished setting up all except the Farm, which will be on the bottom shelf. I also had forgotten I have several different sizes of people. The smaller ones do well with the Currier & Ives buildings I have. (Tho they come with people glued on them too, that are good scale.) Being "me", I have lots of farm animals and wild critters to set up on that last shelf. Then I probably will need to tweak things and add more trees and such. I'm not very good at making villages look so real and interesting like others here, but maybe I'll learn some things about doing so. I got slowed down last two days with my back, my Dad fell (again) and getting him up by myself was really difficult. His legs are so weak that he can't help at all and is dead weight. But I figure the way things are going the last few weeks, I can expect my back and legs to stay on the warpath till at least sometime in Feb. LOL. After UN-decorating and getting house back to normal. Meanwhile, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (hope that isn't a TRAIN !!) with the decorating. Oh, saw these cool tips for some village accents.... "Another easy ground cover found in the kitchen is spice. All those aging cans and bottles of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme make great grassy areas and might provide an extra bouquet to the display." "simple way of making dirt for a village display, use old dried up Coffee Grounds." "Purchase cans of Blitz Sno when it goes on sale after the holidays. Spray a thick coat on a large sheet of waxed paper and let it dry thoroughly (at least 12 hours, more depending on thickness). Use a butter knife or other flat-edged object to scrape the snow off of the waxed paper and into a zip-lock bag. Then, if you want more, simply re-use the waxed paper until it tears up. It takes a little time, but in the end you have a more realistic looking snow to sprinkle over your village, especially nice effect to accumulate freshly fallen snow on roof edges. It wipes off of the buildings with a clean, soft cloth. Also, a little surprisingly goes a long way." "For village water, use the Blue colored Saran Wrap over blue styrofoam. Use about 8 layers of saran wrap stretched in different directions across the foam board. This will give the water a deep blue look." "My Dept 56 collection is getting so huge that I've decided to put it up "Piece meal" throughout the fall season. I've started by going to the dollar store and picking up autumn leaves, tiny little scare crows, bales of hay, etc. Then I put out my Harley shop, the new garage sale piece and a few houses and all of the mountains and streams and trees. By adding the fall touches you get more use out of your display. Simply remove Halloween items and replace with thanksgiving decorations and a few more stores. Then by the busy Christmas season your display is ready to go with just a few adjustments!" I've saved all these ideas to my files. hugs, Karen

Christine, I'm so glad you're enjoying the albums. I love putting them together for people as well as looking thru them often myself. I never get tired of decorating photos and ideas. :o) You are off to a wonderful start on your village! I REALLY like the way you've arranged the base and the buildings. I can't wait to see more! Oh, did you notice how many people made 'smoke' come out of their chimneys with a tiny piece of the snow batting? I love that idea and never would have thought of it myself. Because one of my kitties is a "brat cat", the last couple of years I've had to empty my huge china cabinet and set up my Village IN it. LOL. I'll show you some of the photos later after I hunt up the links in my own album. I like he can't knock stuff over but still would prefer it set up in the open. Glad you posted over on Holidays, would love you to join us there. Karen