Airport

I forgot to mention in the last post that I use a strange method of keeping the backdrop fabric from falling off before Christmas.  If you have ever tried to tape fabric to a wall, you will know that the weight of the fabric will pull it away from the tape at the top.  I have no idea where I came up with this, but here's what I do.  I take some pretty substantial string and staple it to the top of the fabric.  I put a staple about every 3 - 4 inches.  For some reason this seems to stick to the tape better.  It's NOT foolproof.  There are always one or two that seem to give me problems.  I have two right now that are escaping the tape.  I would have liked to fix them before doing these posts, but I had shoulder surgery last week and I don't currently have two hands available.  It will just have to wait until I get out of this sling.  

My village is different every time I set it up.  There are some things, like the airport,  that are pretty consistent, but there are always differences.  I use some styrofoam to get to different levels, but I also like to use bowls and plastic containers from the Dollar store.  They can nest and hold other small items so they take less room to store than big blocks of styrofoam.  I use twinkle blanket as my base and I tear off pieces to use as snowdrifts, and to cover wires, etc.  

Since I have already mentioned the airport I'll talk about it first.  My son has always loved planes, so it was not surprising that I would end up with the red and the blue ones.  Once you have two, you may as well get the third one!  Then of course I had to have a runway.  I got two pieces of wood and painted the tops of them with gray stone paint.  I used a small set of white lights (35) and used clips with double sided tape to line the runway.  My son informed me that runway lights are blue.  I could not find a small set of blue lights with white wires.  I did, however, find blue covers for my white lights at Hobby Lobby, so I could make my white set blue.  I also got blackout caps which you can use to cover lights that you don't need.  Sadly, I can't find the caps anymore. 
 

 

I wanted to have a cool moon, so I took two napkin rings and taped them together, then fastened a single light inside.  I positioned the napkin rings against the backdrop fabric so that I get a nice round moon.  I always hang one of the planes.  This is when the slatted shelves come in handy!

Sorry, this is one of the backdrops that is falling, but you can still see the moon.