Making a mini Christmas Village Using Styrofoam

Today I made the styrofoam base for the Candyland village! Why does it have to be 90 degrees here?

  I started out with three 4x8 sheets of polystyrene insulation from Lowes. I used a utility knife to cut out a bunch of odd shapes, then I stacked the shapes together with wooden BBQ skewers. 

Next, I used a cool tool from Hot Wire Foam Factory called a sculpting tool to cut through the styrofoam. When you turn it on, the wire heats up and lets you slice right though styrofoam. I love it. You can even bend the wire into different shapes. This is my third hot knife and I definitely like this one the best. They didn't pay me to say this.

Disclaimer: I'm no artist. All the sculpting was done haphazardly and awkwardly. But it looks really good. I think this is one of those projects which you literally can't mess up. The messier the better. And when I painted the ice with blue paint, I didn't know what I was doing.....I just painted any of the recessed areas and left the closest areas white. No real science here either. 

Once the sculpting was done, I took apart all the pieces and glued them together. I thoroughly researched what type of glue to use and I settled on Glidden Gripper. And they didn't pay me either.

 It was pretty fun to carve little stairs into the snow mountains and to visualize where all the little lighted gingerbread houses will be placed.

I added a few heavy jugs to the top of the mountains so the glue would really grip. Then I started painting the ice with blue acrylic paint. I used whatever old paint and brushes I had on-hand.

I must say, I love all you crafters who post videos to Youtube. I never would have thought to carve stairs and paint ice unless I had seen it on the internet. 

 Once the base was done, I decided to make a frozen pond. I sculpted out a shallow hole, painted it blue, then poured in some clear two part epoxy.

I knew I wanted to make frozen water, so I once again turned to Youtube.  This was a few days ago.

I found a bunch of methods so I tried three out. Clear silicone, mod podge, epoxy. I poured the mod podge way too thick. After 5 days it was still too gooey. The caulk never dried at all, so maybe I had a bad tube. The epoxy worked super awesome.

The epoxy I used is leftover from a tiki project we did a few years back. We used it to coat a wooden bar that we made for the backyard. I remember it being pretty expensive so we saved it hoping to make use of it someday. It's from FiberGlass Coating, Inc. here in Florida.

It's supposed to dry perfectly clear, but I think it has a bit of a brown tinge. Once I add skaters and some flaky fake snow, it will look great!

I could have gotten super picky about this project and really made everything perfect. But I'm happy I decided to be content with not being super perfectionist about this. 

Next step: I got some fiber optic hair extensions on Amazon for a few bucks. Yes I just said that. I'm going to see if I can incorporate those into the snow somehow. Then, I'll run some RGB light tapes along the back and add a few blue icicle lights to give it some dimension. Then I'll add more mountains to the back and I'll be DONE!

Making Faux Gumdrops for the Mini Christmas Village

I made some faux gumdrops for the mini Christmas village this year. They turned out really good and I'm super excited to see them in what I call the "Candyland section" of the village display. Here's a pic from the 2010 display. We lay down a styrofoam base, then add houses and accessories. Then we add snow.

Some folks might use real gumdrops for this, but all the lights get pretty warm and I don't want a sticky soup melting in my house. Plus, I cannot store really candy...that would be begging for a rat and bug infestation.

CopelandChristmas.com

I used two ice cube trays, plaster of paris, acrylic paint, clear glitter, and sewing pins. It couldn't be easier and it definitely brought out my crafty side.

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I mixed the plaster of paris per the instructions. I filled up the trays and let them sit overnight.

CopelandChristmas.com

One of the funnest parts of the project was the EXPERIMENTATION at the beginning. Before I made the entire batch of gumdrops, I made a few, painted them, then glittered them to make sure I would like them. I quickly realized a few things.

First, filling the trays completely with POP, made the gumdrops a bit too large for what I want. So, I decided to only fill the trays 50%. 

Next, it was a pain to paint each one, then set it to dry without smearing the paint off. So, I decided to try sticking a toothpick into each gumdrop after the pop set for about 15 minutes. I was really happy with the toothpick, but I wanted something that wouldn't ruin my styrofoam. Safety pins!!! I'm pretty proud I thought of this. It helped me paint and glitter them in a snap. Plus, the tiny little pinhole won't be noticeable in the styrofoam.

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I used super inexpensive acrylic paint from Walmart that I already had. I mixed up different tones and had fun with it.

CopelandChristmas.com

CopelandChristmas.com

I think I'll use them to form little fences and borders around the village. I guess I could make gumdrop trees too.

CopelandChristmas.com

CopelandChristmas.com

Making the North Poles

Today, as we wait to see if tropical storm Erika turns into a hurricane, I did some more work on the new north poles. Over the years, we've remade them a few times. Each time they get better and we get more efficient at remaking them. This year, I decided to paint them instead of wrapping them in red duct tape. Not sure if this will be better or worse than duct tape, but I guess we'll see how they look a year from now.

Over the past few weeks, we sanded off the letters, added cords, then painted them white with Krylon. Today, I wrapped them in two pieces of tape, then painted. I ended up using two cans of white and only one can of red. I'm so proud of my little template that I used so all my stripes would be even. It's just a folded up piece of paper that I taped to the top of each pipe,

I couldn't find painters tape that was wide enough, so I had to add two rows of tape. Double the work....ugh.

I know I shouldn't be painting in 100% humidity here in FL. It was pouring as I did this. But in summer here, it rains every afternoon, so no time for perfect condition painting.

I guess I'll wait overnight to let them dry, then I'll remove the tape. The painting is the easiest part!

2015 Mega Tree with Light-O-Rama

John and I decided to resurrect the mega tree for the 2015 Copeland Christmas display! We'll add 12 strands of mini lights to this flagpole. The base diameter should be 15-20 ft. We'll add a star topper and then hook all the lights into a Light-O-Rama controller so the lights can be controlled by our home computer via cat5e cables.

We had to get the flagpole (20 ft sunsetter) from the other house. Once it was at our new house, we settled on this spot. It's kinda close to the the street, but it's really the only area of open grass that we have.

 

John tested it out. I think it's extendeed to 10 feet here. For the show, we'll extend it to 15 ft.

The nxt step was to check over all the parts to see what can be reused and what needs to be rebuilt. The tree topper (built in 2008 I think) disintegrated in our hands, so we had to rebuild that first.

It's made of a wood bun (that what's it's called at Lowes) and 12 metal coat hooks. The top has some kind of plumbing flange and a large bolt. It's a very simple design that we adapted from something we saw online years ago.

I disassembled the old topper, bought a new bun, and one replacement hook. I drilled pilot holes for each screw, then screwed in the hooks. Couldn't be simpler. Coast was around $10.

I was hoping to put some of my 6th grade protractor skills to use. Yes, I've had that protractor since 6th grade and it's almost 25 years old! The bun already had all the correct angles notched into it. So, I verified all angles were perfect, then continued. Oh well.

 I primed it with two coats of Krylon outdoor paint for some added protection against our wet, humid weather. Black will disappear into the night when the lights are on.

Next step was to clean all the rust stains off the flagpole. This is the toughest part. Neither of our rust removers are working. I wish Rustaid was still around. Not sure what we'll do about the rust. Maybe nothing. The rust stains (orange) are from the well water (sprinklers) at the old house.

The next step will be to dig the hole and set the flagpole in concrete. I bought a groundsleeve kit from sunsetter because they said that's what I'll need. So far, cost for this year has been $40. Not bad :)

Rotating Christmas Tree in Fast Motion

We tore down all the Christmas stuff last week. It feels so good to have a clean house again!!!! Christmas 2014, here we come!!

Loving the new new GoPro. Here's the teardown process (living room and master bedroom). Thanks to Mom, Matthew, John for helping.

Copeland Christmas on Social Media

It's been forever since we updated this blog. These days, we update our facebook and Instagram much more frequently.

https://www.facebook.com/CopelandChristmas1
http://instagram.com/CopelandChristmas

Wizard of Oz Christmas Weath

Today, my friends came over to help with setting up the Wizard of Oz Weath. We love it!

In years past, the Wizard of Oz stuff was on a small ruby red tree (2008 and 2009).

This year, we placed the weath near the front door and I think we'll add one of those space heaters that looks like an old fashioned wood stove. It'll be a great little nook on that awkward little wall. :)


Earlier this year, I made a vision board for the wreath. I know it sounds weird, but I have a habit of pasting a bunch of pics on a blank PowerPoint page just to see how I might like the concept. I liked this concept, so we made it happen.



The lights are Kurt Adler and the dolls are Annalee. Each year, John's surprised me with a few of the Annalees from the Wizard of Oz collection. I just love them!

First Themed Christmas Tree of the 2013 Copeland Christmas Display

Today, I decorated the new woodlands themed Christmas tree. It's adorable so far. I think I'd like to place it in a galvanized pot then on a tree skirt. I have lots of extra jute ribbon, so maybe I can use that for the gifts under the tree. I think this tree will probably end up in our bedroom or on the porch.

I just love all the woodsy elements of this tree. Now I just need to find my pine cone and gnome ornaments. I saw a cute diy ornament on Pinterest...you hang a tag from the house key of your first home. The tag says "our first home" and lists the address. I think I'm going to do this and hang it on this tree.

I'm really happy we were able to use this custom wall hanging as the tree topper. I hot glued it to the pipe from the ribbon roll. Then I hot glued the squirrels to the wood. It's cute.

Laser Stars Projector Light Show - Ordered

We just ordered a Laser Stars Projector Light Show! I'm so excited!

2013 Planet Christmas (Mini) Convention

2013PlanetChristmasMini, a photo by ladybugfalcon on Flickr.

John and I are up in Celebration, FL this weekend for a mini convention called "Florida Planet Christmas Mini Convention." We are learning about the future of Christmas light customization...DMX and RBG devices. These two technologies allow users to control millions of colors at the pixel level. Imagine making every bulb a different color! Then imagine fading all those colors slowly into other colors! Imagine violet, peach, aqua lights! That's where we are heading and we're proud to be among pioneers of this great industry. We even gave a small presentation about photographing your Christmas lights. Download the file.

We also learned a few software tips, like "paste to foreground" in the software. I realized I need to download the latest version of the LOR software and it's only about $20 (I thought it would be $100).

We learned about adding a new element to the display....water. We learned how to set up a DIY mini version of the fountains at Bellagio. Well, maybe not that fancy.

We won a raffle!...$140! That will almost pay for one of hotel nights :)