Sunday, December 11, 2011

Christmas Village part two: Shops



2022 Note: I was getting a lot of requests for access to the files ("request to view" in Google Drive or Docs).  No matter how I updated the settings I still had to manually approve many people. Therefore for this year I have moved the PDF to a new hosting platform so the updated links will take you there. It is still FREE and should be accessible to you all 24/7 without waiting on me to approve you!

I am thrilled to bring you the shops to the printable Christmas village this evening! The moon is rising here, and after days of fog, we can finally "see out." A nice night to go and see the shops all lit up!

The printable Shops for the sides of the village are here. Print out on card stock.

These buildings were inspired by the buildings in Old Town Florence, a popular tourist destination on the Oregon Coast. You cannot leave a visit to the windy Florence beaches without stopping in Old Town for salt water taffy, at least! Perhaps in our village, the taffy can be had at the General Store. A "Cottage" decor style shop (which is based on a real one that, alas, moved away) is included in this shopping street. There is a florist shop, a fabric and yarn shop, and a tea room with a bakery. There are also little gardens beside the shops.

This street of shops is designed to glue to either side of the Meeting House piece of the village. Your village street will look like this:


The printable Shops for the sides of the village are here. Once you are on the document page, look for "File" and then click "print." Print out on card stock.

Once your shops are printed and cut, you will fold two ends back, so it stands as seen in the photo.  As with the Meeting House, I colored in the shops with markers. I did use some crayon and colored pencil to get just the shades I needed here and there. All my shops are white or very light pastel, it just makes it faster for me. You can of course color them anything you like! Maybe some of the shops would be red brick in your village.

You may also, if you desire, cut off the sky in any piece in the village, if you do not want to take time coloring it. I colored mine a darker blue and put glitter "stars" in it, and of course you can color yours gray, light blue, sunset pink, or leave it white.

Then you can glitter them! Before I glittered mine, though, I added some extra touches to my shops, and here is what I did:

TO MAKE WINDOWS THAT LET LIGHT THROUGH:
 After I had colored in the shops, I made a color copy on plain paper. I could have just printed a black and white copy and colored it again, but I was in a hurry to get this post to you! (I will be showing several copies of my colored piece in paper and card stock for some extra effects below. If you want to do the "extras" you may want to make several copies to play with.)

 Here is how I made the windows: I trimmed down the paper copy.
 On the card stock, I cut out all the windows.
 Then I pasted the paper behind the window holes, lining it all up, and this way the light will show through the windows. That is what I did on the Meeting house. Notice, though the three window holes left? That is for my next extra-special touch:

TO MAKE SOME ELEMENTS "STAND OUT:"
 I made another card-stock copy of the shops. I cut out elements of it to mount on the original, so that I have some bits that stand out and create dimension. To this bit, I cut out the upper windows and pasted some paper windows behind it.
 I used a paper copy of the bay window of the Tea Room to cover that side.
 Here you can see some of the other elements I used: a paper copy of the Flower Shop awning, and a card stock piece for the fence.

 All put together, the awning being paper is curved up slightly like a real awning would be; the middle shop has a popped-out front; the tea room has a popped-out bay window, and the fence next to the tea room is popped-out as well. I was going to use mounting foam tape for this, but of course when I needed it, it was not to be found! So I rolled up plain tape and it worked just fine.

 Here I hope you can see the dimensional effect a little better. I hope those instructions were clear enough!

 The shops all lit up.

 On the other side of the street, I did the windows in the shops but not any dimensional work. I did cut the General Store door open, though, for interest. As you can see, you can add all sorts of little details. You can even make your own sign of your favorite shop to cover the signs on mine:)

Each piece of the village has a "left" and "right" indicated, and the short ends are to be glued behind the Meeting House, which is the middle of the village. Above, you can see what it looks like all put together.

Now for that walk down the street to see the shop lights! I put a short string of Christmas tree lights behind my village (they had small boxes of lights at the Dollar store).





Here I put the lights in front, so you may perhaps be able to see the glitter "snow" all over everything, and the glitter "stars" in the sky. I used big chunky white glitter, but I'm sure super find glitter would be very beautiful too!

Again, the Shops for the sides of the village are here.  Print out on card stock.

Stay tuned for the rest of the village!

The meeting house is here.
The houses for the village are here.
For the post on the woods (that came with the meeting house page) click here.
The farm in the country is here.
New! Mountain background and skating figure here.