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DeafCandy
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Registered: 06-2008
Location: California, USA
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Re: Making a Sylvanian Village

Get better soon, Beverly!

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www.freewebs.com/deafcandy
10/25/2009, 10:25 am Send Email to DeafCandy   Send PM to DeafCandy
 
lostmymarblz
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Location: Edmonton Alberta Canada
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Re: Making a Sylvanian Village

Hi Rocky and Candy,

Thank you for the well wishes emoticon Whatever I have is probably not H1N1, or if it is, it's a very mild case. Two of the symptoms that are almost always associated with the virus are fever and cough. I don't have a fever and my cough comes and goes and isn't serious.




My energy levels are somewhat lower than normal, but I have been able to work on unpacking the products from the AU/US online store and begin setting up the buildings in preparation for making videos. I'm currently setting up the Applewood Department Store, which is both exciting and a pain because of the 200+ pieces emoticon

Work on the Village will resume after I get all the products ready for video making and installed in the Village. At that point, I will be able to see deficiencies in the backgrounds and will fill in those blanks. This is all quite exciting for me. Getting free Sylvanians very cool and making videos of them is even cooler emoticon

Take care, everyone!

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10/28/2009, 5:16 am Send Email to lostmymarblz   Send PM to lostmymarblz
 
gpwsbeaver
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Re: Making a Sylvanian Village

I feel for you. I've got a cold right now too, but luckily its starting to get better.

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The next Sylvanian Figure List comes out Saturday, November 7th! Visit http://www.sylvanian-families.net or e-mail wendy@sylvanian-families.net to sign up or get more information.
10/28/2009, 6:05 am Send Email to gpwsbeaver   Send PM to gpwsbeaver
 
littlebearspark
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Re: Making a Sylvanian Village

Hope everyone feels better soon - it's that time of year! emoticon

Beverly, as always a pleasure to see your progress! emoticon

10/29/2009, 3:24 pm Send Email to littlebearspark   Send PM to littlebearspark
 
lostmymarblz
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Re: Making a Sylvanian Village

Wendy,

Hope you're feeling better. I am emoticon


littlebearspark,

Thanks for the encouraging words emoticon





I haven't posted to this thread for awhile, but I've been pretty busy working on various Village related projects. Getting the Village ready to make videos for my "client" has been a high priority. I was able to unpack the huge stack of boxes I received and decorate the buildings, much like I've decorated my buildings in my collection. These buildings have been sitting haphazardly in the Village with the Plexiglas installed, waiting for me to have time to properly arrange them.

Over the last three days, Chris and I built several items that I used to create brick fences. I wish I had an photo of the custom built stamp used to make the brick impression onto the clay slabs that you'll see in the following photos. Hopefully, tomorrow when I finish off the last slabs I'll get a photo. Anyway, here's a tutorial on how the brick fences were made....

All purpose Lego has been used throughout this project.
Here it's used as an easy to take apart mold for the basic shape of what will become the brick fences.
The artist's modeling clay, not polymer clay, was first conditioned with extra water to make it pliable to work with.
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The clay is smooshed into the mold, pushed into corners and against the insides of the mold.
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Here it is after being been smooshed and smoothed.
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I didn't get fancy and buy a rolling pin - I just used an unopened container of silicone to roll over the clay until it was smooth.
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The back side was also smoothed before the Lego mold was carefully dismantled one side at a time.
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All mold sides are off and the clay slab is ready to be placed in the clay drier.
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Yes, more Lego was used to construct the clay drier.
Heavy painter's plastic and tape were used to enclose the structure.
Holes were cut into the plastic to allow it to breath thus slowly drying the clay.
Modeling clay must be slow dried over a couple of days. It will take three days to completely dry.
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These are six of the nine slabs I made this afternoon.
They are still very wet and will have to slowly dry before more work can be done on them.
After drying overnight to an almost "leather hard" stage, I will smooth the edges, stamp them to make the brick pattern,
then finally slightly resize them. They will probably be fully dry the day after tomorrow.
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This is the second drier on another kitchen counter.
(Gads! Half of my kitchen has been taken over by my ever-growing Village workshop!)
This drier has larger holes and the clay has been stamped with the brick pattern.
The slabs have hardened enough so they can stand up.
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These brick fences have been drying since yesterday.
The four fences on the top left side were made yesterday morning and will be dry tomorrow.
The other fences were made yesterday evening and were stamped this morning.
They will be dry either tomorrow evening or the next morning.
As much as I am eager to move forward working on the Village landscaping features, I don't want to hurry the drying process.
These brick fences have been drying since yesterday.
The four fences on the top left side were made yesterday morning and will be dry tomorrow.
The other fences were made yesterday evening and were stamped this morning.
They will be dry either tomorrow evening or the next morning.
As much as I am eager to move forward working on the Village landscaping features, I don't want to hurry the drying process.
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I'll have more photos of the finished fences plus a photo of the custom stamp used to imprint the brick pattern in a couple of days. I'm totally wiped after three full days of making these brick fences. I was inspired to make them after reading the last UK Sylvanian Club magazine that had photos of the new cow family.

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11/4/2009, 7:30 pm Send Email to lostmymarblz   Send PM to lostmymarblz
 
lostmymarblz
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Re: Making a Sylvanian Village

It's taken longer for the clay fences to dry than I thought it would, but they are finally ready to paint. Here are a few photos of the events of the past few days....


A night has passed since making the slabs.
The slabs slowly and slightly dried in the dryer overnight
and are dry and wet enough for the imprint of the brick pattern.
On the right is the "stamp" that was made of Lego, styrene cut to size, and held together with Crazy Glue.
In this photo, I am using the stamp to slightly compress the slab after imprinting to make all the slabs a uniform size.
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It took from Tuesday to Saturday to fully and slowly dry all the imprinted slabs.
While losing the moisture from the clay, colour was also lost.
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These two dried fences are my test subjects.
The one on the left has not been painted or sealed.
The one on the right has had a couple of coats of paint as well as a top coat of Varathane.
An imprecise mixture of eggshell finish latex and craft paints plus some Varathane made up the paint.
Un-fired clay soaks up the paint quickly and it's a bit of a problem to mix enough paint to coat all 20 fences.
The top coat of Varathane seals the paint and is a must for un-fired clay.
Also in the photo at the bottom is a closer look at the "stamp".
To the left of the stamp are leftover sections used to construct the stamp.
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After painting the two test fences, I realized I was going to need a lot of paint and that the process was going to take awhile to accomplish. It's just about suppertime now, but I've mixed the paint in a quantity I hope will do all of the fences and am ready to begin painting in the morning, or even later this evening.

I'm impatient with the processes involved with doing such detailed work on so many aspects of the Village. I currently have several UK buildings set up and waiting for their video debut, but some of the landscpaing details have not been finished yet - such as the brick fences. Actually, none of the landscaping deficiencies would be apparent without setting up a few buildings for a scene. I've also come to think that I will be adding landscaping details over the next months as I change the buildings in the Village. To that end, I'm going to have to set space aside in the tall storage closet in the basement hallway to accomodate various portable landscaping features.

Anyway, the next photos I post will be of the finished brick fences set up with the UK buildings emoticon I'm so looking forward to posting actual photos of my Village!

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11/8/2009, 4:03 pm Send Email to lostmymarblz   Send PM to lostmymarblz
 
Cheryl77
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Registered: 10-2009
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Re: Making a Sylvanian Village

I can't wait either!

X
11/9/2009, 9:28 am Send Email to Cheryl77   Send PM to Cheryl77
 
theratpack360
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Registered: 11-2009
Location: New Jersey, USA
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Re: Making a Sylvanian Village

Oh wow!

You sure have a love for your SF! The brick making progress is a wonderful stroke of genius!

Saddly, I only have one house and very little room. (my SF can only come out at Christmas) But I recently covered a piece of plywood with green fabric as a base. I'll have to put up some pics in the Gallery.

Now you're making me think of expanding....lol
11/9/2009, 10:57 pm Send Email to theratpack360   Send PM to theratpack360
 
lostmymarblz
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Re: Making a Sylvanian Village

Hi Cheryl,

Our wait is over! Here are a couple of quick photos of the Village taken this evening. I'll be adding figures some time tomorrow, then I'll start making a few videos emoticon

Hi theratpack360,

Thanks for the encouraging words emoticon I have some background working with model railroads and learned a lot from the people on the MRR boards. They do a lot of this type of thing, only on a much smaller scale. DIY is an art with those fabulous folks, and I borrowed their work ethic for my Village emoticon

A piece of plywood and green fabric sounds perfect for your new SF set up emoticon



It took a couple of days, but the Village is now set up.
The brick fences are in their places doing a pretty fine job of adding to the scene, if I do say so myself!
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Here is a view of what the entire set up looks like at this time.
I don't have foliage installed in the top of the "T" section of the Village yet,
and will probably get to that once I find more foliage at the dollar stores.
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I'm so jazzed about having gotten this far in this huge project emoticon There is still a lot more work to be accomplished, but for now, I'm satisfied that I'll be able to make a few videos - and wash the kitchen floor now that my workshop there has been cleaned up. Wow! A Sylvanian Village AND a clean kitchen floor! All my dreams will come true emoticon

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11/10/2009, 7:36 pm Send Email to lostmymarblz   Send PM to lostmymarblz
 
TheRockie
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Registered: 03-2007
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Re: Making a Sylvanian Village

Great to see the village is taking shape, Bev ! Just can't wait to see the figures in their new home.

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Sylvanianholics (:

http://www.freewebs.com/sylvanianholics
11/10/2009, 8:01 pm Send Email to TheRockie   Send PM to TheRockie
 


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