Getting in the Christmas Spirit 7: Home Sweet Home

For a real Christmassy touch, I needed to have a little cabin with Christmas lights strung along the eves. Does it make sense that an isolated place like this would bother to put up lights, or even have electricity? No, but that's half the fun.

I originally built this cabin a couple of years ago for my first L&SE shelf layout, and later moved it to the Frazier Borate mini layout. I borrowed it as a placeholder for the Christmas micro, in intending to replace it with something else.

As it's getting close to Christmas, it doesn't look like I'm going to have time to build another cabin until after the holidays, so this one will remain in place until then.

The first thing I did was add a wreath on the door. I cut a circle or doughnut of cardstock about half an inch inch in diameter, painted it green, then glued on small bits of Conifer colored clump foliage. I used a toothpick to add small dots of red. I glued that on the door.

I wanted to make the area around the cabin a little more interesting by giving it some contour, so I cut a piece of foam to roughly fit between the track and the hillside, then tapered it with a serrated knife. I glued it in place and filled the gaps and feathered the edges with spackle.

I painted the area tan and sprinkled it with real dirt and small bits of rock that I scooped out of the North Fork of Lockwood Creek.

I added a couple of 1/8 inch square piers at the front corners of the cabin. I may add a couple more. I fabricated a set of steps from 1/8 x 1/32 stripwood.

When the glue dried, I added some patchy snow and a few bits of foliage.

Finally, I added an interior light. For now, it's powered by a 9 volt battery. Eventually, I'll connect it to the same bus that powers the Christmas Tree.