Building A Lemax Miniature Scene

In the world of Lemax, it brings with it miniatures of different occasions. A local friend, Michelle, collects Lemax and has been slowly building it over several years. She's meticulous and carefully sets up and packs away her village, year after year.

If you have any tips or more advice to share with this hobby, leave your comments in the blog below. I am eager to learn more.

A charming Lemax miniature winter village scene, beautifully illuminated and surrounded by snow-dusted trees, captures the magic of a festive holiday wonderland.

Michelle highly suggested staying loyal to the Caddington Collection as the theming really works well together. Let's face it, it's not a cheap hobby and shopping for the buildings and accessories is a creative adventure on its own.

While I don't have proof, I had an extensive train collection and set up that spanned most of the basement in my parents' house when I was a child. It was scaled to HO. It was an expensive hobby as a child, and so building out the train layout and scenery was a very slow process. It may be responsible for my love of miniatures—storytelling from a manufacturer's perspective, piecing things together to convey the ambiance of the layout. It's a creative art all to its own.

My mother, being the woman she was, in her not letting people suffer, allowed extended family to move into our home, and she ended the free space in the house, and everything was thrown away.

A charming night scene of a snow-covered Lemax village, glowing warmly with lights under a starry backdrop, capturing the festive spirit of a winter wonderland.

My most significant fascination is how the set lights up at night. There's a sense of success if each section is appropriately lit. It may also be responsible for my love of Rollercoaster Tycoon, which let me build a simulated theme park that needed lighting, garbage pails, and much more. Again, story is digitally created.

Pricing Tips for Lemax

I was afraid I wasn't doing it justice, so I called Michelle to ask where to start. You see, her pool table is really amazing. She's got to know something about this hobby, right!?

I was right, she had great places to start.

• Stick with staying loyal to the brand. If you mix and match with other things, the scale may be off and really apparent. We are our own worst critics.

• Look for sales. In-store locations that carry Lemax may offer sales and tend to want to clear them early in the season. Many stores don't take much inventory, and you may have to risk buying low-stock items to get something without being on sale.

• Two stores in my region carry Lemax. She advised one of them to wait for their sales, as they will happen, which will make purchasing much easier on their budget. She was right.

• I didn't find Lemax online for the prices I wanted to pay. Call me cheap. Michelle confirmed with me that she didn't know a location online that does sales as they probably don't need to.

Where to Start for Setting Up Lemax

• Decide on a location for the best presentation.

• Put thought into what the centre focal point will be and build around it. She had thoughts of an ice rink, a park, a town square, or a water feature. From there, decide the spacing.

• Michelle uses storage boxes under the snow quilt batting to build up layers. She suggested that it looks better if the village has multiple layers.

• As far as anything electrical, hide it under the fabrics. Cut small holes in the fabric to feed the wires through, keeping the illusion realistic.

• How do the lamp posts stay up? She uses double-sided tape to attach it to the solid surface under the batting, which will hide the wires and prevent them from tipping over.

• Use a hot styrofoam wire cutter to cut the styrofoam pieces if you want to. It will help you shape ledges, hills, and more to make them more realistic.

• Use a paper towel and paper mache to cover the styrofoam, shaping and painting to your liking. The paper towel will be smoother, creating luxurious snow drifts.

I had a question about sinking the buildings a bit so they don't look like houses sitting on top of a surface. She had tips about that, too.

• Place the building onto a piece of styrofoam and trace around the edge. Use a styrofoam wire cutter to cut out the shape. For myself, I would label each cutout on the underside, as buildings are not the same in the base.

• Use loose-looking snow to sprinkle over imperfections and gaps. She collects the loose snow at the end of the season to reuse again year after year.

  
  

Daniel grudgingly carries his Lemax Collection boxes, hiding his secret fondness for the festive treasures.

Lemax Storage

Lemax knows you take collecting these seriously. Each box features customized packaging to securely hold the item without crushing it. Please don't waste your money collecting these and toss them like Rambo into a box at the end of the season. Take care, and these should last you a lifetime.

It takes Michelle well over a solid week to set up, and she will leave it up for three months. She's invested in the hobby and wants to enjoy it for more than just a quick few weeks leading up to Christmas. Go to her house in spring; it's still set up, as it gives her tremendous joy and happiness to look out at the village and create her own storylines.

Hobbies are personal, enjoy what makes you happy and to anyone crafting on your idea, tough... Especially if they don't live in your house, they really don't have a say, do they!?