Written by Howard Lamey and Paul Race for Big Indoor TrainsTM and LittleGlitterHouses.comTM |
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Spookey Village BillboardsThese billboards are easy additions to the Spook HillTM community of custom-built, vintage-style Halloween display village houses. They would also look good with any Halloween village, including the Hawthorne Village® Halloween trains and VillagesIt's also the easiest Spook HillTM structure to build so far, so it would be a good project to get the kids involved with. What You Will NeedClean cardboard (used is fine). The best kind for this project is heavy chipboard, that is - thick, but solid cardboard like that on the back of writing tablets. If you don't have that, you could alway use fine corrugated cardboard like the kind the post office uses for express mail, and paint it in such a way that the paint smooths out the rough edges.Note for Outdoor Railroaders - If you're making billboards to go outside, consider using a weather-resistant material like thin plywood, Lucite glazing, or road spam (those obnoxious fluted plastic signs they put on your street corner in the dead of night). I'd also consider using stakes to install billboards outside instead of "stands," as shown in this article. In addition, for this project you'll need:
Print The AdvertisementsThis project has fake seasonal advertisements that you can download and print on a color printer. For O-scale or holiday villages, download the pdf version by clicking on the photo to the right. Print the graphic on acid-free bond paper or light card stock at the highest quality setting your printer allows. Of course, you can make your own billboards if you want, by cutting ads out of magazines or whatever. (If your family buys many decorations for Halloween, you might be able to find promising graphics on the packaging.)If you want to use them for a Large Scale railroad, or if you want to resize them yourself, download the jpg version (a 1.7meg files). If you do that, try changing your printer to landscape mode and printing them as large as your printer will allow. If for some reason, this doesn't work out for you, contact us and we'll try to help. Designing Around the AdvertisementsOnce you've printed the advertisements in the size you think you want, cut them out and lay them on a piece of scrap paper. Draw a box around each one that is between 1/8"-1/2" on the top and sides and 1/2"-2" on the bottom. Adjust the "box shape" until it looks right to you. Then use that as a pattern to cut out the supporting wall and any material you choose to use to cover it.Building the Supporting Walls
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Spook HillTM is a trademark of Howard Lamey. All information, data, text, and illustrations on this web site are Copyright (c) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 by Paul D. Race. Reuse or republication without prior written permission is specifically
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