A papercraft town in time for the holidays

A papercraft town in time for the holidays

Earlier this fall the folks over at The Robin’s Nest announced a Craft Engineering contest. My wheels soon started spinning and I began scheming up a little project.

Well, that little project morphed into a gigantic undertaking that took countless days and nights. It seems that the process of creating a village isn’t as simple as making one or two buildings. You can’t have a village without houses. Then of course, you need stores and at least one diner. Essential municipal services such as a water towers and ferris wheel cannot be neglected. Yes, ferris wheels are essential.

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Today I will give you an overview of Elfville. Subsequent posts will offer a few tutorials.

Since it was an engineering contest, I constructed everything in Elfville from scratch, with the exception of the ferris wheel/slide. Everything in the town features paper, Dew Drops and other materials from the Robin’s Nest.

Elfville is a whimsical town full of frolicking deer and industrious elves. Apparently the carpenters were frolicking a bit too much when they built the town because every building is full of unusual twists and turns.

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When you visit Elfville, be sure to stop by Dasher’s Diner—a unique fast food restaurant offering roast turkey, hot chocolate and Christmas cookies.

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Nearby are a couple homes of the town’s residents. As you will see in subsequent tutorials, the houses are made from cereal boxes, hot glue and duct tape.

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You’ve heard of the legendary fire bird the Phoenix. Well, Elfville is the home of it’s northern counterpoint, albeit mechanical bird. Phairbanks is the generator of the world’s Northern Lights. Once a lowly oatmeal box, this winged creature slowly ramps up its power every night until it flies off into the skies emitting beams of colorful lights.

 

Of course, the Christmas tree is the heart of Elfville. You might notice that the tree is a little sad at the moment. It always gets a little depressed when its lights and ornaments get taken down for cleaning. At the heart of Elfville is At the center of town is the town’s Christmas tree. I created the Christmas tree out of paper mache before covering it with Robin’s Nest paper.

 

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Next to the tree is the toy factory. Toys stream from the chute 24/7 in Elfville, all in preparation for the big day.

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Next door is another home and next to that is the town’s water tower. Except in Elfville the water tower holds hot chocolate (complete with a marshmallow on top). Both the water tower and Phairbanks are constructed from oatmeal boxes.

 

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No town is complete without a ferris wheel and rollercoaster. You can even see a couple little friends enjoying the ride.

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Finding good fitting shoes is nearly impossible for elves. Famous Footwear just doesn’t carry a large variety of shoes with pointy toes and jingle bell heels. That’s why Elfville has its own shoe shop called..are you ready for this pun?…The North Sole. It also happens to carry hoof polish.

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Last, but not least is the Candy Cane Club, complete with winding staircase made from a paper towel roll and a cereal box.

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