It Takes A Village

I thought I might share a few tips for displaying Village collectibles this holiday season. Whether in a retail setting or home environment, there are some pretty simple things you can do to enhance the impact of this kind of holiday decor. I'm going to give a shout out to Linda & Margo at Molbaks here, because they are women who KNOW how to play up this stuff. They've each done the massive (and I do mean massive) display setups at the store for the past five years, and every year it gets better!

Remember Christopher Lowell on TLC tv? One of his taglines was 'Lifts, Levels, & Elevations'. Well, I call this the Chris Lowell tip: Get something to use as risers, and lift up some of the houses & buildings. Take the houses out of the boxes, and then use the boxes as risers - just cover them with fabric, or snow, or even wrap them in giftwrap if you want a cute look. Create hills with them, and then sit the houses on top. Put a few on the flat surface of the table or shelf to add dimension, as well.

In the setup above, a huge mirror from a client's dining table was used as the pond. The bridge sits on it, and we created a 'stream' by lining part of the mirror with rock walls and snow right over the mirror. Creates a cool effect and it really makes the light dance on the surface. And under those snowy hills in the background are cardboard boxes!

In this setup, I took a beautiful antique wood box and opened it, put a cardboard box in it, covered that with snow, then sat the conservatory building on it. This lifts the spectacular piece up and makes it the star of the show.

A closeup of the wood box as pedestal. You can also use books (old leatherbound ones are gorgeous!), small stools, plant stands, and flowerpots to add height. Be creative and match the items to the village theme!

Now, against the advice I just gave, here is a flat layout. This is a sofa table, so the village is visible from all sides. We set it up so that the houses are in two rows, with 'backyards' that are behind each. On the front sides of the houses, there are sidewalks & street, making it appear to be a block of homes in merry old England. Placing them this way eneabled us to fit more buildings into the setup, and it keeps it neat & tidy so it's not overwhelming to the eye.

This setup in the kitchen window uses a part (small part!) of the client's nutcracker collection along with the village houses. Everything has to do with food here - the nutcrackers are bakers and winemakers and such, the trees are made from gumdrop candy, the houses are a cooky shop, a candy shop, and the Rudolph & Santa village pieces. Glass cake pedestals hold some of the houses up high, and the nutcracker pedestals lift a few more way up above the scene.

Sorry it's fuzzy, but here's a closeup.

A really important tip for retail display of these items is to remember to create some SMALL setups along with the huge dioramas. Many people who love these live in small homes - condos, apartments, senior living centers - and space is a consideration. So show them how to display their villages on bookshelves, mantels, small tables, etc. in small groupings. The photos I've shared here are from a darling client who lives a in massive home. She has plenty of room to display her collections...but not everyone is in this situation.

Also, in retail, show a cross-merchandised approach in several of your displays. Incorporate photo frames, books, candles, lamps, and other decorative accessories (florals, even candy!) to show how this can be done in a home environment. You'll sell more product when you show the customer what to do with it!

Eye Candy

The beginning of this week was spent installing the holiday merchandise & displays at Columbia Winery. While there is a plethora of wonderful merchandise to be found there, I just adore this display. It easily wins my 'Best in Show' prize this year (even if I did do it myself!)

The pine tables and hutch all match, making them effectively disappear so that the products stand out. I took a garland, ran it diagonally to create energy, fluffed it up with happy ribbon swirls, and then gathered up all of the glass vases, pedestals, bowls, and domes in the shop and brought them to this area to use as props. That way, the glass helps to create the 'candy shop' theme and adds sparkle, but the real focus is on the products. I hung a few of the giant bells overhead, too.

The merchandise is from Seasons of Cannon Falls, and it's all red flocked velvet jingle bells and rhinestone pins & bell necklaces. I placed the merchandise under the domes, heaped in the vases, lying on the cake pedestals to show it off - it's definitely eye candy! I also added a line of peppermint-twist candles and the Mary Lake Thompson candy cane linens (not seen in these shots) because they fit the theme.

When the Christmas candy order arrives at the beginning of next month, those items (candy canes, lollipops, candy cane wwreaths, etc) will all go into this area, as well. I just wanted to take all of this luscious stuff home and decorate with it - even tho when I use red in my tiny Cottage, it makes the rooms seem OH so small. Ah well.

Photos of other displays later!

Tree Trimming Play-by-Play

The trees that Karen & I decorated for Molbaks are in the gift shop area - 'Christmasland', basically. Over thrity themes of Holiday decorations packed into the space along with all of the normal everyday merchandise. It's visual overload!!!

The theme above is aqua & brown, and had both woodsy (as in deer) and contemporary (as in some mod 60's look glass ornaments), so I designed the tree with a hip feel in mind and used the more contemporary items. Including a sleek art deco deer. The ribbons (3 styles) cascade from the top of the tree downward in four sections, 'bubbling' out in loops. At each gathering of the loops, there is an ornament - either aqua or gold. 'Bouquets' of sparkly (and heavy) beaded pointsettias and velvet leaves fill in the space between ribbon loops. And I have to say, this tree is gorgeous - it's a new one for Molbaks, and it's a blue spruce. Perfect coloring with this decor line.


The Nativity tree is in shades of gold, burgundy, deep red, and copper. Angel figures and large 'bouquets' again fill in space, and the ribbons on this one are WIDE velvet flocked, swirling in a clockwise rhythm around the tree. Drippy gold beads, cutwork gold ornaments, crosses, mirrors, detailed ornaments in an old world style all give this tree elegant Baroque beauty.

On the tree, Karen took a large gold cone and created a bouquet inside of it, then hung it near the top to draw attention to the angel. It's a huge element, and in this big space, really helps to direct a customers' eye.

Simple snowmen on this one - the notable inclusions are the sign and the many white frosted branches. The lights on this tree are LED - low heat, long burning, and the most bizarre blue-purple color! Decidedly non-Christmassy. Those white snowy branches help to cover the bulbs while allowing the light to diffuse and seem a bit more 'snowy evening' than 'nuclear winter'! The ribbons here just swirl down from a bow on top - I do wish I had had some knitted scarves to use, tho.

The 'Dr. Seuss' tree was created by wiring an arched garland to the top of the tree (and to the beam above). The fanciful shape is complimented by loads of colorful, whimsical ornaments ranging from silk flowers to plastic stars to glass figural drops. That big 'light bulb'-looking ornament hanging from the tip is the perfect finishing touch, don't you think?! I think Karen had fun doing this one.
An easy way to do a tree like this is to use your kids' toys - stuffed animals, Happy Meal toys, action figures, Barbie Dolls....lots of fun! (Plus it helps get all those toys up off the floor!!!)


The Champagne tree didn't photograph well, unfortunately. Soft creams, browns, and shimmering silver make it nearly effervescent....and the 6" wide velvet damask ribbon in soft mocha is coming home with Deb for Christmas, I tell ya! GORgeous. Again we have those hip 'of the moment' acanthus leaves in velvet, very hot this year, along with drippy silver cedar boughs tucked into and around the tree (which sits up in an urn - nice way to add height to a short tree!). Angels dot the tree and one sits up high, draped with the beaded garland.

The Nutcracker tree is filled with actual nutcrackers - tiny, small, and medium sizes - that we put on using pipe cleaners/chenille stems. Using larger items like this is a great way to add color and theme without having to use six hundred small ornaments. The ribbon spills down fromt he big bow on top, and picks of sparkly dots are inserted all over to add movement & light. Bouquets of lime green hydrangea, the sparkly picks, and red berries help bulk up the look. Ornaments are perched on top of upturned cones, and also hung in groups of three to draw more attention to them. Bright colors and whimsical shapes make this a playful version of a Holiday classic.


The entrance to the gift shop holds the Winter Conservatory theme. Looking at it about five minutes after finishing, I thought 'We should have put lights inside the arch'. But my back, injured last week, was screaming for a pain pill at that point, and I just didn't have the gumption to spend another half hour adding lights. Hey, nothing's perfect!

The tree sits up in an urn, surrounded by glass tops on other urns to make tables for product display. On the tree, we added snowy branches and snow-dusted bird nests in a spiral around the tree - it appears to be a garland. Ornaments hang in bunches of three and individually, and five round white ledges hold merchandise from the lines displayed on the slatwall near the tree. Houses, churches, reindeer, Santas - the whole snowy winter wonderland deal. The top of the tree is AT the ceiling (pretty low in this part of the shop) so it just has a few bell ornaments and some ribbon to set it off.


I hope you find some inspiration & ideas in there!!!