Fortunes Turning, Early Spring!

And now here it is finally spring... and the most recent setup of the village. I just started the tear down on this one the other day... But now we are getting all caught up on what's been going on around town for the past few months! Been quite the backlog going on obviously.
Since this last round of starting the village, I've acquired all sorts of crazy stuff.. various foliage, some great new buildings and folks for super cheap and mostly at resale shops.. a lot of toys and tons of building materials.
I've learned from starting to make stuff and keeping an eye out for cheap stuff to fill in with that scale really matters... and really don't. Most village scale is around 1:32, but I can work up to 1:24 or down to about 1:48 depending on the item. I've even picked up a few 1:64 down to tiny N scale items to fill in some of the wee areas of town. But knowing what these scales are really matters when looking up stuff blind online.
And lol- lights. Gosh I love little battery operated lights. The things are bloody damn expensive. And the big bulb lights- using LED bulbs instead of the glass ones is a great option, especially with buildings that sit down flush instead of having a light hole. I picked up a box of clear ones after Christmas, but they didn't have any more of the colored ones. And yep, it makes a HUGE difference, using colored glass is better than trying to color a clear LED bulb outside, lol.

So anywho.. on with some pics. I didn't get a good whole shot of this one, it was all day pics and the one I got was badly backlit due to how bright the room is now.. But there are more detail pics this time :)I'm going to see if I can load 9 pics in one post or not, lol.. Sometimes Blogger is kind of squirrely.

Upper Main Street. The Church and Tower are again holding down the corner of town, lol. The small vendors are enjoying the open spring green to set up shop..

And our Sausage & Ham guy has really expanded his meat board! The large crate box and the little ones inside it holding smaller meats and cheeses I made from popsicle sticks. All the meats and cheeses in the case I made from Fimo. This is the video tutorial I used, and I did make the whole series, with enough "other" left over for a few bonus cheeses and a couple "uncooked" Fimo sticks left I can bake off later for another round of this stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX8LIlqYB5U&index=8&list=WL&t=297s

 Note the Menards billboard. These were hanging on the shelves for years at 6-7 bucks each, sometimes on sale for half off.. one day wandered in and they were on clearance for 1 buck each- I bought 5. Next time I visited, they were back up to full price again to be packed away for the season. The lights on the top of the sign are rather bright- I plan on making a few new posters to put up on a couple of these :)

And the other end of Upper.. I skipped over the Cheese Sandwich shop and  The Trouts hangout. But I wanted to point out some fun stuff. The little garden is from Target, the mushroom and Honey guys hanging out on the bridge are Shopkins, and that great farmer with the big ole scythe was part of a toy set from the local farm store. The arch the mushroom is hanging out in and the beehives on the bridge are typical scale for Joanns/Michaels fairy garden stuff- The Menards billboard is to scale with the "standard" village stuff.  The mushroom in the arch is actually the one that finally broke me down and made be collect a bunch of Chefs Club Season 6 Shopkins- I had to have one to live in the adobe houses. I mean, mushrooms are obviously living in adobe houses, right? Their compost is apparently pretty great considering how well that garden is growing.

The north end of Lower Main.. That fabulous greenhouse has been sneaking around for a while now- it was the one new late winter item at Joanns that I just couldn't resist early on- and I did get it on sale with an additional total off coupon. Our little raccoon in a boat friend has gone from the winter frozen mirror pond to a new spring pond- it's actually a saucer from a fairy tea and cup set series I picked up a bajillion years ago at Hobby Lobby. The Lilly Dock is a spoon from another set. And just peeking out in the foreground is our first spring sighting of our beloved orange and black UnderWood popping up in a lush spring ditch.

A long shot of Lower Main.. it's lovely and uses the step down nicely.. But I wanted to point out the background- this is a really excellent shot of the gruesome fridge that stays up year round now. It's where all that stuff gets stuffed away, keeping chill...

The Farm pretty much stayed put, a little spring freshening.. Piglets are starting to get trucked around, and all the snowpeople have finally melted away for the year..

Outside The Farm's gates, a bit of a park formed up. The new trailer is fun, and Little Timmy is just about to get himself in trouble up on that tire swing if he ends up trying to jump into that mirror cold pond! You can almost see where the sidewalk ends... trailing along the fence.

And right on into where the yellow brick road begins. This awesome and versatile piece came from a thrift shop for a couple bucks, and is one of my favorite newer pieces.

And down the hill.. The mailman took a spill, again... and busted one of his front wheels.. again. Good thing our local fabric merchant had only just started setting out cart action. Guess it might be time to get Mr. Mailman off the streets for a well earned summer vacation.
For some fun scale action.. The fabric cart is a random trinket I picked up at a resale shop for a buck or so. The tree house came from this springs fairy Michaels, and the bridge from last falls fairy Joanns- which I got stupid cheap on clearance because it had a cracked rail and was damaged- drop of glue fixed that shit. The three shelf stand on the right and the big box on the left come from Target toys- the little box in the big one is one I made from Popsicle sticks. Mr. Mailman is from standard village collections, as is the Mac in the background. The farmer on the left and the bins of potatoes and tomatoes are from the same toy set from the farm store.

And now we are all caught up with a tour around of Fortunes Turning since really kicking it up last year. I might consider a full folding of the village for a while.. or not. Maybe change out stuff a lot.. or not.. But it is a place that changes, and it's fun to change it around. I have to start remembering to take pics of stuff when I transform it- and put up notes when I make stuff. I've been compiling a lot of links about coolness, but that's pretty much a draft, lol.

So Happy Spring from Fortunes Turning... May the whole of Nightvale county prosper. Keep in mind the rules about The Dog Park, and always respect other government signs. Please don't tromp over the new plants, and don't forget the ditch works.