Country Manor Christmas Village

Kimberly Maness

Here we have another breathtaking village display by Kimberly full of intricate details and interesting scenes. This display features mountainous backdrops, detailed scenery, and a focus on 19th century-style manors.

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“This year’s village is focused on the country manors of 19th century America and the deep South where so much of our traditions and heritage are based on English aristocracy. Against the rolling hills and mountains of the Appalachian Mountain and The Great Smoky Mountain ranges is created a stunning, detailed depiction of grace and warm traditions.”

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“This village was brought about by Hot Wire Foam Factory tools and some repurposed Styrofoam. The large mountain backdrop from 2021 was utilized as well as the heavy pharmaceutical Styrofoam coolers I had. These were added under the mountain scape. I then sculpted the edges in front to accommodate sheets of brown packing paper, painted and blended to give a realistic rock formation against the mountain backdrop. The top of those large coolers made a nice 6-8-inch-wide space creating a plateau area while adding another level. I sculpted rock forms out of Styrofoam placing them atop to give dimension and depth to this area.”

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“Throughout the village there are cobbled walkways, roads and brick or stone walls all created with the HWFF Crafters Tools. Where the roadways (as in the country area at the base of the mountains) are not cobbled, I used the Sculpting Tool to gently pull off Styrofoam and give the appearance of snow packed country roads. This tool is great for creating this effect as the wire is thin and with the heat adjustment on the power supply it’s even easier to turn down the heat level so you don’t take off too much Styrofoam in the process.

The engraver tool is one of my favorites also. It allows for a controlled depth to make stone walls, cobbled roads and walkways which can then be filled in with sand, dirt or just painted black.”

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“Another great tool I use for hollowing out Styrofoam is the long 8-inch Hot Knife. This really is useful for boring holes through thick Styrofoam cooler sides so the cords could easily pass through to the electrical strip. The other size Hot Knives are great for shaping and for cutting out pieces of Styrofoam underlayment so cords can be tunneled to the edge of a table to plug in under it (if need be).”

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“Creating stairs can be challenging but any size hot knife and a pen makes the job more tolerable. I had repurposed a piece of Styrofoam which had a set of stairs cut into it that were not level with the rest of the platform and the bottom step was very thin and developed a hole. I was able to use my 8 in hot knife to cut out those bad stairs and carve out a set from another piece of Styrofoam without any issues. This project is seen in the stairs going up to the 3 rainbow row houses in the front left corner of the village layout.”