Once you have benches, ladders and picnic tables, it is time to add buildings to your train layout or school diorama.
If the school project is a poster, simply get a picture of the building you want to add; glue it to a cardboard shipping box; cut the building out and then glue that to the poster. It will sit about a quarter of an inch off the paper and will give the poster a 3-d look.
Plastic models are really cool. They take a little work to assemble but look great. You can add interiors and details, but that does cost some money. Plastic building kits start around $12, and depending on the complexity of the building, they can cost more.
However, if you have access to a printer, you can print out paper buildings. You can glue the print to card stock and make a building for pennies. I have tried both black and white printers and colour. Colour is preferred, but the grey scale shops, houses and even stores do not look bad.
Want to blow the teacher or your friends away? Cut the windows out of the building. Put a small piece of plastic over the hole to make it look like a window. Then add a light behind the hole. It can be just a bulb connected to a battery, a flash light, or even a string of holiday lights behind several openings.
If you are working on a flat surface diorama, you can run the wire under a cardboard base and poke the light bulbs up through the base where needed. If the base is for a train set and it is wood, ask an adult to help you make the holes for the lights with a drill.
Once you place the bulb through the base the building is just placed over to and the light shines through the windows, don’t just stop at one building. You can make a street full of homes and shops. You can add dog houses, a small shopping area, a church or even a gas station or a school.
Yes, get a picture of your school from the front and sides and make a 3d model of it. If you are really bold, take a picture of your teacher and place it in front of the school. That alone should be worth an A.
Hope to see you ‘Around the Tracks’ again soon.
