Shops and Village Buildings

This month I decided to do something a little different. While I still want to focus on adding more shops and public buildings to my village, I want to put an emphasis on buildings that you might not find patterns for elsewhere. I received a suggestion for a service station and decided to run with the idea.

I decided on a building still in existence, the Cucamonga Service Station, one of only a few original buildings remaining on Route 66 in California. I picked this building is it is timeless. Change out the style of the gas pumps and signage and it can fit a village from any era.

Now that the 2025 Great Halloween Spooktacular is behind me, I started to look at what other kinds of buildings I want to make for my village. I decided that I have a lot of house patterns on this site and need to make more shops and village buildings. While I was looking at pictures for inspiration, I found one that reminded me of a bookstore near us, so I decided to make my shop into one. Though I include pictures for the inside of a bookstore, this building can be made into any kind of shop, or even a regular house. Wouldn’t this look great as a potion shop for Halloween?

I thought it was time for another shop for our village. I saw a picture of a cute two-dimensional computer drawn building and decided to imagine how it would look as a 3D building.

I also decided to do something a little different this time. With Easter fast approaching, I thought it would be fun to make a building that could also double as a gift box. Thus I made the roof of this cafe so that it does not need to be glued down to stay on, and can be removed at any time. If you want to make your cafe into a gift box, use the solid Putz Bottom.

This month I decided to make SVGs in Inkscape of one of the early buildings I originally designed in Cricut Design Space. This building is based on Gus O’Connor’s Pub in Doolin, Ireland. From TheJournal.ie: “SINCE 1832, GUS O’Connor’s has been a fixture in Doolin, Co Clare. Over the years, it has garnered a reputation as one of the best regarded traditional music pubs in Ireland.”

For a while now I have been receiving requests to make more buildings that would fit in with my Mid-Century Modern House. The house tends to be one of my most popular downloads as well as a best selling DIY kit. There are other places to find free Mid-Century Modern house patterns, however. It is clear the dearth of patterns is for shops for your Retro Village. With how hot it has been outside, a Retro Ice Cream Stand seemed perfect.

I thought it was time to add another store to the village. I love having the houses in my holiday village surround a downtown park lined with businesses. And once again I wanted a real building for my model, so I found a picture of a cute corner store in England that I thought could be used for any kind of shop. While I wanted to make a little bodega like the ones I see when I visit my son in NY, I believe this building could easily adapted to make a coffee shop, little liquor store, or even a restaurant.

Perhaps it was the year I spent living in England when I was a teenager, but I am extraordinarily fond of fish & chips. So when a customer reached out to me, explaining that their family owns a fish & chips shop in Dublin and that they wanted a replica to join their existing Lemax village, I was up for the challenge. This replica was demanding as it is a different scale than I usually work with and really reached the maximum size I could make with aluminum cans. I actually offered to make it from cardboard instead of cans but they liked the uniqueness of the aluminum cans (thank goodness, as I can’t paint.)

Of course I also had in the back of my mind that I could scale and simplify the pattern a bit, and offer it here when I was done. While the building itself is a fairly basic rectangle, it does give me the opportunity to introduce some new elements like exploring different ways to make shop signs, printing and drawing on vellum, and joining together two story buildings of different material or textures. And of course, the picnic tables with patio umbrellas are just the cutest embellishment.