A Village of Memories: How Jeff Junkins Builds Stories in Miniature

I stepped into the basement of Jeff Junkins’ home earnestly. As a 20-something college student, I felt the depth of adulthood becoming a reality, craving a sense of childhood wonder.

Half expecting to see an array of houses similar in nature to those of suburbia, resting upon a table of sorts, I was struck when I was presented with a slice of a new world, stories, memories and dreams.

To the left: a vibrant array of miniature snow-capped villages, with intricately etched wooden rooftops and windows that give you a glimpse into storefront scenes, resting upon an expansive styrofoam base sprinkled with snow and pine trees. To the right: cabinets lined with ceramic holiday collectibles with a glossy overlay, reminiscent of Junkins’ time at Department 56, where he designed nearly 200 buildings as a contractor for 20 years.

Near the center of town, a barber shop that Junkins made for his husband, who always dreamed of having his own shop. On the edge, you will see a woman holding up her order ticket, awaiting a chocolate cupcake from Linda’s Sweet Shop. The outskirts house a drive-in movie theater, complete with an array of vintage toy cars in the lot, a meeting place for the townspeople.

And when the smoke from the railway train clears (and the muffled coughs from Junkins’ and my asthma come to a halt), the winter wonderland comes into a clearer view, along with his story.

Jeff Junkins is the conceptualizer, builder and architect of his ever-evolving winter wonderland village. Though calling his work a village feels minimizing, because to him and those he holds close, it’s a story of what was and what is.

Dedicated to people, places and things he loves

As a self-proclaimed “Christmas nut,” much of Junkins’ work comes from buildings he has seen in his favorite movies: “Miracle on 34th Street,” “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House,” “North by Northwest” and “Psycho.”

For Junkins, he says his fondness for Christmas comes from homey memories of when he was just a kid and “life was so simple and sweet.”

While others are more personable, like the red house resembling an old house he and his husband used to live in, just four years ago, to a Tiffany blue building filled with miniature dogs, named “Mouses Home for Wayward Dogs,” a memorial for the dogs he has lost.

“This helps me hyper focus, as I can truly spend hours on one thing where most people would kind of think ‘that’s really weird,’ but I love it, it gives me energy,” Junkins says.

After Junkins’ dad died eight years ago, he says building these tiny villages was a means of therapy for him. Junkins says he remembers being just 7 years old when he was gifted a toy train for Christmas, and he saved up his money to buy little houses for himself.

“They were always so expensive, so when I saw balsa wood, basswood and some X-ACTO knives, I thought to myself: ‘I can make these.’” Junkins says. “So, I started making little houses for my train to pass when I was a kid and really enjoyed it.”

From Sketch to Structure: Junkins’ Ongoing Creative Journey

When it comes to the creative process, Junkins says he sticks to a similar process for each design, starting with sketching out his designs on paper, then moving onto Illustrator where he draws out a more comprehensive model: one with colors, clean lines and newfound proportions, like the one he redid completely from the movie, “Hocus Pocus,” where he didn’t like the original design.

After the drawings have been drafted, Junkins says he produces a foam core model, making a study of his initial concept. After, he can send his SVG file to his laser cutter, which he got just a few years ago, to help speed up the process by taking 100 hours off a project.

Each building is intricately painted and detailed, such as the pink awning at “Linda’s Sweet Shop,” snow-dusted shingles atop the Christmas Tree shop or the exposed brick walls inside the “Cozy Have a Shack.” Junkins finds purpose in the intricacy of things.

Using Illustrator, Junkins says he uses it as line art to obtain every viewpoint of the house, each of them taking 40 hours for smaller houses and 80-100 hours to complete larger buildings.

“The engineering part of it is what’s fun,” Junkins says. “I try to make my buildings look as realistic as I can.”

Just like life-size homes, a run-through of the vacuum is an essential part of upkeep, which is why Junkins uses a miniature vacuum to clean his village. Sometimes, he will even get a thin paint brush to get into intricate spaces, and with everything being detachable on wheels, Junkins says it makes the process a lot easier.

When Junkins finds a piece he really loves, like the miniature turnstile cake atop the bakery, he will purchase it from one of his favorite online shops, Etsy. Though Junkins says he always tries to make everything himself first.

Though Junkins never got around to crafting them, he was going to add a pride flag as signage to his entry for the Minnesota State Fair’s model building contest. He says he shows his allyship in other ways, too, such as one of the toy figurines being a man shaving, while his boyfriend is sitting on the couch, waiting for him to get ready to go out.

His 2024 entry was Aunt Em and Uncle Henry’s farm, which won second place. In the back of the farm, there is a wooden dolly with fabric paint to create a tornado-like appearance, and it spins with the help of a miniature motor.

“To think that I’d be able to do this when I was a kid, I would have been so excited because I had always wanted to be an architect, and even though I went into graphic design, that has remained a constant, true passion for me,” Junkins says.