1960's Vintage Publix Grocery Store

This vintage 1960's Publix grocery store diorama was created mostly with foam core board, Styrofoam, and cardstock.  I started by cutting the foam core to size for the floors and walls.  With a utility knife, I cut a piece of patterned Plexiglas to size to represent the 'back room' where the butcher might be working. I glued a piece of scrapbook paper with a 'tile' look behind the Plexiglas.  I used two other complimentary scrapbook papers and adhered them to the walls with spray adhesive.  T-pins secure the walls to each other and the walls to the floor.  I covered the floor with contact paper, purchased from the Dollar Tree store. 

I then measured to determine how long the freezer and produce cases should be to cover the back and side walls.  I cut more foam core boards and glued four sides together for each case.  I then covered the produce and freezer cases with solid scrapbooking papers and covered the case edges with aluminum tape purchased at the hardware store to give an industrial appearance to the fixtures.  I cut another piece of foam core and added a shelf or rather the bottom of the case where the food would be stacked above.

I created sale replicas of authentic 1960's frozen food, cereal boxes, and dog biscuit packaging to fill the grocery store.  I've included some samples here that you may print for your own use. 

I glued all the frozen food boxes into the freezer case and added price point signage above each food type/brand.  I then applied faux snow that crafte s use to add snow to holiday village house rooftops around the top of the freezer case with a toothbrush to give the appearance that the contents are being kept at frozen temperatures.

For the produce case, I took refrigerator magnets produce crates from my personal collection which were filled with a variety of fruits and vegetables many years ago. I pried all the contents out and separated the produce by type.  I glued the produce back into the crates by type. I added extra carrots found on a string of Easter decor. I had to create two additional crates out of balsa wood because the crate display area was larger than the existing crates would fill.  I made price point signs by printing prices on white cardstock and gluing the prices to coffee stirrers cut to size for each vegetable and fruit.  I glued the price point signs into the crate and then glued holeless clear beads in and around the produce to give the appearance of ice. 

The dog biscuit display was created by taking a Styrofoam square and covering the sides with yellow bulletin board border.  I covered the top with a piece of scrapbook paper and glued an empty candy box to the top of the display.  I stacked the dog biscuit boxes three deep and at the top of each row, I glued a piece of solid red scrapbook paper to create uniform rows for each subsequent row above. 

The cereal box display was created by gluing a Styrofoam 1" circle to a Styrofoam cube.  I covered the Styrofoam circle exterior with yellow bulletin board border.  I glued a piece of scrapbook paper to the top. Then I created a white hollow tube from a piece of poster board with which to glue the cereal boxes around the perimeter all the way to the top.  I covered the top of the cereal display with a circle of poster board and then created a price point sign on the computer, printed it on cardstock, and glued it to coffee stirrer sticks.

The grocery carts were Mattel made and purchased years ago at a yard sale or garage sale. I spray painted the grocery carts silver and covered the blue wheel rims with a silver paint pen.  I filled the grocery cart with assorted groceries from the various store displays and even more that I'd created for the 2011 Ft. Lauderdale National Barbie Doll Convention.  I entered this diorama in the category 'Ken at Work' in the Competition Room.

Here are some vintage reproduction groceries used in my 1960's grocery diorama entered in the Competition Room at the 2011 Ft. Lauderdale National Barbie Doll Convention.  Print the boxes on a sheet of printer paper then color copy the box patterns on white cardstock, which will give some stability to the boxes.  Cut the boxes out, score them along the fold lines and glue together.   
 

Updated 09/04/2011.