Santa Express: Winter Village Houses

Although Halloween is just around the corner, I can't help but dig into my Christmas papers and supplies and start creating projects for Christmas.  Amanda here today with a super cute project that you can make to dress up a holiday mantel, table, or even use as a centerpiece.

I love making miniature paper crafts and houses are my favorite crafts to make.  I die cut and assembled two houses and a church to be the start of my winter village.  (These cut files can be found in the Cricut library as part of the Winter Woodland cartridge.)

The best part of these houses is that they can each be lit with a single battery operated tea light.  The houses look great lit during the day, but look especially stunning at night.  The addition of vellum to the windows softens the glow and makes the houses look warm and inviting.

The short green house is my favorite.  I die cut each roof from sugar coated cardstock to make them look as though they were covered with a fresh layer of snow.

Each building has a contrasting door.  Although I was tempted, I refrained from adding too many extra details to the houses so they wouldn't distract from the glowing lights.

The stripey church looks so inviting!  I also added vellum inside the doorways of the houses so the tea lights would be well disguised.  You can easily turn these little houses into a play set (like this one) by leaving the vellum out of the doors.

Add vellum inside the windows and doors before you fold and assemble the houses.  Cut pieces of vellum so they overlap the windows about 1/4" on each side and adhere with a tape runner.

The houses look bright and cheery when lit during the day.  Create more houses in a variety of colors to create a larger winter village.  Add trees, critters, and a backdrop to add more drama to your scene.
Happy creating!

Amanda

Supplies:
Santa Express collection
Sugar Coated cardstock