handmade Christmas

Dec, 27 , 11
windish01@yahoo.com

I wanted to show you the little village that I made for my mom for Christmas! It was a very addicting craft! My desk was a mess for about two weeks straight.

I had to set them up on my mantle before I gave them to her, you know, just to make sure that they looked good! She got six of them all together. I used cereal boxes and lots of hot glue to construct them. I followed the directions that I found here: http://www.bigindoortrains.com/primer/glitterhouses/glitterhouses.htm

That site also gives you the background on them and tons of printable patterns.

This little house was my favorite. All of the houses eventually got wreaths. They were made by wrapping a green pipe cleaner around a pencil and hot gluing three tiny red balls to them. I found all of the supplies I used at Joann, except of course the cereal boxes. Even these little fences are from Joanns. If I had been looking for something like that though, I would have never found them! They are with all the wooden items that you can paint and decorate.

The little plaques that they are glued to were a happy accident. I had originally planned to glue them to 5x7 canvases. But my Joann's didn't have any small canvases anymore. When I turned around though, there were lots of these little wooden plaques. They had the notches cut out on the corners already. All I had to do was paint them with a little white craft paint.

I also used a gray sharpie and drew the little stepping stones on the plaque. The "bushes" are that spanish moss. It came on a roll and I just cut little pieces off and hot glued them on. Then everything got covered with that "snow" - remember that stuff from when we were little? It dries hard and clumpy just like snow. Then I used a mix of school glue and water and painted the base with it. I used that really huge glitter to cover the ground.

I knew I didn't want plain old green trees to go with this village, so I went searching on the internet for something better. I found a girl who had bleached hers. I just literally dipped them in bleach til they were white. That worked out pretty well! I added a little more snow and some glitter to them too!

All in all, it was a really fun craft to make. I will probably make my own next year. There really wasn't anything I didn't like about this craft. It does make a huge mess though, considering the glitter, the moss, the bleach, and tons of little cardboard window cutouts!