Old Fashioned Christmas Village by Lynne

Hello and happy Christmas time! I've so been enjoying my craft time lately as I just love anything to do with Christmas! Months ago when I received the Cabana Row Houses in my Design Team box, my first thought was to create a Christmas village with them, so I had to wait a while, but here it is:

The houses fold up like little boxes; the first thing I did was cover all of them with patterned paper. I used papers from Inkido's  Forever Santa collection (which was gifted to me by my lovely friend Agnieszka-thanks hun!)

 For this first house I created a little dormer over the door and used wooden skewers for the pillars. The wreath and garland are jute.The door was cut from patterned paper, and pretty much everything was attached to the houses with a hot glue gun.The window is from the 1:24 windows set and all the doorknobs are beads.

I used the standard shingles for this roof; They were wonderful to work with and I found myself wishing I had the pennant and scalloped ones in my stash as well. For some of the other houses I ended up cutting my own "shingles"-word to the wise-do yourself a favour and order some of these from Gypsy Soul-cutting my own was tedious and they don't look nearly as nice as these!!

I was so excited to finally use the teeny-tiny Christmas lights I've had in my stash for ages! They're actually straight in real life but for some reason look a tad wonky in the photo...I used another window from the 1:24 set and created a balcony with some scrap chipboard from punching things out in one of the shape sets. The tree is wooden and comes from Poland.

I cut these shingle strips from some thin coloured cork; it reminded me of the texture of asphalt shingles.

This little house  has a window from the Seaside Doors and Windows Set and some fussy cut bell garland from the patterned paper. The door is cut from coloured cork to match the roof. I added the cute little cutout children in front of the house for a little bit of a homey feel.

The roof was done with strips of coloured cork, as I wanted it a little different from the other one I had made with cork.

This house kind of reminded me of the little thatched-roof cottages you'd see in "Robin Hood" or "King Arthur" stories, so I decided to try to give it that feel; the burlap roof is my version of a thatched roof. I added a dormer made of patterned paper and trimmed it with some fussy cut garland.

The front  of the house has a little awning made from the same paper as the door; once again it is straight although it photographed looking kind of crooked. I added some fussy cut holly leaves at the bottom to serve as shrubbery,

I saved the church for last because it's my favourite; I looked at pictures of church steeples on Google images and created this one with thin shirt cardboard. It's just a square with grooves cut in for the peak, and then four elongated triangles that join together at the top. I added some lace to the roof edge and I altered a louvered door from the Seaside set to create the welcoming open doors The pretty window is from the 1:24 set.

I punched strips from thin cardboard with a Tonic border punch for the roof and layered them.

I had a small strand of mini-lights so I ran them under the quilt batting that I used as snow to display my village-you can set them up many different ways to accommodate the space you have, and you could adapt the buildings to create stores, barns, and whatever else you might think your village needs. If you create one, I'd love to see what creative ideas you come up with! My next post will be on the 26th, so I wish you a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends!

GYPSY SOUL ITEMS USED

Cabana Row Houses (contact store)

Decorative Windows 1 to 24
Seaside Doors and Windows (contact store)
Chipboard Shingles-standard

OTHER ITEMS USED

acrylic paint

Inkido "Forever Santa" papers
hot glue gun
DCWV coloured cork
Tonic border punch