I’m starting a new project I’m really excited about! My favorite Christmas decoration growing up were these porcelain houses my mom had. She had so many and a bunch of little people and bridges and benches to turn the separate houses into a beautiful Christmas village. I was always sad when it was time to pack them back up again. Matthew and I have been collecting houses like that throughout our marriage; he surprised me with a few and then I’ve found some at Goodwill or at different thrift shops over the years. Now that we have kids, we never display them all– it’s amazing my mom had them out with 7 kids running around! I was putting together different little things from around the house to populate the village but that just made it more tempting for Ella. So then I had the idea to make a DIY Christmas village that she and Jack could actually play with.

Normally when I do these projects, I just share the finished product but I thought that this time around, I’d share the process along the way. Here are my plans:

Houses

I still have bird houses left over from Ella’s 3rd birthday party and I know Michael’s has pretty intricate wooden houses for good prices. I thought briefly about cutting houses out of cardboard but after the unicorns from Ella’s 4th birthday, I just didn’t want to be cutting cardboard again. My hands will thank me!

Popsicle Stick Crafts

I’ve been researching different Christmas DIYs and a lot of them have one thing in common: they’re made from popsicle sticks! And that’s perfect because I’m trying not to buy too many supplies for this project and I have a bunch of popsicle sticks left over from Ella’s birthday.

People

So this has been tough to figure out. I haven’t liked many of the popsicle stick versions of people I’ve seen online so I wasn’t sure how I was going to make people. I love the idea of using unfinished wooden pegs and painting them to look like people but that would be a purchase I’d have to make. But Ella is getting a doll house bookcase from her Grandpa for Christmas (he’s making it himself!) and I figure I can use these peg people for that as well. That will make it a better value.

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Accessories

I have a lot of bottle brush trees and I’m going to go through Ella and Jack’s toys to see if they have anything that could work.

My hope is that I can let Ella help me make everything and have something for the kids to enjoy for years of Christmases to come. I’m really excited to put this all together over the next few weeks so stay tuned!

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xo

eb