Want a cute miniature Christmas village to display in your home? Here’s a great way to make one yourself using Christmas cards!
I absolutely love getting Christmas cards in the mail and sending out Christmas cards in the mail every year. We like to include a little letter update about our past year and pictures of the kids on our card. It’s a fun way to document our family’s journey.
When other people send us theirs, I love seeing how their families have grown, or simply enjoy the beautiful card with a sweet message.
But, after Christmas is over, I am not sure what to do with all these sweet cards, letters, and pictures. It seems a shame to throw them all away!
That’s why it’s great to have a specific purpose for these wonderful cards we receive every year. I discovered the following Christmas craft idea when I put together a list of 40 different ideas of what to do with Christmas cards and leftover wrapping paper.
Today, I’m showing you a fun, crafty, way to reuse Christmas cards by using them as the materials needed to create a beautiful little Christmas village.
How to Make a Miniature Christmas Village with Old Christmas Cards
This miniature Christmas card village idea was featured over on Better Homes and Garden and I thought it was super cute and wanted to try it myself!
To get started, I printed off the BHG template.
The frustrating thing about their template though is that their template is only for one house, in one size, though their example picture of their card village showed houses of different sizes and shapes.
In order to have a non-homogenous village, I adapted their house template and created two more house templates, both with a base of 6 inches long, simply adjusting the height and width for each to create different sizes. See my video at the bottom for more information on how I did that. But they ended up looking something like this, with the top and bottom templates being my own.
I wrote measurements on the templates to make it easier when scoring the cards and making the roofs.
Materials Needed to Make Minature Christmas Card Village
- Christmas Cards
- Scotch Tape
- Craft Glue/Tacky glue
- Scissors
- Ruler
- Pencil/Pen
- Paper Templates
Instructions on Making a Miniature Christmas Card Village Display
1. Prepare and cut out your house templates (see above for details on what I did).
2. Overlay templates on Christmas cards and trace around them.
3. Cut out the shape.
4. Flip them over and measure out your fold lines, connecting them vertically with a pen and ruler. Score them hard with the pen or another scoring tool.
5. Fold the cut out, meeting them where the corners of the building would be.
6. Use a small piece of clear tape or two and secure the edges of the house together.
7. Cut the pieces for the roof, using measurements about 1/8″ bigger than the length and width of the roof base. You can create another template for this if desired/needed.
8. Tap the roof to the base of the house from in the inside.
9. Cut out additional details to add to your houses – rectangles for doors and windows, round circles for doorknobs or attic windows, and so on. This is the fun creative part! Attach extras with craft/paper glue.
10. Create more Christmas village card houses, decorate, and then display somewhere in your home.
I did a Hometalk Live video showing how to make your own village with more instructions and tips! Start the video at 7:08 to start at the Christmas card village tutorial!
For more Christmas craft ideas, check out the following posts!:
- How to Make a 3-D Christmas Card Ornament
- How to Make Christmas Gift Tags from Old Christmas Cards
- How to Make a DIY Gift Box from a Christmas Card
- How to Make a Wire Christmas Card Display Picture Frame for Under $15
- 27 FREE DIY Homemade Christmas Stockings Patterns and Tutorials
- 12 Free Printable Nativity Coloring Pages for Kids
- How to Assemble Blessing Bags for the Homeless
- 40 Ingenious Ways to Reuse and Recycle Christmas Cards and Wrapping Paper
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