One of my favorite ways to decorate for Christmas is by making miniature villages. We all know I have a thing for miniatures and dollhouses. I also grew up with a great appreciation for trains and had the wood style brio trains growing up. A few years ago Eddie and I started setting up our model railroad around our antique aluminum Christmas tree when the holidays came around. (this was it's first Christmas' debut in 2017). My very first Christmas village was collection of vintage putz houses passed down to me from my Nanny (you can see them here at the bottom of our aluminum tree). I really got into putz houses in 2013 when I did some research about how the trend began and then I started making my own paper/glitter houses and gave one as a gift to everyone in my family that same year. I learned it became a trend in America during World War II to make your own putz houses at home since most available for sale in the United States were made in Japan and Japanese products temporarily fell out of vogue. but even before then, the tradition of putz houses started in Central Europe, sometime around the 1700s, and they kinda sound like fairy gardens to me:
The original putzes started with family members, mostly the children, going out to the woods in late autumn to collect stones, moss, ferns, lichens and twigs. The large stones were used for mountains, small branches of cedar and pine for trees. In later years pieces of tinfoil were used to represent a waterfall; a mirror was used as a lake. All sorts of animals were added to bring the scene to life. There is no scale in a proper putz; a three inch tall cat can sit beside a two inch tall cow. -https://goldenglow.org/2014/12/history-putz-village/
I can relate to the mismatching scales of miniatures as my dollhouse miniatures go from 1:16 scale to 1:12 and everything in-between. Anyway, let's get back to the village. (here's a close up of one of my first handmade paper glitter or putz houses! and here's another close up a second paper house made around the same time)
I want to share the really cute little miniature village buildings I just found at the dollar store here in our town. I got the buildings from Dollar Tree, but here is the whole village set for sale on Amazon. I found that the little tea light buildings matching perfectly with my Santa cable car (an ode to our previous hometown of San Francisco) Here's a quick video I shared on Instagram/Facebook showing the new, and very inexpensive, tea light buildings with the cable car in the background! I love the whole experience of our mantle this year. Be sure you have the sound on for cute music! (watch here!) You may notice some "half filled" snow globes in our mantle in the video. That's because those are old snow globes given to me by my very special and loved Grandpa in my childhood. Has anyone ever refilled a snow globe with water? Let me know!
I also set up some villages in our bathroom this year. I bought this wall plug-in scent diffuser from bath and body works and that started me on a theme for the bathroom this year. I also got these really cute little wooden building sets from the dollar section of Target and they look perfect on the shelves in our bathroom! I'll take pictures for your guys and put them on a future blog.
I also have another perfect village project lined up to start today and that's decorating the inside of our display table in the living room with a snowy village scene. I talk more about that tomorrow but for now here are some links to for your own display/curio table to make your own miniature scene:
display table 1 display table one
display table 2 display table 2
display table 3 display table 3
drape snow blanket drape snow blanket
I'm also going to FINALLY list one of my handmade paper glitter houses on my etsy shop! Here's the link! Remember as a blog reader you can use code THANKYOU10 for 10% off any purchase from my shop and be sure to let me know in the checkout comments "note to seller" that you are a blog reader and you'll receive a special surprise! See you back here tomorrow!
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| This little house deserves a cozy spot in your home. Shop here. |
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