Paper Winter Village

I'm not a big holiday person, and since we typically don't spend it at our house, I don't do a lot of decorating.  But since this is the first Christmas in our new house, I am excited to add some holiday-themed items around our new space.

I came across a post with these paper gingerbread inspired houses and decided I wanted to make a scaled down version to put on our mantel.

I was really excited because the post had free templates that you can use for the project - either to cut by hand or with your Silhouette or Cricut. 

The author did add a note that she's new to Cricut, so she provided PNG files rather than SVG.  I downloaded the files provided and did a little bit of tweaking to them in Photoshop and the Cricut Design Space so I could utilize my scoring tool.

I uploaded all of the files to the Cricut Design Space and then insert them all into a project. I didn't want to make mine as big as the original poster did so once I had all the files in the project, I selected them all to scale them down. I opted to do this so I could easily scale all of the pieces the same amount and they would still fit together. 

The best part of this project was being able to pull from my paper stash - I could use scraps in a variety of colors, so I was able to utilize things I had on hand. 

I opted to make four different houses and will break down the paper I used per house below. 

For my Cricut Explore Air 2 settings, I used "Cardstock" for everything except the Curious and Stardream Metallic Cardstock because it has a heavier weight. For that paper, I used "Cardstock+." 

For this house I used: 

• Siding - Brown Craft Paper out of the Bountiful Harvest Assortment Pack and drew on the details with a white gel pen. 
• Roof, chimney and door overhang - Stardream Metallic in Ruby
• Door and Shutters - Basis Navy  

For this house I used: 

• Siding - Basis Navy Card Stock 
• Roof, shutters and door overhang - Classic Crest Recycled 100 Bright White Card Stock
• Door - Basis Gray Card Stock 

For this house I used: 

• Siding - Basis Light Blue Card Stock 
• Roof and door overhang - Basis Gray Card Stock 
• Shutters - Basis Navy Card Stock 
• Door - Curious Metallic Silver Card Stock 

 

For this house I used: 

• Siding - Classic Crest Recycled 100 Bright White Card Stock and then I drew on details with a silver gel pen. 
• Roof - Curious Metallic Silver Card Stock 
• Door - Basis Green Card Stock 
• Chimney and door overhang - Basis Gray Card Stock 

All of the trees, bushes and wreaths are made out of Basis Olive Card Stock. I used hot glue to put everything together, this kept the paper from warping at all.

This project came together pretty quickly and would be a fun weekend craft, adding the detail is what took the most time so if you're looking or something quick just keep this one simple.

Thanks for checking in and as always you can see more of my projects and keep up to date on my new Etsy Shop listings, follow me on Instagram @EastMainDesigns.