DIY Christmas Village in a Box

Creating a small budget-friendly Christmas village in a box that can be stored easily.

Christmas Village History

Christmas Villages (also known as putz, meaning to decorate) are rooted in Moravian church tradition. The nativity scenes started as cardboard at the base of the tree.  In the early 19th century, they could also be found on mantels, end tables, and other areas around the home.  Scenes became more elaborate with sawdust, dirt (for roads), stones, moss, and figurines.

In the early to mid 20th century, they became popular in the United States.  The porcelain became prevalent in the latter part of that century.

There are many wonderful and elaborate village and nativity displays. Here are some of our friends villages…..

 

 

 

How to Simplify My Christmas Village

*We use affiliate links to show similar, or the same, products used.  At no additional cost to you, we may receive a small amount referring you to them.  We won’t review or recommend any products that we don’t believe in.

Back in Arizona, we had a window that we could set up a little village in.  It was quite pretty, but a little time consuming to set up and take down.  Putting it all away is never quite as fun, right?  

In our new home, we don’t have the same space so I was looking for a different solution to a traditional village.

We were given this box of awesomeness from our friends at Kilz.  They asked us to upcycle the box and gave us some amazing color sample paints, paintbrushes, and other goodies.  You know we love Kilz primer, like this bathroom floor painting project – Bathroom Makeover, but haven’t tried any of the colors yet.

|Search for crate boxes with lids HERE|

DIY Christmas Village Instructions

First, this box was painted with Season’s Change.  

The original thought was to get some village buildings from our local thrift store and paint them white.  The houses were around $4.99 each so this didn’t seem as budget-friendly to us, but it is a GREAT reuse option esp. if you can find some at great prices.

Instead, we reverted to the original idea and used cardboard boxes.  If we would have had a little more time, a cereal box reuse is a great upcycle idea.  We found these DIY houses from a shop in Lithuania on ETSY.  Not only are they lightweight buy very budget-friendly.

The boxes need to be assembled.  We found the rubber cement worked best to initially stick it together.  We then used regular school glue to keep them closed. A putty knife worked really well to bend at the creases.

TIP – To use rubber cement, apply to each side, and let it dry…THEN you stick it together after it’s dried.  

A few of the homes had the addition of some glitter by using spray adhesive and white glitter.

Christmas Village Accessories

We had some village accessories from our previous setup like…

• Fence (ours found at a thrift store)
• Trees
• Bench
• Snow
• Lamp Post
• Snowman

|Search for more Christmas Village accessories HERE|

A wreath was made, for the church, with some florist wire, the spray adhesive, and glitter.

Finally, battery operated tea lights were used to light up some of the houses.

And….tada… A DIY CHRISTMAS VILLAGE IN A BOX

 

Storing Your Christmas Village

The box was used as part of the décor on ours, but you can easily just use the box for storage only.

When Christmas is ready to come down, everything fits back in the box (with the snow on top to keep it all in place, and that makes it easy peasy to store.

Whether you have an apartment or a large home, this DIY Christmas Village in a box is so much easier than our last setup.

Other Christmas Posts

In case you missed them, here are a few of our top holiday posts:

• Decorative Painted Farmhouse Christmas Books
• No-Sew Sock Gnome
• No-Bake Peppermint Cheesecake

Thanks for stopping by today.  Our goal is to help make the most with whatever you have by sharing budget-friendly, time-saving, and reusing/DIY ideas for all parts of your home and life.  If you enjoyed this DIY Christmas Village in a Box, we would appreciate a share on any social media: Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.  Plus, don’t forget to follow us as we share even more ideas on each account.