Friday, December 9, 2011

Christmas Village part one: The Meeting House

2022 Note: I was getting a lot of requests for access to the files ("request to view" in Google Drive or Docs).  No matter how I updated the settings I still had to manually approve many people. Therefore for this year I have moved the PDF to a new hosting platform so the updated links will take you there. It is still FREE and should be accessible to you all 24/7 without waiting on me to approve you!



This is the first installment of an easy, printable Christmas village for you!
There will be a street of shops, a street of houses, and even some countryside.
Today is the Meeting house, which is in the center of the village. You can cut out the woods, too, but they will be used later on.

(do not print this photo; the high-resolution PDF to print out on card stock is here.)

This is what they are supposed to look like once you have cut them out:

Fold the way that is indicated on the print-out, and you will see that they will stand up on their own.

Printing them on heavy card stock will help them stand, but make sure to also put them in a draft-free place!

Here is what I did with mine:

You can color this with colored pencils, markers, or crayons, whatever you want. I colored mine in with markers, and chose to do a "It was a dark and starry night" theme so my sky is a darker blue. You could use a very light blue for the sky, or leave the sky white and glitter it with snow.

Next, I glittered it:
The "snow" is on the hill behind the gazebo, the ground, the roof and steeple of the church, the trees, and the street, and in the sky.

You can leave it colored and glittered, but if you want to put a string of lights behind your village, here is a way to make your village "glow:"

Before I put on the glitter, I made a color copy of my meeting house on plain typing paper. You can also print out a paper copy of the meeting house and color in the windows by hand.

Then, I cut out the windows on the card-stock copy, and glued the paper copy behind, lining it up with the windows:
(hope you can see that strip of paper glued on the back).

Now, when I turn off the lights in the room, except for the one behind the meeting house, I get a delightful glow through the windows:

You could also cut out the windows, and glue tissue-paper behind the window-holes, or just plain paper.

Another idea to make you village extra special, is to make several copies of each piece on card stock, cut out elements from each one, and layer them with foam tape or glue dots on a master copy. You would end up with a dimensional effect. On the meeting house, you could do the door that way, or the roof.

Make it as simple or as elaborate as you please! Enjoy and stay tuned for more!

The PDF of the Meeting House and Woods to print out on card stock is here.

For part two of the village (the shops that connect to the Meeting House) click here.
For part three of the village (the houses) click here
For part four, the post on the woods (that come with this printable) click here.
For part five (the farm in the country) click here.
New! Mountain background and skating figure here