Wooden Village Christmas Tree Skirt DIY

I turned a few dollar store wooden craft houses into a charming lighted village for underneath my Christmas tree.

I used it in place of a traditional tree skirt and it only cost me a few bucks. 

A few weeks ago, I shared a sweet DIY gingerbread village I made from a row of thrift store houses.

It was darling and super fun to make.

However.

That was not the original plan. If you recall, I bought that teeny village with another project in mind.

I had seen some lovely wooden houses, primitive in style and shape, but very expensive. And sold out.

They had window openings that let dainty pops of light peek through and I wanted to make my own.

Unfortunately, the row houses I found were too thick to cut.

I was a little sad, and about to abandon my crafty idea, when I walked into Dollar Tree and saw these. 


Unpainted wooden craft houses that were large enough to stretch across my mantel, basic, but dressed in Christmas style and, most importantly, thin enough to cut through.

Bingo. I bought 6. 

Now, since I'm not great with the tools, I did ask my husband for a little help with the cutting. This happens a lot around here. I dream up the ideas and then ask him to do the heavy lifting.

Honestly, though, I think I could've left the windows intact, painted them bright yellow and called it a day. Truly, if I had to do it again, I might go that route.

Especially since cutting the windows was not easy.

First, he used a drill to make some holes in the wood we wanted to remove. He drilled slowly and carefully. He didn't want to crack the wood.


Then he used a coping saw to remove the rest of the wood. It's a saw that allows you to remove the blade from the handle, to slip it inside the area you need to cut.

Then you reattach the handle and saw away.

Additional Resources For This DIY:

If you can't get to Dollar Tree, don't want to cut out window or don't want to make your own, here are some DIY supplies or options for already done.

• Wooden houses with window already cut out
• These wooden house are also perfect
• Wooden hinged village set
• Small wooden houses for crafts

It worked perfectly for the task at hand, although, again, it was tricky and the cuts weren't perfect.

But the job was done and a little sandpaper fixed the jagged edges.


Next up, we needed to remove the extended roofline on one side of each house so we could join them together.

You see I wanted them to stand up and the only way to do that was to either add a block of wood behind each house, which is a great alternative if you don't want to use a saw.

Or, the path we chose, which was to join pairs with hinges so they'd stand when positioned properly.

More Easy Christmas Crafts:

• Santa Claus Metal Burner Cover Wreath
• Christmas Tree Sticker Sign
• Taper Candle Rings For Christmas
• Christmas Village Makeover

This part of the job required a square and another saw.


Once all the cutting was done, the girl with the plan got back in the game with some light brown stain.

I used a brush to slightly darken the roofline and any of the wood details that were raised.

Once the stain dried, it was time to add the hinges.

I used very small ones and put them on with glue since the wood was so thin.
That part of the process was super simple.

I lined my houses up on a straight edge so they'd stand up evenly when joined.

Then I placed the hinge between two houses, making sure it was facing the proper way so that when I closed the houses they'd lay flat.


Then I glued them in place with a bit of this epoxy.

At first I tried some awful bubbly glue that looked like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and then I tried using a hot glue gun, but after a few attempts, I realized neither was going to work.

So for everyone out there who thinks that my DIYs and crafts are always smooth sailing...um, no. This was kind of a mess.

When I was done scraping off the old glue and the epoxy had dried, I had three pairs of rustic wooden houses that would store flat. Just as I'd envisioned months before.

The only problem was that since then I'd decorated my mantle with my Christmas sheep tray and he looked so good there, I didn't want to move him.

I needed a new place to display my houses. 

That's when I thought about wrapping that village around my tree. In place of a skirt. 

I'd always wanted to place a decorative collar or one of my galvanized tubs around the base, but my tree is large there's not a lot of room under it for with of those.

The houses were small enough to fit and were so sweet, I literally ran to set them up.


They looked perfect. 

Way better than I ever expected.

The lights twinkled through the open windows and the unfinished cabins were right at home in a room filled with wooden beams and a stone fireplace.

A dollar store creation.

A crafty dream come true.

Just in time for Christmas.

🎄

What's around your tree?