Christmas Village Tiered Advent Calendar

Make the prettiest DIY advent calendar that looks like a village of snowy vintage Christmas houses.

Last year I saw the cutest house advent calendar at Hobby Lobby and fell instantly in love, but like a dummy, I decided to go home and think about it. I went back a few days later and they were sold out. So this year when I saw them again, I snatched one up at lightning speed! Come along with me as I show you how I decorated it.

This post is sponsored by Hobby Lobby.

I have seen this house decorated in just about every way you can imagine, so it was hard to decide how I wanted mine to look. I’ve saved a bunch of them on this Pinterest Board. There’s an entire Facebook group dedicated to this advent calendar and tons of people have shared their houses there if you want some inspo. Search “Hobby Lobby Advent Calendar Ideas” on Facebook to find the group.

But I decided to take my inspiration from vintage paper Christmas houses (aka Putz Houses). They are typically colorful, have lots of charming details and always have a glittery roof.

Just fair warning, this is a huge project. It took me maybe 18 hours to finish it? It was an absolute blast, don’t get me wrong. I listened to audiobooks and went to town crafting and loved every minute. But I do think it’s good to let you know that this is going to take a while.

I also made some mistakes and learned a few things, so if you want to make this, read on so you can learn from my chaotic ways. LOL.

Let’s start with the supplies I used.

These are just the items I used, but if you wander around Hobby Lobby, be sure to check out the My Little Christmas section (mini decor for mini trees) and the Christmas crafts section. That’s where I found most of the little cute items. I also dug around in my craft stash for bits and bobs like sequins and buttons and ric rac. Don’t forget to shop your craft room!

I always get questions about the exact paint colors I use for crafts like this, so I took a photo of all the paint bottles for you.

Instructions

Step 1: Already we’re getting in to “things I did wrong so don’t be like me.” The first thing you should do is sand any rough spots, then use a spray primer to prime everything! I wish I would have done this. It would have made the paint go on so much nicer and the whole project would have been easier. If you want to paint your whole project and don’t want the wood to show, just do it, mmmkay?

Several people in the Facebook group took their entire project apart before painting. It sounds like using a heat gun to warm up the glue that attaches each tier to the rooflines of the houses below and then prying things apart with a butter knife worked pretty well. I was too scared to try that because I worried about damaging it, but I can see the advantages. It would have been so much easier to reach everything to paint if I had taken all the layers apart.

Step 2: Paint the base colors on all the houses. I didn’t’ want to remove the trees, so I just bent them out of the way to be able to reach my brush on all the sides. Even with primer, you’ll have to do two coats of paint and three for some colors. When all the base colors are dry, go in and paint the windows and knobs in contrasting colors. I just used the teeniest little paint brush and kept baby wipes nearby to wipe away any oopsies.

Step 3: I added a paper roof to each house to make them look more like my inspiration houses. I really wanted them to have scalloped edges and a girl just wants what she wants, even if it’s a ton of work. I cut strips of paper to the right size, then used scalloped scissors to cut the two ends of each roof. Now here’s the tricky part I didn’t foresee… the houses are attached to the tier above them along the roof line, so to be able to slide the paper roofs in place, you have to cut a slit along the ridgeline. And each one is a slightly different size, so you have to do it one at a time. It’s fine. It’s all going to be fine. This is another step that would have been easier if I had taken the tiers apart.

Once all the roofs were glued to the top of the houses, I coated each one with a thick layer of Mod Podge and sprinkled them with glitter.

This was pure chaos. Upon reflection, it probably would have been easier to lay out all the pre-cut papers and add the glitter, then attach them to the houses. Or even easier, I should have just bought glitter cardstock to begin with. But no one is going to accuse me of having it all together, so here we are. We got ‘er done.

Step 4: I decided to hand paint little Scandinavian style details on the little doors, so I grabbed my favorite white gel pen and made swirls and dots and doodles. I love the charm this added to the overall look.

Step 5: Now it’s time to add all the little details! This was absolutely the most fun part. I tried to make each house look unique. I also decorated some of the trees. I made my own tiny wreaths and garlands out of green pipe cleaner and brushed them lightly with white paint. Worked like a charm. Can you buy pre-made mini wreaths? Yes, yes you can. Do I like to do things the hard way? Also yes.

Step 6: I painted over all the numbers so I used my Silhouette machine to cut some new ones out of white adhesive vinyl and stuck those onto each door. The font I used is called Herschel Regular. If you don’t have a craft cutter, you can buy number stickers instead or draw them on with the gel pen. For reference, the numbers I cut were about 1/2 inch tall.

Step 7: Let’s address the battery pack. Oh, yes. Did I mention this whole thing lights up? Gah! It’s so pretty with the lights on! But that battery pack is ugly, so I wanted to tuck it down below the bottom edge. The only problem is that it was just a little bit too tall to fit. So I added two layers of felt furniture bumpers to the turn table underneath. This raised it up just enough that I could velcro the battery pack to the underside and the whole thing still turns. Yay! It’s easy to reach it to turn on and off and when the batteries die, I can just un-stick the pack to change them. Problem solved.

Step 8: I glued pom pom trim to the bottom edge of my advent calendar. I’m debating… should I go back and add it to the other tiers too? I can’t decide. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

Step 9: The final touch is to add fake snow. I just smeared white craft glue on all of the horizontal surfaces and sprinkled on fake snow. When it was dry, I vacuumed away the excess snow.

And now let’s just oohhh and aaahhh over all the cuteness, shall we?

I won’t apologize for the ridiculous amount of photos. This thing took forever to make and it is now my baby, so I will share allllll the photos.

I forgot to mention that I made the cupola on top of the top building out of cardstock. It’s such a cute little detail!

Oh, little Christmas village… you have my heart!

And we have to include one at night so you can see how gorgeous the lights are.

Christmas Village Advent Calendar Video

I tried to make this post helpful and inspiring. And I hope you can find the houses at your local store so you can make one too. I actually have a really fun idea for what to put in each drawer.

Check out my advent calendar filler idea here!

This piece is something my children will treasure for many Christmases to come. I plan to display it near my vintage ornaments Christmas tree. I think they’ll look so great together.