Twinkling Paper Roll Christmas Village

This little paper roll Christmas village mysteriously disappeared, pretty much right after we made it the other day. I swear, I looked away for 2 seconds and my 3 year old had run off with everything – including all of the battery operated tea lights. He called me into my dark master bedroom closet a few minutes later, and he had set up a glowing little Christmas village on my closet floor. The little guy was so proud! He told me to sit on the floor, shut the door behind us and asked me which house I want to live in. Melt my heart, it was so cute!

I went past the closet hours later, and there was still a cute little Christmas village glowing on the floor. I guess I have to remind him to turn off the tea lights next time when he’s done! My closet floor wasn’t exactly the location I had in mind when we made this Christmas village, but hey, if the kids are having fun, I guess that’s what it’s all about? They LOVED playing with these little houses. The tea lights make the windows glow and it really does look magical!

I have to admit, when it comes to paper roll crafts, I like to cheat a little. I find it’s so much easier to work with card stock and to make my own paper rolls. If you have an assorted package of card stock, you can make your houses whatever colours you like and there’s no messy paint to deal with. And you know I LOVE when I can avoid paint! (Which of course, is why I wrote a whole book about Low Mess Crafts for Kids!)

Don’t get me wrong, you can definitely use toilet paper rolls to make these houses. I just find that they are kind of difficult to cut through? Or at least, it’s difficult to cut toilet paper rolls and get clean edges. Unless you have a large circle punch for the windows (which is an AWESOME solution if you have one!!). But since I have no way to neatly make windows in a toilet paper roll, I decided it was easier and less messy to use card stock. I’ll let you decide what works best! Either way, I’m loving this paper roll Christmas village!

Paper Roll Christmas Village

Here’s what you’ll need. The affiliate links below will take you to products on Amazon that are similar to the supplies I used for this craft:

• Card stock (white and assorted reds and greens)


• Yellow printer paper


• Assorted Sharpies (other markers will work too)


• Sparkly pom poms


• Battery operated tea lights


• Glue gun


• Tape


• Scissors

You’ll need to cut out 3 shapes from your paper to start.

For the roof (I recommend red or green card stock), cut out a circle. I traced an old IKEA plastic kids cup – just over 3″ across.

For the house (I recommend white card stock), cut a rectangle 1.5″ wide by 5.5″ long. If you’re making a whole village, you might want to make a few taller houses that are 2″ wide by 5.5″ long as well for variety.

For the glowing windows (I recommend yellow printer paper), cut a rectangle, slightly smaller than the white rectangle. Mine was a little less than 1.5″ wide by 4.5″ long.

Draw a door and windows onto your white piece of card stock. A round paper punch would be really helpful for the windows if you have one! But since I don’t have one, I traced a wooden cube (from the craft section of the dollar store) to make my window shapes.

Use scissors or a craft knife to cut out the door and windows. If you want nice clean cuts for the windows, try using a craft knife. I usually use a craft knife along with a metal ruler to keep the lines straight.

Colour around the edges of the windows and the door to make them pop. Any markers will work – Sharpies are just what I had handy in my craft bin when I was making these.

Tape the yellow paper to the back of the white paper. Make sure it covers the windows and door.

Using a glue gun, seal the ends of the rectangle to make a paper roll. You should end up with the white paper on the outside, and the yellow paper on the inside.

Cut approximately 1/3 out from the circle piece. If you’re making any green roofs, make sure you save the smaller pieces for later so you can turn them into trees! (I’ll show you below…)

Wrap the larger part of the circle around itself to make a cone, and hold it in place with a line of hot glue.

Add a few dots of hot glue around the top edge of the white paper roll, then carefully press the cone roof on top.

Finish it off by gluing a sparkly white pom pom on the point of the roof for a little touch of snow.

Remember those 1/3 pieces you cut out of your circles? Wrap them into cones and they make perfect little trees for your village!

HELPFUL TIP: Try using the tip of a mechanical pencil (without any lead out) to help you roll the paper into cone shapes.

I think the trees are what makes this village extra cute, so if you didn’t make any green roofs, you might want to just cut out a few green circles, cut them into thirds and make yourself some trees. It’s totally worth the small effort!

You can make your village as big or as small as you like!

As long as you have a few battery operated tea lights, it will look awesome! You can usually find them at the dollar store.

When you turn down the lights (or you know, wait until 4pm when it seems to be nearly dark outside lately!?), the little windows will glow!

Even though I used white card stock for the houses, it still allowed some of the light through. The one advantage to using toilet paper rolls is that the main house part won’t glow as much as mine do.

Although I kind of like it that the houses glow. It just looks so warm and festive!

This paper roll Christmas village is SO CUTE and it’s really easy to make! Add a few battery operated tea lights and you can create a magical glowing village. This is such a cute Christmas decoration and a super fun Christmas craft to make with the kids.

If you’re looking for more fun Christmas craft ideas, be sure to check out our wrapped yarn ornaments. These have been going a little viral on Pinterest this week. I posted them less than a week ago and they already have 6,000 pins on Pinterest. Yay!!

For even more fun craft ideas, check out our new book Low-Mess Crafts for Kids for 72 fun and simple craft ideas for kids! The projects are fun, easy and most importantly low-mess, so the clean up is simple! It makes a great holiday gift for the little crafters in your life!

Source : onelittleproject.com
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