As I unpacked all my Christmas décor, it dawned on me that I have accomplished a lot this year with all of my crafty creations. I have been writing this blog for a full year now! In my first post I introduced these cute little Christmas village houses. So I thought it would be a good time to resurrect some of my favorite Christmas crafts, starting with these.

Since then, my collection has grown from 2 to 20, with 8 fully painted.

This year I have them all displayed in my craft room on top of my sturdy Ikea furniture.

I learned how important it was to coat them with a protective gloss because they are very fragile if you don’t wrap them up with bubble wrap and pack them away year after year. A few that I didn’t finish completely were wrapped and boxed up last year. They survived the move in one pieced, but the ones that weren’t painted with a matte varnish were slightly damaged and chipped. I pass this on so that you can learn from my mistakes.

At night you can see that each of them have a light inside that illuminates through their windows. I got a string of 12 battery operated Christmas lights from Michaels. I also like the battery operated tea lights. They work just as well and even flicker like a real candle.To learn some other tips, refer to my original posting from last year called “Let the fun begin!”