Paper Christmas Village
Six printable houses to cut and fold. The windows are cut out, so a battery tea light inside makes them glow.
Your village, built
Print at Actual size on card. Battery tea lights only, never a candle.
Your village
Printed once, on the shop's sign board. Your own name, a family shop, a child's name: up to 24 letters.
Nothing you type leaves your device. The village is drawn in this page and the PDF is built in your browser. The page counts one anonymous event when a file is downloaded (which kind of file, never what is on it), and keeps no draft.
How to make the village
- Print on card at 100%. Choose “Actual size” in the print dialog, then lay a ruler on the 50 mm bar at the foot of the sheet. 160 to 250 g/m² card (60 to 90 lb cover) folds crisply and stands up; ordinary 80 g/m² copy paper works for a first try but sags.
- Cut out the windows and the door first, while the sheet is still flat, with a craft knife on a cutting mat. Then cut round the solid outline with scissors.
- Score and fold every dashed line: run a dry ballpoint or a blunt knife along a ruler first and the folds come out straight, which matters most on the roof ridge.
- Back the windows. Glue vellum, tracing paper or baking parchment behind the window holes from the inside. It spreads the light into a warm glow and hides the bulb.
- Glue the walls. Put glue on the grey tab and press it behind the free edge of the first gable wall. Close the bottom like a gift box: dust flaps in, then tuck the long flap.
- Fold the roof along the ridge and fold its rims down and the little corner flaps in. It lifts off, so you switch the light on and off without unfolding anything. Glue the chimney or the steeple onto the roof (the steeple's place is dotted on the church roof).
Questions
What paper is best for a paper Christmas village?
Smooth white card of 160 to 250 g/m² (about 60 to 90 lb cover stock). Most home inkjet and laser printers feed up to about 250 g/m² through the rear or manual tray; check yours. Thicker card is sturdier but harder to fold cleanly on the small size. The white style is meant for white card that you cover with glue and glitter afterwards, the way old putz houses were frosted with mica; the colour-in style prints outlines only, for children with felt pens or crayons.
How do I light it safely?
Battery tea lights only. Paper and card catch fire, and a real tea light inside a closed house heats the roof within minutes. Use a battery LED tea light, a battery fairy-light string or a small LED puck. A standard tea light is 38 mm wide: it fits inside every medium and large building (their inside is at least 44 mm deep), but not the small ones, which are 33 to 39 mm deep inside. Light the small houses with a string of battery fairy lights threaded in through the open bottom. Lift the roof to switch the light on and off.
How big are the houses?
Built size, length × depth × height to the ridge (to the spire tip for the church), in centimetres:
| Building | Small | Medium | Large |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cottage | 6.2 × 3.7 × 5.8 | 8.2 × 4.9 × 7.7 | 10.6 × 6.3 × 10.0 |
| Townhouse | 5.3 × 3.6 × 8.3 | 6.0 × 4.7 × 11.0 | 7.7 × 6.0 × 14.2 |
| Church | 7.4 × 3.7 × 11.7 | 9.7 × 4.9 × 15.6 | 12.2 × 6.3 × 20.3 |
| Shop | 6.4 × 3.6 × 5.8 | 8.5 × 4.7 × 7.7 | 10.9 × 6.0 × 10.0 |
| Bakery | 5.7 × 3.6 × 6.0 | 7.5 × 4.7 × 8.0 | 9.6 × 6.0 × 10.3 |
| Barn | 7.0 × 4.2 × 5.6 | 9.2 × 5.5 × 7.4 | 11.6 × 7.0 × 9.6 |
The whole village sheet is 5 sheets of A4 or Letter in small, 8 in medium and 11 (A4) or 13 (Letter) in large. A large house whose walls are wider than the paper is printed in two pieces with a lettered glue strip: glue strip A behind edge A.
Can I cut it with a Cricut or Silhouette?
Yes. “SVG cut file” saves the sheet you are looking at at true size in millimetres, with the cut lines (outline and windows) in one group and the fold lines in another, so you can set the folds to score. Silhouette Studio's free Basic Edition does not open SVG, so “DXF (Silhouette)” saves the same lines as a DXF in millimetres, cut lines on layer CUT and folds on layer SCORE. The cut file carries no print; it suits the white style on plain card. For colour, print the PDF and cut by hand, or use your machine's print-then-cut with the PNG.
What is a putz house?
“Putz” comes from the German putzen, to decorate. Putz houses were small cardboard houses, often with cellophane windows and glitter on the roofs, set out in villages under the Christmas tree in America from about the 1920s to the 1950s; many had a hole in the back for a bulb from the tree lights. This page's white style is a plain card version to glitter yourself, and the cut-out windows work the same way: light behind, glow in front.
Can I put the village in a window?
Yes, a windowsill is the best place: at night the lit windows show from the street. Keep it off a cold, damp pane, which softens card, and away from radiators. For a long display, a coat of matt spray varnish on the printed card helps it keep its shape.
Want a house to eat, or a box to fill?
The same fold-up house, sized by you and with a slot for letters to Santa, is on the gift box template (choose House box). For a real gingerbread house, the gingerbread house template prints the pieces at true size to cut from dough, and has a paper house to colour.