Winter Village

 A few years ago I took some cardstock and a Martha Stewart magazine with me on a trip home to Dad and Mom's for Thanksgiving.  I had in mind to create some church ornaments for my Homemade Christmas tree. My sister (who is not a paper crafter, but could be if she had the time) loved them, so I ended up helping her make some for her tree instead.  Before I left I gave my mom a "village sized" church with the promise that I would make her some more houses to create a village.  That was something like two years ago, and up until now I had yet to do it.  Then Sunday afternoon I decided to dig my templates out and see what I could come up with. The above (two houses and three trees) were the product of 2 -3 hours of tracing, cutting, gluing, glittering, and decorating.

Here's a closer view of the green roofed house:

I made those shutters and panels on the door with a green Bic marker, the snow on the roof/bushes is from a Snow Writer,  and the little wreath was made by cutting apart one branch (punched with MS branch punch).

Here's the blue roofed house:

I colored the shutters here with a blue Bic marker, the wreath is a piece of green/gold cord rolled up and hot glued on.  The bushes were small punched pine trees that I cut the trunks off of or cut in half to form bushes.  Once again the snow is from a Snow Writer. The candy canes were actually made from one "big" candy cane -- I just re-bent it and cut it. Small silver beads along the roof line complete the look.

The church I made previously looks like this (only bigger -- this one is done in the ornament size).

I'm not sure I'll get a whole village done before Christmas, but maybe I could add a piece or two each year and make it into a collection! 
If you're interested in  making your own Winter Village you can find the templates here.