The North End Loft: Christmas Putz House

Dec 17, 2014

Christmas In Our Dining Room

Hi again! I hope you all are having a great week. Earlier this week I shared our living room decorated for Christmas. (If you missed it you can see it here.) Today, I'm back again to share Christmas decorations in our dining room.

I decorated our dining room with a woodland winter wonderland theme this year.

I wanted to marry our woodland themed living room with some new white decorations I purchased and made.

Our new white porcelain deer found a home on the dining room table. (I just love them!)

And some new sparkly silver and white homemade decorations have settled into the corner cabinet.

I made these glittered Putz houses (tutorial here), bleached some bottle brush trees, and made a pretty PEACE banner from twine and craft store letters. I tucked some little battery operated press-on lights in behind the houses to light each of the six scenes at night.

This is the first time I've decorated the old white pine corner cabinet. I just moved all the dishes to the candle cabinet, which is now empty.

Where did the candles go?

Up here on the other side of the dining room! In the evening with the candles and corner cabinet all lit up, it really does look like a winter wonderland in our dining room.

My pretty burlap JOY banner was created from a tutorial shared by the lovely
Yvonne at Stone Gable.

My husband built this cute little pine bench for us, and it's come in handy in every room of the house at one time or another. Here in the dining room it holds my chicken wire plate stand filled with branch tips cut from our Christmas tree, some pine cones, a few berries, and two little white trees.

I just love baking and cooking in the kitchen while looking out at all the Christmas decorations in the dining room and living room.

Thank you for coming by today to see our winter wonderland dining room. Next up, I'll be sharing our family room, all cozy and cute and decked out for Christmas, so don't forget to stop by again later this week!

{Visit our Christmas living room and family room and kitchen, too!}

It's a great time to party!

From My Front Porch To Yours
Rooted In Thyme
French Country Cottage

Dec 11, 2014

Pottery Barn Knock-Off DIY Glittery Putz Houses

Yesterday, I deviated a bit from my woodland Christmas decorating theme to make
some glittery Putz Houses.

I wondered where the term putz came from, so I did a bit of research. Now don't quote me, but I think the word putz when applied to these pretty shiny houses may come from the German word putzen, which means to brighten and/or from the Yiddish word puts, which means ornament.

Source

However they came by their name, I've always loved the magical quality of these little paper maché or cardboard houses decorated with glitter. They invite my imagination to visit a snowy sparkly miniature world of enchantment. Happily, I found out Putz Houses (just like this pretty one offered at Pottery Barn) are really easy and fun to make.

Source

You can make your own Putz Houses from cardboard and patterns found on the internet or even design your own patterns. You can also purchase houses like the ones above at craft stores.

This year, I found these cute little wood houses for a few dollars at the thrift store. They're pretty cute as they are, but I wanted them to really sparkle for Christmas decorations.

I mixed up some homemade chalk paint in a jar (a heaping tablespoon plaster of paris mixed well in a little water, then added to about half a cup of latex paint) and gave the houses a couple of coats of white to make an easy base for the glitter to cover. Regular old craft paint would work fine

for this, too.

They're already beginning to look more wintery with white paint, but look how the glitter transforms this little house to magical.

When the base paint was dry, I used large and small paint brushes to apply undiluted white glue (poured into a small jar) to the roof and trim. I sprinkled on lots of silver chunky German glass glitter, catching the extra glitter on a paper plate to reuse. I let those areas dry overnight, and the next day I painted more glue onto the sides and sprinkled them with fine white glitter. It was super easy!

I glittered all my little houses and put them in my dining room corner cabinet. Lit up with candles at night, they're transformed into a magical twinkly winter wonderland. I'll share them on my blog soon when I have the rest of the dining room ready, so I hope you'll come back to see. But today, I wanted to share how easy and fun it is to make a Putz House of your very own.

{Note: I just posted my Christmas dining room, so click here to see the rest of my Putz Houses.}