Milk Carton Christmas Village Craft
Lots of holiday company and lots of creamy delicious holiday desserts has brought an abundance of milk and cream cartons through our refrigerator and instead of just tossing them this year I washed them out and saved them to upcycle and craft into a simple Christmas village!
I’ve always loved the elegant simplicity of white silhouettes lit up by Christmas lights but I didn’t want to pay for ceramic sculptures so I made my own DIY version, that are so inexpensive that I can toss them at the end of the year if I want to (but I won’t).
Click through for step-by-step craft tutorial if you’d like to make a milk carton Christmas village yourself.
Supplies that you’ll need:
- milk cartons in various sizes
- white spray paint
- an exacto knife*
- stringed christmas lights
1. First make sure your milk cartons are washed out really well and left to drip-dry overnight. You don’t want any nasty smelly milk stinking up your village later.
2. Take your milk cartons outside or to a very well-ventilated room and spray paint them on all sides. This might take a few days to get all sides dry and more than one coat of spray paint. Make sure you spray enough coats to cover up all the milk carton printing (we used 2 coats).
3. Once everything is dry, you are ready to cut. You can draw your windows on carefully with a ruler, making sure they are centered and even or you can wing it like we did. Personally, I’m not too picky about everything being symmetrically precise. A little wobbly window here and there adds to the charm, in my humble opinion.
Always be very careful with your blade. They are sharp and can cut little fingers. If your children are not skilled enough to use a blade use common sense and have a responsible adult do this part of the craft.
Once all your windows are cut out, cut another small hole in the back of each carton, big enough for some Christmas lights to fit through. Line up your buildings and then stuff your lights in the back starting on one end and working your way to the other.
Plug in your lights and your little Christmas village is ready to light up the night!
