Welcome to my Thrifted Winter Wonderland!  In between home projects and Christmas activities, I was able to squeeze in a little bit of time to create this little glittered village made from thrifted birdhouses.  It was so easy and fun to do, let me show you how I did it.

All you will need is some paint, Elmer’s glue, glitter and some imagination and you are ready to go.  I mean who doesn’t love a little bit of sparkle?  You can glitter just about anything these days, like I did here and here.

I found this birdhouse last year, and transformed it on a whim, once I saw how great it turned out, my mission was to do a whole village with only thrifted birdhouses.

Here are the birdhouses I collected throughout this year, all found at my local Goodwill.  They were all $1.00 each with the exception of the little blue one, it was only .50!

When the weather was still decent for spray painting, I gave them all a coat of primer.  You should do this the day before if possible to make sure they are really dry before going on to the next step.

So much better right?!

I already had plenty of paint and glue on hand, so I purchased super fine glitter at Walmart and the Dollar Tree.

I recommend doing all of the painting first, then glittering once it is all dry.  Craft paint drys rather quickly, so this could be done in one evening with the kids or even with your girlfriends as a fun craft night.

When painting and glittering, I used paper plates and spoons to control the mess, and small paint brushes to brush on the glue.

When it came time to apply the glitter, I used a small paintbrush to apply the glue first, then sprinkled the glitter over that.  The glitter will only stick to the glue, so you can be as detailed as you want.

Here I mixed white and silver glitter.  When picking glitter colors, I tried to use ones that would compliment my paint choices.  Blue goes well with silver, dark gray with black, and so on.

Here I brushed the glue on just the face of the cross.

I used a dry brush to wipe off the extra glitter, don’t blow on it, you will end up with glitter all over your face…… 

I did the same with the church door.

So pretty.

I did one more step, once the first coat of glitter was dry, I brushed on a little bit more glue to some of the rooftops and sprinkled white glitter to make it look like snow.

Ok, so here is where it gets really crazy.  Two years ago, I bought this painting at the Salvation Army, with plans to reuse the frame.  When I was setting up my little village, I remembered the painting and dug it out of my attic.  It is the perfect backdrop, AND it gets better…..

The painting is a winter scene of my home town, painted by Ms. Joanne Fell in 1979, it really doesn’t get any better than that.  It was the perfect addition to my thrifted winter wonderland.

I purchased the little trees at Walmart and Rite Aid, and used a sheet of snow as the base, and added the little LED wire lights throughout.

It is amazing to think that this whole project started with an impulse buy 2 years ago ,and I don’t even like birdhouses!

This little house is my favorite, so cute and pink, my daughter wants to use it as a dog house for one of her toy dogs.

I am pretty sure I covered every surface with glitter by the time I was done.

It is hard to imagine that birdhouse was once dark green.  Paint is truly magical, lol.

I hope to add to my thrifted winter wonderland every year.

This project has so many possibilities, you could do a whole village in just black and white, or any color scheme that suits your personal taste.  If you are really talented in the freehand paint department, you could add more detail to each birdhouse like shutters or windows, so much potential I can hardly stand it!!

 

 

 

 

 

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save