Wednesday, December 04, 2019

DIY Sylvanian Families House Christmas Decor ♥

When I was a little girl, all I ever wanted was some Sylvanian Families playsets. Sadly though, I never received any, they were far too out of budget for my parents and even these days, they're still quite expensive. However, I now have a little boy who loves Sylvanian Families and I do all I can to make sure he gets to sets he wants. I'm quite thrifty with how I get them though, using sites such as Ebay to buy bundles and waiting for sales to pick up new sets.


He loves imaginative play and playing house is one of his new favourite things. He loves setting up his Sylvanian Families houses and acting out different scenarios for the characters. He has lots of houses now - some new, some secondhand, one I even picked up for just £2 from a charity shop along with a old-style nursery bus for just 50p! So with all these houses and cottages lying around, I thought I'd do some DIY on one and make a Christmas themed cottage.

I choose Rose Cottage for the Christmas decor as it's red roof fit into the festive theme perfectly. I picked up some crafting bits from my local The Range store - you can watch my crafting haul video here and then set to work. The first thing I did was 'wallpaper' the walls. I used some Christmas themed scrapbooking paper for this and simply stuck everything on with some Pritt Stick. It was a little bit tricky to measure out the paper for the walls correctly at first but I soon got the hang of it and having a sharp paper cutting knife really helped.

I then made curtains and dressings for the windows using some glittery mesh. I had never made anything like this before so I'm quite pleased with my efforts. In hindsight though the mesh is probably too stiff for making curtains as it doesn't flow down like I wanted it too, but they still look nice. I made these by taking a rectangular piece of mesh and twisting it at two points in the middle to create two hanging down sides and a little top piece to go above the window. I then tied the two twisted parts up with simple sewing thread and used a Pritt Stick to glue the curtains to the window. As a finishing touch I glued two tartan bows on to add to the Christmassy look of the decor. For the upstairs windows I made some simple 'net curtains' by cutting out a square of mesh to fit the windows, gluing them on and then adding the tartan bow decorations once again.

I also glued some fabric red roses to the outside of the cottage - this was before I knew this house was Rose Cottage, so it really does suit it perfectly. I also wrapped some LED string lights around the pole outside the door of the cottage and then all around the cottage. I used a 20 bulb string light and it fit perfectly. I chose multi-coloured lights as I feel they're a lot more Christmassy than normal warm white lights and are a bit more fun for the kids. These look so lovely when the cottage is lit up at night.

Finally, I filled the cottage with some furniture and added some Christmassy details - like the table laid out with Christmas cake and holly, a little tree with sequined tinsel on top and a baby rabbit upstairs playing with toys. Tyler absolutely loved it and hasn't stopped playing with it since. He's told me it's his favourite Sylvanian Families house and it means so much to me that he likes my efforts and continues to play with it.

This was such a simple and quick little DIY craft project for me and I'm now decorating some of his other houses too - not in a Christmas theme, but just personalising them for him to make his playtime that little bit more magical.

I also vlogged about our Sylvanian Families Rose Cottage decorated for Christmas, which you can watch below.



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11 comments

  1. That's very pretty Fiona. You did a great job on the house. Home made is always something special and cheaper too. x

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  2. This looks lovely, I love the idea that you have made his house Christmas themed. I would have loved that as a child!

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  3. Brilliant! Using craft to make something seasonal & personal. Far more satisfying and budget friendly!!!

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  4. This has literally got to be the cutest thing in the whole entire world.

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  5. Aww what a cute idea and so effective too! I love the roses and little wreath :)

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  6. What a lovely idea! My mummy is waiting until I’m a bit older to get me into Sylvanian Families. She still has a lot of the old toys at home x

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  7. That is such a lovely idea to make your own. I can see any little girl loving this

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  8. You're so creative! Well done! I can imagine how much the boys love it! So cool.

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  9. Fiona this is impressive DIY you’ve definitely outdone yourself and better Tyler lee absolutely adores this

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  10. Oh I love this Fiona!! You are so creative, my children love Sylvannian families!

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  11. What a lovely idea. This is so sweet :) Thanks for sharing at The Christmas blog hop.

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