printable paper village

Make an easy paper village for Christmas, Winter or just for anytime play with our latest printable craft.

This is a kid-friendly version of the beautiful paper villages that are so popular (and intricate) at this time of year.

*This kids craft idea was first published in 2020 and has been updated and republished for today’s audience.

You might also like our Christmas paper craft collection

A few weeks ago there was a fun day at my kids’ school. Miss 11 was in charge of the soft drink stall and assured me she needed LOTS of paper cups to donate, so I obliged and bought several large packs for her to take in on the day. It was a hot day and the stall was a raging success – apparently not a drop of fizzy drink was left. Funnily enough, the other kids helping at the stall must have been thinking the same thing about needing tons of cups because half of them came home again.

Long story short, we have around fifty zillion paper cups in the house, so I’ve been putting these to use in crafts. First we had the reindeer treat cups, then the snowman pom pom poppers and today, a printable paper village using cups for the house bases.

Our cups are plain white, so to give them a bit more colour I created a brightly-coloured set of roofs, windows, and doors to stick onto them. I also designed a set of paper trees to scatter around the houses. If you’d prefer to colour-your-own, there is a black and white line art version included.

My intention was to create a pretty, wintery, Christmassy-looking village, but it could work as a small world for imaginative play at any time of year too.

Here’s how to make it.

How to make a kid-friendly paper village

You will need

• Paper cups (we’ve used plain white)
• Glue Stick
• Scissors
• Scoring tool or blunt butter knife
• Ruler and cutting mat
• The printable paper village template (enter your details into the box and it will be emailed to you)

How to:

Print out the template. I’ve used a heavy paper stock, but it should also work on ordinary paper.

Cut out the shapes and score the fold lines on the roof.

Fold and glue the roof piece together.

Put plenty of glue around the base of a paper cup and stick the roof in place. I’ve used an ordinary glue stick for this, but I did need to press the roof down firmly for 10-20 seconds to get it to stick properly. You could alternatively use craft glue or a low temp hot glue gun.

Glue the windows and door on. The houses come in four different door and window combinations, with a pre-designed layout of the windows but you can stick them on however you like.

To make the trees, score the centre line and cut out the shapes. 

Glue the four pieces together into a tree.

Arrange on the shelf or mantlepiece, optionally adding a couple of LED tealight candles for a more Christmassy vibe.

See – easy and fun to make, and it may even withstand some preschooler play!

Winter books for kids

More Winter craft ideas for kids

• Make a mother and baby polar bear play set
• Here is a 3D polar bear paper portrait craft
• We also have an arctic fox 3D paper portrait
• Create a snowman Winter scene with fingerprint snow
• Here is a fun cereal box ice skating theatre – make the skaters twirl and whirl using magnets