Embellished Vintage Putz Houses [Simple & Easy]

Hi there! How’s your Christmas decorating going? My craft show is going whole-hog right now so I’m busy creating and delivering stock to my booth, including today’s project. I’m so in love with these embellished vintage Putz houses that I had to share them with you 🙂

Because of the show and selling vintage Christmas everywhere (especially eBay and Etsy), I’ve not had a lot of time to focus on my own house.

So far I’ve got the wreath on the door, a mini-tree on the front stoop, and our Christmas tree assembled and fluffed. I feel pretty good about all that, too, LOL. Later today, I’m going to select my cookie recipes and measure all the dry ingredients. 

This project started with five authentically vintage Putz houses that were in pretty bad shape, like the pink one you see below. The base lost most of its glitter and had turned brown [due to water damage I’m guessing].

I cleaned up the two houses in the back, but they have NOT been restored to their former glory. So I decided that with a little embellishment, they could gain a whole new life and ultimately be even more charming than when they were new!

Materials for Making Embellished Vintage Putz Houses

This post contains affiliate links for products necessary to complete the project. This is both for your convenience as well as to support my blog, as I receive a small compensation whenever you click on such a link and make any sort of purchase, for which I thank you.

Materials:

• Vintage Putz houses (or new ones like these)
• Mod Podge
• Craft Paint
• Foam brushes
• Glitter (I prefer fine glitter for this project)
• Pipe cleaners
• Bottle brush trees
• Vintage wooden Christmas figurines (or new ones like these)
• Hot glue
• “Merry Christmas” tags (see instructions below)

Step 1: Prepare (clean, paint, remove loofah)

As I just mentioned, the houses I used were beat-up but nonetheless “real” Putz houses that I picked up cheaply at an estate sale.

I’ve linked to new cardboard houses that you can use for this project if you don’t have any vintage ones handy.

Here’s how to clean dirty Putz houses:

• Dust with cornstarch
• Brush with a stiff paint brush or soft toothbrush

Don’t be afraid to use this method on the glittery parts where it worked remarkably well. We’re going to re-glitter the houses so a little loss of glitter is fine for our purposes.

If any of the painted surfaces of your houses are browned (like mine were), go ahead and paint them with white or off-white craft paint. This will go a long way toward brightening them up.

If you are starting from scratch with new cardboard houses, I recommend giving the entire house a base coat or two of white paint (unless they are white to begin with).

Step 2: Glitterize Your Vintage Putz Houses

My houses were almost completely devoid of glitter–time had been unkind to them, so I reapplied glitter to every surface.

How to apply glitter to your vintage Putz houses:

• Starting with the roof, apply a coat of Mod Podge, being sure to adequately cover the edges and corners
• Sprinkle glitter over the area covered with glue
• Tap lightly with your finger to ensure adherence
• Shake off excess glitter onto a piece of paper and funnel it back into the glitter container
• Move down to the next part of your house in need of glitter

Step 3: Add Trim, Figures, & Other Embellishments

Using hot glue, attach your embellishments to the house after the glue has dried on the glitter.

In the case of this little house I added a tiny wooden angel ornament and a white bottle brush tree that I topped with a single faux pearl. Pretty adorable, right?

Just look at the before and after of this little pink house! Such a wonderful transformation without a huge amount of effort.

Step 4: Add Merry Christmas Sign

On one of my houses I decided to attach a “merry christmas” tag onto the front. These are the same tags I use when creating mini wreaths that then embellish all kinds of vintage things like graters and folding ruler stars.

You can right click on this image with directions for making the tags, then click “save image as,” and save it to your photos for future reference.

Here’s how to make “merry christmas” tags:

• Create a new document on your computer
• Type “merry christmas” multiple times in columns
• Pick a font (I like older, typewriter fonts)
• Change the color of the words to red
• Print the page out on cardstock (I use manila-colored)
• Lightly spritz with strong coffee (instant coffee + water in a small spray bottle)
• Cut out the tags and use them.

To keep your coffee “aging spray” from going bad, store it in your refrigerator or add a pinch of alum. I dump mine out after each project because I’ve had trouble with the texture thickening slightly and clogging my spray bottle.

Here’s a clipping from my page of “merry christmas” tags.

Step 5: Decorate With Your Houses and/or Sell Them

I’ll tell you it was hard to pick out a couple of my houses and offer them for sale at the Shaker Christmas show I participate in every year. I priced them at $20 and will not be sad at all if they don’t sell, LOL.

NOTE: The proportions of the tree to the size of the house in the photo above seems more out of wack [due to the angle of the camera, I guess] than it is in real life, LOL.

The angel embellishment works perfectly with this church Putz, as does the silver glitter, which matches the color of the original glitter still clinging to the piece when I purchased it.

Before I sign off, I want to remind you that I have a course, Antique Sales Mastery: Christmas Decorations that covers mercury glass garlands, Putz houses, and bottle brush trees. Click the link to get more info and/or make a purchase. I’d love to see you in the course!

UPDATE: Two of the embellished houses from this article sold for $20 each at the annual Christmas Craft Show I participate in every year!

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