Whether placed amongst baskets or sliding out of the entertainment center, there’s always a spot for a Dept. 56 house! By elevating houses on boxes and gracefully placing cotton batting, you can achieve the illusion of houses sliding out of a cabinet.

This is the first time in 20 years that Dept. 56 houses did not figure somewhere into the holiday scheme. It was a nice change and gave a chance to showcase a more natural theme for the holiday with poinsettias and white pine garland decking the fireplace.

[…]

Visitors are always surprised when they slide open the linen cupboard door to reach for a towel and instead find a lighted Dept. 56 display! No room is left untouched when it comes time to spreading holiday cheer through all parts of the house.

A hatbox is the perfect stage for a holiday fantasy. In our two versions, The Olde Globe Theatre and Shakespeare’s Birthplace steal the show. We filled a decorative holiday hatbox with empty accessory boxes and topped off with a cutout round of Styrofoam to use as a platform. To finish, we sprinkled some snow […]

Previous
Next

Close

[…]

The kitchen sink is a riot of holiday activity with Department 56’s 12 Days of Dickens’ Village series displayed on the window niche shelves. To add to the 12 Days theme, “Ten Lords Leap” and “Nine Ladies Dance” in the handcut paper garlands that hang above the sink area. These were made from Martha […]

Placing houses in a wreath is a tedious task, but the results are worth it. Here, we’ve placed the original Dickens’ Village starter set houses in a large pine cone wreath. By carefully running the wires behind the wreath and up behind the streamer of ribbon, we were able to light the houses.
.
.
.
.

Sprawling your houses throughout the home creates holiday cheer in every nook and cranny. By clustering a small number of houses together, you can create an interesting display almost anywhere — on a dresser, in a basket collection, even on top of an air conditioner box as we’ve done with the Tower of London […]

Mr. McFeely would never believe it, nor did we, for surely a gorgeous live Christmas tree via mail order could only happen in the Land of Make-Believe.

[…]

The first time we saw Martha Stewart build a gingerbread house, we knew we wanted to make one just like she did. It was a huge Second Empire mansion, unlike any other gingerbread house. It was nearing Valentine’s Day and we decided to try our hand at our very first gingerbread house and cover […]