Smile Mercantile Craft Co.

Miniature Potted Feather Tree Tutorial

Even though we are far away from Christmas I am still in my exploration of feather trees.  Today I am working on a miniature feather tree using pink goose feathers for a sweet springtime look.  Yo...

Easy Christmas Star with German Glass Glitter

Today I'm working on a sweet and simple Christmas craft using sparkly silver German glass glitter.  This year's Christmas tree is a little bit on the Charlie Brown side- it's a young Douglas fir, p...

How to Clean and Restore Putz Houses

Today I'm fixing up some vintage putz houses that are in fairly rough condition.  The idea here is to tidy them up and make some gentle home improvements without really changing their designs.  Ma...

How to Make a Feather Tree

Feather trees were a late-19th century German invention- a creative alternative to wasteful, messy, and exceedingly flammable real Christmas trees from the forest. They were most popular in the ye...

Let's Make a Halloween Village! DIY Putz Houses

The flat-pack putz house kits are not just for Christmas! Today I am using them to craft a spooky gothic village.  If you missed the tutorial for assembling the DIY putz house kits, you can find i...

Putz House Assembly

These chipboard houses are the perfect blank slate for a Christmas village of your own style.  The kits come flat, with the pieces already cut out and scored, and each one comes with a translucent ...