Christmas Houses

It's that time of the year: let's ramp up that Christmas crafting! Using a Tall House Shelf set from Alpha Stamps, I made a couple of holiday houses. One, a gingerbread house with happy kids, and one a retro looking house using my favorite color combo of turquoise and red (plus pink!). Each house is 6" tall with a 3" by 1" base.

The gingerbread house features two happy kids, laden with sweets. The ground, window sill and roof are all covered with an icy layer of glitter, and then encrusted in candies. How cute is that little girl's gingerbread house hat?

 

The tree is decorated with festive holiday lights; these kids are ready for the big day. Both of the trees used in these projects were a little wide for the bases, so I trimmed their backs flat so they sit flush against the houses.

 

 

The occupants of the retro house have used the same lights to decorate their roof line. I separated the lights from their strand, and attached them with an epoxy glue that sets instantly with UV light. It's my first time using a glue like that, and I love it! I used an old kit that my husband had, but if you're interested, I did find several different brands when I searched online for "epoxy glue UV light". I highly recommend adding this to your selection of glues.

 

Don't you just love this pink tree? It's decorated with colored beads. And who's that peaking out the window at Santa? Looks like someone's wrapping up more gifts. Santa is outside, ready to deliver the goodies he's packed in his bag. Ho ho ho, merry Christmas!

 

The houses were super easy to make and decorate. The backs and sides of each were painted to match the paper used to cover the fronts; the windows, icy roofs, and bases were all painted white and covered with glitter. White glue was used to decorate the trees and add the embellishments like the snowflake on the Santa house, and the candies on the gingerbread house. (Yes, the base is blue in this photo; I repainted it when I decided to glitter it to look like snow.)

 

Here's how the figures stand in front of the houses: I held each cutout where I wanted it to be place, and used a pencil to mark the spot where each foot hit the ground. I inserted a straight pin into the base at each mark, and then snipped the pins down to size. White glue was used to attach the pins to the backs of the legs of each figure.  Below, the pins are glued, waiting for Santa. You'll need to hold him in place while the glue dries, but it just takes a couple of minutes. Once your figure is set on the pins, you might want to remove them from the base and put a little drop of glue on the pins before you reinsert them. Now your figures are able to stand away from the house without the use of foam tape. 

 

For a list of supplies, click here!

Spookytown, USA

I recently received a set of Cabana Row Mini Houses from Alpha Stamps, and I knew right away that a Halloween village was in order. Hello, Spookytown! Kids are frolicking, cats are guarding pumpkins, and someone has used a skull as a seasonal decoration.

Here are some closeups:

I started out by covering each chipboard house with scrapbook paper; one type for the house itself, and a contrasting paper for the roof. Each got a Halloween motif on the front, and all but one got Halloween "windows" on the sides.

Spookytown needed a home base, so I made one out of foam core. It's covered with black tissue paper; I just wrapped it like a present and glued it down. Orange ric rac helps finish off the edge.  

 After the foam core was covered and the ric rac was applied, I wanted to add some texture on the ground. This would have been best to do before the ric rac was glued on, but sometimes I do like a challenge. The only way I could think of to apply the "grass" was to use spray mount, but I definitely didn't want to get that grass all over the sides and into the ric rac, so I made a cardboard template to protect those areas. I measured the base, and cut the template 1/8" less on all sides, so there's a little black edge around the border.

I drew crop marks so I could position the base in the center of the template. Once the template is ready, tape the base on face down, so you can spray the top and apply the ground cover. Make sure you do this part outside! I used washi tape because it's easy to remove.

The great thing about using foam core is that it's easy to construct a scene. To attach the tree silhouette and the fence posts, I glued thin wire to the back of each element. Once the glue is dry, I used a straight pin to make a little hole in the foam core and then inserted each piece.

It's so easy to build a fence this way. I also used wire to allow some Halloween figures (a black cat, a couple of pumpkin heads, and a boy with a jack o'lantern) to stand. Wire allows the bats to fly, and holds up the skull bead so it doesn't topple down. I chose not to attach the houses or the pumpkins or fall leaves. Maybe I'll want to rearrange things some time.

I hope you enjoyed Spookytown! For a complete list of supplies, click here.

The Halloween Special on BTV

Let's see what's playing on BTV (Brownie TV). I am a huge fan of Palmer Cox's illustrations of Brownies, so I am totally in love with Alpha Stamps' new collage sheet featuring them at Halloween. Those Brownies should be on TV! For this project, I used an Altoids Tin TV, and covered it with scrapbook papers. A couple of toothpicks make the perfect antennas.

I used a thin strip of sturdy scrapbook paper to make the TV 3d. The Brownie images are attached to the background with foam tape, and a mossy ground and some pumpkins were added. To fit the pumpkins in, I cut them in half with a box cutter. If you apply slow gentle pressure, they divide fairly easily. They're attached with white glue. I made one into a jack o' lantern using a thin tipped Sharpie.

It's always fun when Halloween specials are on TV. Bring on the Brownies! For a list of supplies to make this or other scary programing, click here. And stay tuned for more Halloween crafts. 

Halloween Scary Book

It's never too early to start up on Halloween crafting! I used some Solid Moon Book Pages from Alpha Stamps to make a spooky Halloween book. A Haunted House overlay was the basis for the perfect cover art for the book. I painted the overlay black, and added scrapbook papers plus a moon and pumpkins from collage sheets to set the spooky scene. You can just see the tiny skeletons peaking through the windows. This book was bound with a Zutter Bind-It-All.

It was fun to mix and match Halloween papers to make each page different. Once each page was covered, I used lots of individual images from collage sheets to fill the space. I kept moving everything around until I was happy with the layout. For the really busy pages, it helped to take a photo before removing everything for gluing.  

The first page is a clowder of cats. Black cats, to be specific. I love the vintage look of these frightful  felines.

Next up, some jack o'lanterns. That background paper has to be my favorite.

Witch, please! It's so nice that this coven got together for a group photo. Better look behind you, witches.

These shady fellows are obviously up to no good. Are those the ghosts of past victims of this poison dealer?

The penultimate page features happy trick-or-treaters. Witch better have my candy!

I found the perfect image for the final page. It fits beautifully, and it makes me laugh to think that of all the scary things featured in this book, Medusa seems to finds the fun loving children on the adjacent page to be the most horrifying.

For a list of supplies, click here!

Tiny Circus Wagon

The tiniest of circuses is coming to town, and they've purchased a shiny new wagon to bring in their prize polar bear. This project is made from an Altoids Smalls tin, so it's pretty teeny; the wheels are only 3/4" tall. I covered the tin with some chilly blue circus stripes and stars, and added shiny gold filigree.  The wagon may be small, but it's fancy! 

 

There are four bits of filigree around the edges of the wagon: one large one at the top, two on the bottom of the sides, and one, a Symmetrical Raw Brass Flourish, at the top of the sides that I cut in half with some sharp shears. The filigree was attached using E6000 glue (super toxic; use it sparingly and outside!) A paper medallion sits at the top of the wagon. A tutorial on how to make paper medallions can be found here.

The wheels were silver, but I painted them with a gold paint pen to better match the filigree. Attaching the wheels was a little tricky; I used a toothpick for the axle, but the tin is only about 1/2" wide, so I had to cut the toothpick down and whittled the cut end to a point to fit in the hole in the wheels. Don't force the wheel on; they are pretty fragile. (Don't ask me how I know!) I did break the center out of one, but I ended up gluing the wheels to the tin anyway and put that one on the backside, so you can't really tell, except for the couple of missing spokes. Oops!  

 

And there they go, off to the circus parade! For a list of supplies, click here. 

Bird Watcher

This month's kit from Alpha Stamps kit inspired me to make a little hanging ornament. It looks like a little birdhouse, so it's perfect for housing an avid bird watcher. This guy's really into it; he's got his shiny new binoculars and has evidently been talking lots of notes on his findings. He's even found a nest of bright blue robin's eggs. Luckily, he knows enough to leave it alone; soon he'll be able to view baby birds.

The house is covered with beautiful papers from Bird Watcher 8 x 8 collection. I covered the inside and outside of the house with a sweet floral print, and then used parts of a couple of the other papers to embellish the outsides. Both the sides of the house feature bird stamps found on paper from the collection.

The back of the house has a giant floral pattern, which was also cut out from the Bird Watcher collection. You may wonder what's up with the wooden blue bird in this photo. Well, funny story. He was part of the first version of this project.

Here's how the Bird Watcher started out: as The Birdy House. I used a bird from an old wooden ornament, plus a resin nest and some speckled eggs. I liked it, but I didn't love it. If you're a fan of this Birdy House, though, you can click here for a supply list.  The resin nest and speckled eggs are super cute; I'm sure I'll use them in the future. But this time around, I just wasn't crazy about the interior of my little house, so I removed all the innards and went with the Bird Watcher.

A little about constructing the house itself: you could glue all the parts together and then cover it your house with papers, but I chose to cover each side and the roof before construction. Here are the pieces ready to put together. If you do choose to do it this way, it's important to note that in some places (any wall or floor that will be on the inside of the house), the paper should not cover the chipboard tabs. But in the outside walls, the paper does cover the tabs. I didn't bother covering the back of the front facade, because it doesn't show. The roof has slots in it that need to remain open, so I cut the paper to fit as shown below.  Leave the whole channel where the slot is free so that the roof will better attach to the top of the house. The hole for hanging it optional. If you prefer a free standing shrine, just cover the hole when decorating the roof.

I hope you have fun with your bird house! For a list of supplies for making the Bird Watcher, click here. 

Down The Rabbit Hole with the Red Queen

I titled this latest Alpha Stamps project "Down The Rabbit Hole" because this little tyrant actually took me there. I had planned to use her as a book cover, in which I would use two of the cutouts to make the covers. Alas, though, this little queen would not let go of her heart shaped staff, nor would she not quit pointing in such a rude manner. I would have had to make a pretty thick book in order to assure that it could open correctly. I decided to just start painting Her Majesty and see what would become of her. Here's the story of our journey together.

I used an image from "The Red Queen" collage sheet as a reference for color, etc. and started painting just the shoulders and head of the queen. At this point, my plan was to use her as a back cover and make a tiny rectangular cover in front. Look how tiny she is! Once I got that top part painted, it felt weird not to have the rest painted, too, so I penciled it in and got to work. My solution: just keep painting and worry about construction later. Most times this works out for me. The queen, though, had a different plan. 

 

Once I got the entire queen painted, plus the front cover, so her the dress would still be complete with the cover closed, I glued a strip of card stock to the back of our queen, making sure there was room for the front cover to close under her right hand. Wow, great idea. Now, if you make a little book, it's going to cover up all that work I did painting her dress. Plus, there's no way the book will close, because the spine isn't thick enough to allow it. Luckily, I had the foresight to leave the strip of card stock long. Perhaps I could use what used to be the front cover to finish out the back of her dress, and then make a book on the backside. Genius! (*note: I painted the card stock brown because I did not prime the cardboard figure before painting it. If I had painted on the lighter card stock, the colors wouldn't match.) Alas, I had the same problem with the back of the "book" than I did with the front. It just would not close with pages in it. On to plan C.

After the step above, I attached a piece of cardboard to the non painted side of the card stock so I could continue on with the front of the dress. Here's Her Majesty at this point, completely painted: 

OK, now we're getting somewhere. I decided to just make a little scene from Alice in Wonderland and use that weird shape as well as I could. I put the Cheshire cat up in a tree, and used the Queen's pointing hand as a signpost to Wonderland. It's an odd little project, but at least something was made of it!

She is small, but mighty. And she definitely has a mind of her own. For supplies, click here.

Cheers, Marie! Altered Altoids Tin

I'm not sure if anyone was drinking Cosmopolitans back in Marie Antionnette's day, but I'm pretty sure that if they were, Marie would have been a huge Cosmo fan. I know I am! In fact, we've made a dedicated Cosmo party shelf in our kitchen, where our martini glasses, the shaker, and a little container of  rim sugar are kept. It also includes some Cosmo artwork; some by me, some by my friends. When I got this month's kit from Alpha Stamps, all the pink reminded me of that shelf, and I decided to let Marie enjoy a Cosmo, at long last. Cheers, Marie!

I removed the cover of the tin, and covered the inside with some gorgeous pink floral paper, plus some black and white harlequin paper from my stash. I found a gold dollhouse frame which was the perfect size to frame a quote featured on some of that kit paper, which reads, "Life is nothing without passion". Ain't that the truth?

The outsides of the tin are also covered harlequin paper, and then adorned with some gold Dresden trim. A string of little red beads sits atop the rim. In the photo below, you can see that Marie's yellow overdress overlaps her pink skirt a bit. I used two French Ballet Costumes collage sheets to achieve this look. I cut the yellow overdress at the "v" of the bodice and glued it only at the waistline of a full image of Marie. A couple of foam tape squares were inserted between the overdress and the skirt to separate the layers. Marie is adhered to the tin with 4 layers of foam tape, so she really stands out.

A gold crown brad was the perfect little topper for the tin. The prongs were easy to fold flat into the base of the crown. A large flat-backed crystal fit perfectly inside the crown and hid the folded prongs. At the angle of the next photo, you can see the stacks of foam tape helping keep Marie front and center.

 

 A few tips on construction:

The Marie from the collage sheet has her arms spread out as if she is dancing. It's a beautiful pose, but it's not conducive to enjoying a drink, nor did her arms allow her to fit inside the tin. Here's how to change her position. In the top half of the image below, there are two identical images of Marie. The left image is the one that will be used in the tin. Her right arm is cut off at the elbow, and her left arm is cut at the shoulder. The duplicate image at the right has already had the overskirt removed. Both its arms are cut at the shoulder. Her wand is removed from the right hand, and her hand is removed from the left arm. When her left arm is hanging down, that hand is not in the correct position. Therefore, I used another image from the same collage sheet, and Marie was given a hand transplant.  When you position this new left arm on Marie, there is a little gap at the shoulder. It's easy to fill that in with a little piece of one of the unused arms. You'll just have to trim it to fit.

The beads aren't tough to adhere to the edge of the tin, but they do require some patience. You will have to really babysit them while the glue dries. It's best to glue only 2 or 3 inches at a time. I use Aleene's Tacky glue. I put it on fairly goopy, but it's invisible when it dries.

While it is drying, you'll need to hold it in place. Those beads are going to want to fall off the lip of that tin. One thing that helped me keep my sanity during this step was to lean the side of the tin up against a flat surface. You'll still have to keep checking it until it's fully dry, but it helps keep the beads in place. Make sure you stop and start your beaded strand in on one of the sides, not at the corners.

For a complete list of supplies, click here! And now, how about a little bonus photo of that Cosmo shelf? Yes, it has party lights.