Christmastime Houses

Lindsey and I made Gingerbread houses!  It was her first time ever to decorate a Gingerbread house and I think she did a fabulous job!  We had a great time decorating the houses while Cornbread and Michael Bacon watched some really bad silly movies.  We all ate way too much candy, and had delicious pizza from Filippi's Pizza Grotto.

I used the Elfin cottage pattern from my 1982 Wilton Celebrate!: Christmas book.  I had a batch of gingerbread in the freezer that was left from last year's house.  And I made one batch of the Grandma's gingerbread from my Wilton book.  They both baked up pretty well.  But cutting out the pieces and baking a gingerbread house from scratch is really hard work.  I miss my cast iron gingerbread mold!  Maybe next year...

I've also been busy making more cardboard glitter houses.  The little green two story house is a pattern that Howard from littleglitterhouses.com shared on the cardboard Christmas forums.  I was going to wait until next year to make it, but then he surprised me with an adorable Santa figure.  I thought I should make the little guy a new house and I did the whole thing yesterday.

Howard suggested repainting the Santa and giving him a clear coat.  I did repaint him and add some glitter to his base, but I'm still deciding if I want to clear coat him.  I only have gloss clear coat right now, and Michael says he likes him flat.  Maybe I'll try to find some flat clear coat, but for now Santa has a new home.  Thanks, Howard!

I also made another one of the Urban Debris mini Putz houses for my Grandma's Christmas present.  The vintage-looking tall tree, Santa and silver gift boxes all came from WalMart.  I just hot-glued the little scene on the top of a Christmas tin and I plan to fill it with candy and sweets for her. 

Our Christmas Village Has Been Deforested

And this is the reason. 

 Our darling, adorable little kitten, RacerX has been wreaking havok on the village. He's been very curteous with the houses, but the trees and Santa were not so lucky.  Especially Santa.

This is how the village started out yesterday.  But it didn't last long.  It was soon demolished.

So I put all the trees away in a safe place. And this is how our village looks now.

I'm probably going to be putting the Christmas tree up sometime this week.  I fear for it's safety with these two little guys.

Santa's Got a New Gold Bag

Our Putz Christmas village needed a Santa and sleigh.  I searched all over eBay until I found one that I was happy with.

I chose this Santa because I liked the size for the scale of our village. He's a little big, but he's not too huge. I also liked that he was one of the only ones that had actual brown reindeer. They aren't pictured because they didn't need a new paint job like Santa did. White reindeer have their place, but I think Santa's reindeer should be brown. Santa had seen better days. His paint was badly cracked and peeling and he lost his reins. So I gave him a bath in pure acetone to strip off all the old paint. And I did the same thing with his sleigh.

Then I carefully wiped off whatever paint particles were left in all the crevices and gave Santa and his sleigh a new coat of paint. I'm not sure what the original paint was, but I used Tester's model paints on both Santa and the sleigh. Originally, Santa's toy bag was a very dark, chocolate brown.  But, the set of model paints I was using didn't come with brown and I lean more toward the gaudy, metallic side of Christmas decor.  Luckily the paint set did have a lovely shade of shimmery, metallic gold.  So I painted the toy bag gold.  I love it!

And here's Santa with his all his reindeer:

(this was before Rudolph's time)

I still haven't come up with how I'll replace the reins and I think I need to add some miniature holly and maybe a tiny Christmas tree to his sleigh.  But, for now, he looks much better!

Christmas Putz Village

My very first Putz Village! I'm very happy with it. I'm so excited to finally use the little white plastic tree I got at the $1 and Up store in Escondido. And I think the gingerbread house looks great as the center piece of the village.

I actually had a very hard time forresting my village. For some reason I really thought it needed more trees and I became obsessed. But, I guess everyone else was too, because everywhere I went was mostly sold out of Christmas village trees. I got a couple from Dollar Tree and a few from the Mission-building section at Michael's. And I was just kinda OK with my sparse foliage. But a few days ago I was wandering around Big Lots and I found a 16-piece tree set for only $5!

Even without the lights on, I think the village looks much better with lots of trees!

The first house I made was the picture window house. I made it at the same time that I made the Halloween picture window house. I really like it, but I do I wish I would have listened to Howard's suggestions and started with the begginner cottage.

This is the Peach Beach Cottage from Howard's Sandy Shores Structures. I added snow and lots of glitter and made it a Christmas village house. I made a loofah tree following Papa Ted's new tree tutorial.

The Little Charmer also has a loofah tree in it's front yard. It's by far my favorite house in the village. I pretty much copied Howard's color-scheme exactly.

The beginner cottage is actually yellow with a blue roof, but all the glitter makes it hard to see the colors. The snowman and icy tree are both from Dollar Tree.

I also made the church conversion. We're not a religious household, but I do think the church is really cute. So I just made the upstairs window round like all the rest of the houses instead of a cross.

The Bay Window house is so cute! I love the way it sits centered on it's foundation so I put a tree in each corner of the front yard.

2010 Halloween Village with accessories!

The whole completed Halloween Putz village for 2010.

The How-to section over at Little Glitter Houses is amazing! I'm so grateful to Howard Lamey for sharing his creativity with everyone. I finally added all the silly little Halloween themed accessories I've been buying at Dollar Tree and the 99 Only store.

The Witch house is made with his beginner cottage tutorial. This really is the best place to start with making little houses. The house turns out adorable and has the perfect little glitter cottage shape. I painted it Halloween colors and added a rubber witch that is way too big and an over-sized foam cat. I love it though- anything ridiculous works for Halloween.

This house is by far my favorite! I used Howard's Vintage-Style house pattern and my own goofy, dollar-store accessories.

The Ghost house is the Twin Peaks Beach House from Howard's Sandy Shores Seaside structures. I glued all the trim on cock-eyed and made it a ghost house.

My Spider Church is the church conversion found at the end of the beginner cottage how-to. I added a 13-hour, spider clock, and put webs in all the windows.

Howard's picture window house was the first one that I made. I know I should have started with the beginner cottage, but I don't think it turned out too bad...

We call this Batman's house because my husband donated his Hot Wheels Batmobile and it fits right under the over-hang like it's a carport. This is the Spook Hill Station.

I plan to finish the Christmas village over Thanksgiving break and I'll post pics when I get it set-up.

Halloween Putz Village Done!

This Labor Day weekend has been great! We've been hanging out in the pool, watching movies and I've been able to get some projects finished! Saturday morning I woke up and completely took apart the dress for Eve and made all the alterations before Michael even woke up. It felt really good to get it done, UFO's drive me nuts! It looks great, and I can't wait for Ivana to come over and try it on!

Saturday evening and Sunday morning I was able to take some time and finish the Halloween village. I love it! For some houses I copied the paint colors directly from the Little Glitter Houses how-to's because I thought they were perfect just the way they were, but with the rest, I did my own thing.

I've only added the "trees" and a couple accessories for now. I'll continue to add more miniature Halloween items as I find them. Michael contributed the Batmobile and the orange Hearse, and I found the rubber witch at Dollar Tree. I'm hoping to find some mini bats and ghosts somewhere. Or I could probably just make them...

I found great battery-operated LED's from Eleknuts on eBay. They are in Hong Kong and the lights take slightly longer to ship than if you were buying from a US seller. But for the price and the quality, I highly recommend them! I used one strand of white and one strand of red. I think I'll get some more for the Christmas village.

I'm sure I'll post more pictures of the Halloween village when it gets set-up for real next month.

Just Putzing Around

I've been making little glitter houses (also known as Putz houses) all week! Thanks to the AMAZING how-to's from Howard Lamey and his adorable and educational Little Glitter Houses website. They're only about 4 inches tall and you put lights in the back so that the windows and doors glow.

I remember every Christmas my Aunt Grace would put out her nativity village and I was so in love with it! Gail also has a set of the originals that are so special and nostalgic. I think Putz villages are so beautiful and really capture the spirit of Christmas, so I wanted a Putz village of my own. I'm making a set for Christmas and a set for Halloween. I finished the first house in each set tonight, and I have four more houses under construction.

When I get the other houses finished, I'll post about the completed villages.