A little more black & white, I promise, and then I'll calm down, but these little houses are so cool that you'll find it hard to resist me harping on about my love for black & white, and then you'll see, soon I'll be peeling off your retinas so much with bright colors that when you've lost 1 tenth of an inch in each eye, you'll be begging me for black & white... So today I'm doing a little DIY Maison, a really cool "do it yourself" with the house file to download as a bonus, HERE ( I'm so nice...) Easy to make and infinitely usable in any color, for a child's bedroom, a birthday, a wedding or just for decoration etc... You can also hang them up or put them down, it's up to you... For these paper houses, you'll need..: - Canson paper, fairly thick grain (300g) - An empty glass yoghurt pot - Stickers for decoration - A ruler, pencil, glue, cutter and scissors - And the pattern to download HERE 

 

To start with, cut out the template and follow the lines carefully, paying attention to the dotted lines. This operation is a little tricky if you don't have the right tools, so take new cutter blades and you'll be fine. Next step: Using your template, trace its contours onto your sheet of Canson paper. Remove the template, and take your ruler to trace in dotted lines (preferably) all the places that will need to be folded (cf. indications in the file). Cut out the silhouette of your house and turn it over to customize it. Here, I've chosen stickers to make a polka-dot silhouette (monomaniac!), but you can also draw stripes, hearts or characters (have fun!). Once you've finished decorating, turn your house over again, face down, and start hollowing out the windows, shutters etc... I recommend you do this on a cutting board, or if you don't have one, on a safe surface, and be careful with your fingers... With a ruler and the lead of a blunt pencil, press down hard on all the areas that need to be folded, as this will make folding easier and ensure cleaner edges. Turn your house over one last time and assemble it: a drop of glue on the tabs and you're done!


If you'd like to put a small candle inside, I suggest you make a floor for your house out of featherboard with the following dimensions: 14 x 6.5 cm. Cut the featherboard with a cutter, then glue on your glass yoghurt pot (green scotch tape glue works very well). And with small (sewing) pins, prick your house and stick your pins into the thickness of the featherboard. For obvious safety reasons, I'd recommend investing in the LED tea lights you'll find on the market. here! (you can insert the led candles through one of the roof windows after you've assembled your house...)

February 22, 2012