Wednesday, July 18, 2012

How I Make Glitter Houses


Hello, Dear Ones!
I'm just thrilled that you like my little Glitter houses and I appreciate your comments more than you will ever know.
I promised you I would share how I made my little Glitter Houses so here goes:
Well, I must say this is not the end of my journey. 
I had so much fun that I'm going to make some more and some more and some more! ;)

This is a wonderful site: Big Indoor Trains and you'll want to visit so you can learn all you'll ever want to know about about Glitter houses and patterns for making them.
This is where I found many of the patterns I used and his instructions are very easy to understand and there's lots of pictures. I love that!
Other patterns can be found on my Glitter House board on Pinterest.

I must warn you, I made a mess!
But like I always say ~ you have to make a mess to make pretty! :)

The instructions from Big Indoor Trains said to use cereal boxes, empty of course, for your little houses
and I have been saving cereal boxes for months!
Most of the patterns are in PDF form so I downloaded and saved them to a file on my computer so I could go back and print more patterns later on.

Okie dokie now!
 I printed out my pattern on cardstock, cut it out and then with a pencil traced around it to the blank side of the opened up cereal box that was cut open to lay flat.
I then used my low temp glue gun to assemble my house.
Again, I cheated, as Big Indoor Trains used Elmer's Glue.
Good ole Elmer's takes some time to dry and I'm impatient so I went with my glue gun.
Then I took my little craft paint and painted the house and the roof.
Had to wait again for it to dry.

Then I had a brilliant idea! 
I have tons of colored cardstock (I've been a scrap booker for years and have lots of papers) so why not use this and I wouldn't have to paint my houses.
I told you I was a cheat! :) But a clever cheat.
So for the rest of my houses I used cardstock. 
Cardstock is a little lighter weight than the cereal boxes but I think it'll be okay.
Here is the traced and cut out house pattern on the cardstock. 
Now for the little windows and some of the doors I used an xacto knife. Be very careful as this is one sharp puppy ~ you don't want to cut off your most dainty fingers.
Oh, I always use a self healing mat to cut on to protect my table top.

 Now it's time to score your folding lines. I use a bone folder and a ruler.
You can lightly draw on your lines if you'd like.

Fold the sides of your house and you're ready to glue.
I used my low temp glue gun as to not permanently damage my most dainty talented fingers! :)
Hold a few seconds and your glue is set! Easy peasy!

I like to use a different color for the roof so I've chosen white.
Score and fold down the center of the roof and your ready to glue it onto the house.

Do the same with the little chimney. Score, fold, glue together and then run a very thin little line of hot glue around the base of the chimney and place on house.
Don't worry if a little hot glue is showing and poking out ~ after your house is glittered you won't see it.
Now since I'm using hot glue I have to move fast because it dries so quickly.
At first I was a little skeert! But not now...I just go for it.
If something glues on a little bit crooked ~ it's okay! :)


 Most all of the patterns from Big Indoor Trains have doors and window trims. Sometimes I've used them like I have here but sometimes I've added my own windows and doors. I found some clipart of windows and doors on the web and used them.
Here I grabbed my glue stick to attach the doors and windows.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about the base for the little house to sit on. 
Again, Big Indoor Trains tells how to make a much more sturdy base but I did my own thing again. 
Like I've said...I cheat! 
So I used some foam board. I decided how big I wanted my base to be, marked the size with my pencil and cut it out with my xacto knife. Easy again.
Next comes some fun! Glittering the houses.
I cut open a large plastic garbage bag to put across my table so I wouldn't make too much of a glitter mess.
  I grabbed a paper plate (that's a very hard working paper plate) and squeezed out quite a bit of Elmer's glue in it and with a little foam brush painted on some glue to the roof, chimney and front of the house.
I glued and glittered in sections: the chimney, then one side of the roof, the other side, and lastly, I glued and glittered the front of the house.
Again I cheated. You're really supposed to glitter all sides of the house but I just glittered the front and not the sides and back.
I know, my bad, and I'm hoping the Glitter Police won't come after me!

Then I sprinkled Martha Stewart's Glitter over the wet glue and let it sit about 10 seconds.
Next I shook off the excess glitter onto an open manila folder.
The folder makes it easy to pour the glitter back into the little jar to be used again.
Wasn't that fun?
I looked so pretty too! I was sparkling with glitter from head to toe! :)


Now I really cheated here. The instructions said you could make a little bottom around the edges under your house using some kind of light weight wood so you could glue it down to the base.
Well, I don't have any light weight wood so I just cut out a strip of cardstock a little longer than the base of my house, bent the ends and then glued them to the insides of the house.
Now I had a bottom to glue to the base.


This little house I'm showing you doesn't have a fence but I did want to show you how I added fences to some of my houses. I would do this before glittering the bases.
Big Indoor Trains has a pattern for the fences but like I said..I cheat.
So I took out some of my little decorative cutting scissors that looked like the tops of fences and went to town. I cut out two strips from the cardstock and glued them together to make the fence a little sturdier.

I made some little fence posts by cutting out some little bitty pieces from the foam board and hot glued them down to the base where I wanted them. Then I bent my cardstock in the appropriate spots and then hot glued the fence to the post! Easy peasy cheesy!
I'm so talented you know! :)

After this step I applied the glitter where I wanted it on the platforms and allowed it to dry.
Then I glued down the house to the platform.

Now it was time to add little embellishments.
I've been wanting to make these little houses since last Christmas so I've been gathering supplies ever since. I went to Hobby Lobby the other day and they were putting out the Christmas decorations so I bought a few things that are for miniature trees. I snipped off the rings on top with my wire cutters.
Aren't you so impressed with me? I hope you know I'm teasing. Well, sort of! :)

You've just got to have little bottle brush trees to add to some of the bases. Now some folks bleach their trees so they're an off white color but I like the trees just the way they are.
I found the trees at Michaels by the doll house furniture and train accessories.

 Here's the little finished house. I used a white gel pen and added details to the window in my little door.
I glued down a couple of mini trees to sit on each side of the door and added a wreath to the chimney.

 This is the view Santie Claus sees when he's coming in for a landing. :)



 Hope you've enjoyed my cheating ways to make Glitter houses
and I hope you'll make some too.
They're really not hard to make at all and brought me such joy!
♪  Joy to the World! :) ♪ ♫
Now I've got to figure out how I'm going to store all my little houses. 
I must tell you that Mr. Precious has gotten so excited with me about the Glitter houses that he wants to buy a tiny little train to travel through my village! 
That boy! :)


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Be a bunch of sweeties,
Shelia ;)

I'll leave you with a little Note Song ~

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Ev'rywhere you go;
Take a look in the five and ten glistening once again
With candy canes and silver lanes aglow.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Toys in ev'ry store
But the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be
On your own front door.

A pair of hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots
Is the wish of Barney and Ben;
Dolls that will talk and will go for a walk
Is the hope of Janice and Jen;
And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Ev'rywhere you go;
There's a tree in the Grand Hotel, one in the park as well,
The sturdy kind that doesn't mind the snow.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas;
Soon the bells will start,
And the thing that will make them ring is the carol that you sing
Right within your heart
` sung by Johnny Mathis



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