Old Town Houses

Hello friends! As you might know, I love to make little houses, and I keep adding to my collection of houses. A few days ago we walked around in the Old Town of Stockholm, which is really beautiful and today's set of three houses were inspired by that. It's a Sizzix tutorial.

I was so happy to see that there are even more house dies added to Tim Holtz Sizzix Village collection. Today I used the Village Brownstone die, which makes a tall narrow house, perfect for my purposes. I also used the new Village Rooftops and Village Bungalow dies, as well as the original Village Dwelling. These houses are easy to make and I didn't add so many details, since I wanted them to remain quite simple. 

In the Old Town you have a lot of very narrow medieval alleyways (sometimes you can reach across them), cobbled streets, and old buildings. Most of the houses have a smooth finish in various warm colours; orange, yellow, brown and red. I have a lot of photos from Old Town, this particular one was taken on Stortorget (the Big Square), just to give you an idea of what it looks like. 

Here you can see the houses and alleyways, straight from the front. These were such fun to make. 

I started by die cutting the Village Brownstone three times from patterned paper pad covers, which are the perfect weight for this die. As you can see, I die cut two pieces without the arched window/door, for the red house, for the sake of variation. They were coated with gesso and when dry, painted with Distress Paints. When the paint was dry, I added some dry-brushing and finally a coat of Vintage Distress Collage Medium, which gave them a great matte old look.

The houses were stamped in just a few places with a crack stamp from the Ultimate Grunge set,

The roofs were and chimneys were die cut from kraft-core cardstock. Two of the roofs were dry embossed and sanded. For the third one, I die cut one of the patterns from the Village Rooftops die. There are three patterns on the die.

The window frames, door and doorstep were also die cut from kraft-core cardstock. The shutter windows and the small window are from the Village Bungalow die. (The Village Bungalow was initially called 'Village Cottage', so if you see that name, don't be confused, it is the same die). The door and doorstep come from Village Dwelling, and the rest of the frames you'll find on the Village Brownstone. Sand all of them.

I like to always add windows to my houses and my favourite surface for that is mica. If you don't have mica, you can get a similar effect with acetate and alcohol ink.

For the base, I cut a piece of mat board and coated it with a thin layer of Paper Mosaic Grout (I wish the Grout came in a larger bottle too, separate from the Mosaic kit, since it is a really cool texture).

The grout was painted with Hickory Smoke and, when dry, dry-brushed with Black Soot.

It is easy to assemble the houses. First glue the mica to the inside of the windows, and add lace curtains if you'd like. Adhere the side flaps of the one part of a house to the other part of the house. And then adhere the second flap.

Once the body of the house is assembled, apply glue to the flaps at the top of the house and position the roof on top. You can press the inside of the flap, to make sure it sticks well.

If you see any joints, add some black paint. Here you can see the lace curtains through the windows.

To assemble this roof, first sand and ink the pieces, then start from the bottom and work your way up. Try to make sure that the tiles are not perfectly lined up - this is easy since the strips are a little wider than the roof. Trim the sides with a craft knife.

 

The chimneys are glued to the roof by applying glue on the two flaps. I left one house without a chimney and gave the middle one two.

The door was glued to the front of the red house and the doorstep placed underneath. I also gave the houses rub-on numbers. A house always needs a number.

I really love the little nook that comes on the Village Bungalow die and you can use it to change the look of the Village Dwelling too. I die cut it from kraft-core and added to just the one side of the roof of the orange house.

It also comes with its own little roof, and a smaller window frame.

This little circle window is so cute! And because there are windows on all the sides of the house, you can see light through the houses.

The long arched window/door is also such a nice detail. Since I wanted mine to be a door, I added a pearl handle.

The houses were glued to the board, leaving almost no space between the orange and red one, and a little more between the red and the yellow one. This is the back of the houses. 

Some of the mice pieces were slightly too small for the windows. Then I like to make it look as if the window is a little broken.

I placed a shutter on each side of the orange house and didn't mind mixing them with ordinary frames. You could also use only shutters.

 

By combining the various details on all the village dies, you can create a large number of different types of houses. These houses can easily be customized by using different colours, or making them for a specific season.

Thank you so much for stopping by today!!

Happy Crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

Sizzix Bigz XL Die - Village Brownstone	Tim Holtz Sizzix VILLAGE BROWNSTONE	Sizzix Bigz Die - Village Bungalow	Tim Holtz Sizzix VILLAGE BUNGALOW	Tim Holtz Sizzix VILLAGE ROOFTOPS
Sizzix Bigz Die - Village Rooftops	Sizzix Village Dwelling Bigz XL Die	Tim Holtz Sizzix VILLAGE DWELLING	Sizzix Texture Fades Embossing Folders 2PK - Dot-Matrix & Gridlock Set	Tim Holtz Sizzix DOT MATRIX & GRIDLOCK
Tim Holtz Sizzix CHECKERBOARD & CRACKED	Sizzix Embossing Folders 2PK - Checkerboard & Cracked Set	Tim Holtz ULTIMATE GRUNGE	Tim Holtz Distress Paint CANDIED APPLE	Tim Holtz FIRED BRICK
Tim Holtz Distress Paint CARVED PUMPKIN	Tim Holtz Distress Paint RUSTY HINGE	Tim Holtz Distress Paint FOSSILIZED AMBER	Tim Holtz Distress Paint GROUND ESPRESSO	Tim Holtz Distress Paint HICKORY SMOKE
Ranger Archival Ink Pad JET BLACK	Dina Wakley Ranger WHITE GESSO	Tim Holtz Distress Collage Medium VINTAGE	Tim Holtz Distress PAPER MOSAIC KIT	Tim Holtz Core'dinations KRAFT CORE NOSTALGIC
Sizzix Little Sizzles - 6" x 13" Mat Board Pack, 6 White Sheets	Tim Holtz LACE Trimmings	Tim Holtz NUMBERS REMNANT RUBS	Big Shot Machine	Sizzix BIG SHOT MACHINE Gray And White
Sizzix CUTTING PAD XL Pair	Sizzix Accessory Cutting Pads, Extended	Cutting Pads, Standard, 1 Pair (Grape)	Sizzix MINT Standard Cutting Pads	Ranger Inkssentials Non Stick CRAFT SHEET
Dina Wakley Ranger PALETTE KNIFE	Tim Holtz Distress COLLAGE BRUSH SET	Ranger Inkssentials GLOSSY ACCENTS	Tim Holtz SANDING GRIP	Tim Holtz Tonic Craft SCISSORS
Tim Holtz Tonic CRAFT KNIFE

InLinkz.com

Additional supplies:
Mica: US ArtQuest