home is where the heart is

Hi everyone, today I am on the Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts Blog sharing these valentine putz houses.
 I love decorating my house for the various holidays throughout the year; with Valentine's day just around the corner, I thought it would be a lot of fun to create a small vignette of sweet putz.

The GSLC chipboard house ornament kit makes these super simple to create, and you can let your imagination go with all of the details. Each kit contains the pieces for one house, including a bottom with access flap in case you want to put a battery operated tea light inside. The houses have holes in the roof for hanging; however, since I will be using mine in a home decor display, I have simply covered the holes. I use some of the additional house parts that are available, like the house ornament porch, the house ornament window trims, and the the house ornament chimney and dormers. There are even more pieces that can be incorporated that you may be interested in, available in the shop.

The first step is constructing the basic house. The house ornament kit arrives flat. The pieces should be carefully removed from the surround. Run a thin line of glue along the edges and then secure the tabs into the slots and allow to dry. I suggest adding small pieces of mica or acetate on the inside at the window locations before gluing the roof in place. (This is a step I did not include on my houses, but looking back wish that I had. Having the windows sealed would be helpful when adding the glitter to the outside surfaces.)

When the three house kits are assembled, the next step is deciding which additional features to add to each house. The chimney and dormers set includes two dormers and one chimney. These can all be used on one house or split up among the houses. You can see that I use the chimney on one house and two dormers on another, while my third house uses a full set, two dormers and the chimney, as well as the porch. The window trims are added later. Location and placement of the additional house features is entirely up to you, simply glue them in place with a craft glue and allow to dry.

 
With the additional features in place, It is time to paint the houses. [Note: I recommend attaching the window trims AFTER the initial paint coat] I select colors to represent the Valentine's holiday: pinks, blush, victorian velvet, and cameo as well as brushed pewter. I paint directly on the chipboard, two light coats, allowing time to dry in between each coat. When the base coats are completely dry, I add the painted window trims to the houses with glue. [Note: a pair of tweezers is very handy during this step.] It is much easier to paint the trims prior to attaching them to the house.

 

Using a paintbrush and distress collage medium, I paint the areas where I want the glitter to stick. It is easiest to do one roof plane/side of the house at a time. The degree that the house is glittered is entirely up to you. I use a super fine clear glitter (Distress clear rock candy) since the houses are small. You could use colored glitter if you prefer. A more chunky glitter would give an entirely different appearance. I prefer the look of a fine coat of glitter which allows the details to show. I want each of my houses to be a little different, so one house is only glittered on the roof and I added other embellishments to the exterior walls. One of the other houses is covered completely in glitter, while the third is only glittered on the walls, dormers and chimney.

I added extra details by incorporating some X & O sequins along the eaves, a large heart brad at the circular window, heart trims as a wainscoting, and even added shingles to the roof on one of the houses. For my roof shingles, I used painted die cuts from the village rooftops die; however, Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts makes a wide variety of shingle styles that would work very well.

My putz houses are arranged on an antique silver serving tray with glass glitter and dyed bottlebrush trees to create a sweet valentine vignette. I hope you are inspired to create your own putz houses, they really are so much fun to make and adorn, and can be done up in any style you can imagine.

Thank you so much for stopping by today,
I really appreciate it.
~Ann

supplies used:
decorative heart brad
Distress collage medium
Distress glitter: clear rock candy
Distress paint:
brushed pewter, picked raspberry, spun sugar, victorian velvet
DecoArt acrylic paint:
cameo blush
  Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts:
House Ornament Kit (x3), House Ornament Porch, House Ornament Chimney and Dormers (x2)
House Ornament Window Trims (x2)
sequins
Tim Holtz / Sizzix alterations dies: village rooftops