A Home Crafting Pastime
Infinite customization is possible because you can purchase craft paper or design your own craft paper. For instance, you can scan in images and adjust them in an Adobe or other graphics program before printing a sheet (upon which the pattern will later be printed on the reverse side). You can paste additional craft materials such as stickers,buttons, wooden appliques,jewels, beads,and charms.
☆UPDATE! {If you are a return visitor, there is a new link under Special Techniques for some terrific craft papers that can be printed out. There are additional houses to enjoy: a Minnesota house, a House of the Rising Sun, and a House of Cards}
For the Christmas holidays, I sometimes hang the houses on a tree along with a small assortment of commercially purchased house ornaments. This gives a small tree a unified theme. People will look at the ornaments. Prepare to be surprised by a couple of the houses.
If you like stories, then after you are done making the paper houses, you might want to visit my Lens about Parker the stuffed rabbit who managed to sneak onto this page. Judge for yourself what kind of job he is doing running a company. Perhaps he is doing a better job than what some of our CEO's are doing! For those who like collectibles, check out the spotlighted White House Christmas ornament with a house motif.
Templates for Paper Houses
Link to these patterns for building your homes. House of Blues Pictured.
Substantial Rectangular House
(The second page for this is the same url with a 'box2.gif')
CubbyHouse
http://whisperingwind.co.uk/index.php/paper-houses/how-to-make/
(sorry you have to type in the URL here). Choose from Red,Orange,Yellow,Green,Blue,or Violet to be printed on the top side of your blank or patterned paper. The House of Blues example used this pattern.
Habitat House
Wintertime House
Chimney house
Luminaria Inspiration for houses
The cutout portions were used to suggest outlines for drawing with markers and the exterior shape was used as a cutting guide. The back portion had to be improvised to support the sides and front of the structure.
Maison de Picarde
Don't Try to Make this one yourself. This is a Paper House you can order that you can actually live in. You can sleep and cook in 390 square feet in a modular home made from recycled paper.
☆NEW
Minnesota house template
This is beyond the scope of this lens as there are 22 pages of printouts but it is offered here as a link.
Table of Contents
List of Materials you might use for this project
In addition to a computer/internet and printer you need
A selection of craft papers or even colored paper for printing (cut to 8 1/2 x 11 size). The downside on the papers is that they are less creative than making your own design with a scanner and Adobe photoshop. The upside of commercial papers is that you conserve the printer cartridge ink.
Raffia and sandpaper for making specialty roofs.
Fine marking pens to add window features. (You draw these on the houses).
Various jewels,charms,glue on wood motifs,small ribbon flowers for landscaping the outside of houses, small rock gems for door knobs.
I have personally visited Shipwreck Beads in Lacey Washington for charms for projects, but they have a wonderful online catalog for orders. Did you know that Shipwreck Beads has the world's largest selection of beads? I order supplies to support several crafts and store them for multiple projects. For instance, I used to make pins from vintage jewelry pieces and modern beads and charms.
Glue. Needle and thread if you want to put a loop for hanging the house on a tree.
Ruler for scoring bendable edges.
Any architectural photos in magazines that you might utilize for your paper house collection. I found a drawing of an Arab dwelling from an expired Calendar with the theme of the Persian poet, Rumi. I cut this building out as a base for a house and embellished it with craft jewels and ribbons.
None of the materials here are from a preassembled kit, but are rather ordinary supplies that one might collect for a hobby kit.
A scanner for your computer and Adobe Photoshop will provide additional options for customizing paper houses.
ASSEMBLY EXAMPLE:
I used a scanner to scan in sheet music, printed the sheet music onto photographic paper and then printed the house pattern onto the same photographic paper as I wanted to make a "House of Blues" themed musical house.
I glued a record charm to the roof.
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Two Sample Houses - House with Chimney and Cubbyhouse
Shown on the left is a raffia roofed house. Not shown is a picture of Paul Gaughin staring out the window on the other side of the house.
We apologize to the crafter looking at this display. On the CubbyHouse to the right, a large upside down rabbit is imprinted on the roof. This rabbit goes by the name of Parker and he believes that he is a Web Hopper. You have heard of a Web Crawler. Well, this fellow loves to move from web page to web page insinuating his way into the topic. He must have become imbedded in the custom paper we printed the house pattern on. The vines and the shrubs are from stickers.
The rabbit already has his own page about the story of his career but this did not stop Parker from doing a movie review about another stuffed animal.. And he crept onto a Lens about love songs. But this just goes to show you that you can print just about any family totem on these houses.
More Inspired Houses - with a foreign and a seasonal flavor.
Arab House, Winter House, Picardy House,Luminaria House
I do not read French. However, I was able to assemble the Maison de Picarde, and I added a lock charm to its front door.
The Arab House is from a discarded Calendar (with a back from construction paper). The Luminaria house has a wooden tree from Michael's and the windows have glitter.
And Don't Overlook Two More House Templates, one of these from the movies.
Home Sweet Home and a Disney House shown with a purchased commercial Green House ornament
Amazon - Supplies and Ideas
If you wish to also use the House decorating motif for a bed covering or wall hanging out of fabric, you might like the quilt block of a house.
Special Techniques - Cutting tools and textures and printable papers
Using some tools and materials is very experimental. You don't know what you may get until you try it.
If you have some craft scissors that cut patterned edges, you can construct trim for the roofs(from craft paper) as I did here in the Cantina. The cantina house used a flower square from a free online collection.(one of many sources available online) The design was duplicated many times in Adobe Photoshop. Essentially a small square was tiled using Adobe on an 81/2 by 11 printable electronic canvas. The wooden cactus came from the wood section of a craft store.
Some fantastic printable craft papers updated February,2012.
☆UPDATE!
If you wish to do a village in black and whites, you might look at these special papers at the
Oriental Trading Company.
The Cubby Pattern house appears yet again. The paper had a Georgia O'Keefe imprint on it and it suggests the Southwest. Windows were drawn in colored pencil. The door is an experiment in beads and it helped to stabilized the beads with some clear craftspray after they were glued with Elmer's. The roof is an experiment in sandpaper.
The German house is from Grundschule Pretzchendorf.
House of Cards AND House of the Rising Sun
The House of the Rising Sun (in Cubby pattern in the paper version)
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
It has been the ruin of many a poor girl
And me, oh, God, for one
The paper for the House of Cards was from playing cards arranged on a flatbed scanner. Shown here is also a Minnesota house made directly
from the pattern (which is in the template list above).
The Joy of Your Own Christmas
Mentioning another craft here!
Lotus Landry has a second lens devoted to crafting.
If you like jewelry pins, check out
collage pins
Guestbook Comments About the House Patterns
Please let us know if you find additional URLs for paper houses. Perhaps you have some ideas for unique materials.
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WriterJanis
Apr 21, 2012 @ 2:41 am | delete
- What a very fun craft idea.
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goo2eyes
Mar 25, 2012 @ 1:37 pm | delete
- little girls and boys will be happy to have these. thank you for sharing.
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GOT
Mar 19, 2012 @ 10:27 am | delete
- Nice houses!
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Bryoni
Mar 16, 2012 @ 11:44 pm | delete
- These are lovely!
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skiesgreen
Mar 3, 2012 @ 5:40 pm | delete
- Intriguing idea. But what about storage? Great lens now blessed and featured on Blessed by Skiesgreen 2012. Hugs
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getmoreinfo
Feb 29, 2012 @ 3:47 am | delete
- These paper houses are adorable, great for crafters and artists.
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Upon-Request
Feb 27, 2012 @ 9:52 pm | delete
- I've never made paper houses, but they look like a great at-home craft idea.
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leeleon
Feb 19, 2012 @ 5:43 am | delete
- I like your Paper House. I will try it at home.
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JupiterJustice
Feb 18, 2012 @ 4:05 pm | delete
- Very nice crafting skills I am very inspired by this lens. Thank you!
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jadehorseshoe
Jan 21, 2012 @ 6:37 pm | delete
- Inspired to try it, but I lack "talent."
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prosperity66 Jan 16, 2012 @ 3:39 am | delete
- Oh all these cute little paper houses make me want to make some for my own home.
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JoyfulReviewer
Jan 6, 2012 @ 4:35 pm | delete
- Interesting craft ... looks like fun. Thanks for the helpful instructions.
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klaird
Jan 6, 2012 @ 11:23 am | delete
- These are super cute! I love the idea. I've featured your lens on my "50 Craft Ideas for Adults", although I think kids would love to play with these also and could help with the decorating process! Great Job!
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Papier Dec 3, 2011 @ 7:39 pm | delete
- I can't think of a better kid-time activity than to make and personalize some of these houses.
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poddys
Nov 27, 2011 @ 2:17 pm | delete
- These are really cute, nicely done, blessed.
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This So Crafty page written by
LotusLandry
Never underestimate the power of hypertext to tell a story.
I am a newbie novelist. Find out more about me on www.matooskie.com
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