3D Street Lamp

Ever have that dream where you are running as fast as you can, but you just can’t get anywhere? I have felt like that ever since I broke my arm at the end of August. I had this schedule for all the great patterns I wanted to make this year, and I have barely made a dent. The good news is that I don’t have to do a lot of brainstorming about what patterns to work on in 2022. I am just rolling over this year’s list.

Every once in a while, though, someone writes me with a specific request. If it is for a building, I put it on my very long list of to-dos. If it is for a village accessory, I give more thought to bumping it up the list. About three weeks ago I got a request for a 3D street lamp. My first thought was that I could make one using the slot method I have been using for the trees. I played around with a couple of designs but wasn’t too excited. There are battery operated street lamp sets made by Lemax that you can add to your holiday village. I too wanted to make street lamps that would light up.

I ruminated on it for a while, cut a whole bunch of patterns that didn’t work, and then suddenly it clicked. I made a lamp post that is hollow, so you can push fairy lights up into the lamp. Run the fairy lights under the bases, and suddenly you have a Main Street lit from one end to the other!

Since I am months behind in my need to design a bonus pack for Putz House Monthly I decided to make several different styles for the bonus pack, and also one style to post for free here on my website. Keep reading to the bottom of the post if you want to find out how to purchase the pattern for the Putz House Monthly styles of street lamps.

Two of the street lamp styles I’ve designed for the Putz House Monthly Bonus Pack. These are led fairy light ready also.

I used Stardream Metallic 105 lb / 284 gsm Cover Cardstock for my models in 2 different colors, Onyx and Bronze. The bronze 8 1/2 x 11 sheets are currently sold out on Amazon but hopefully will be back soon. The Bronze 12 x 12 pack is still available. Since the cardstock already has a metallic sheen, it was perfect for the street lamps. The cardstock is solid core and double sided.

You can buy many different fairy lights from Amazon, battery operated and plug in, but I link to my favorite ones by Govee in the supply list below. It has a USB plug so that you can either attach it to a power supply if you have one available, or to a rechargeable power pack when you do not. It also has a remote. I can set up my village with each building and their street lamps on a base with holes drilled through to the bottom of the base and string the fairy lights from hole to hole and base to base. Then I plug it into my power supply and use the remote to turn on my entire village at once. There are several different modes, including steady on and twinkle. These lights also have a timer, and five different brightness levels. Lastly, the wire is silvery white, so it is easier to hide.

The fairy lights come in two lengths, 33 feet and 66 feet. I used the 33 foot length with multiple leds in each of the buildings in the store display I made below, and have enough extra leds left over that I can easily add in street lamps. For home I bought the 66 foot length. It is longer than I currently need, but I roll up the extra and hide it in a cavity under one of my bases. That way I can continue to add more buildings (and street lamps!) to my village.

Though the street lamps are sized to fit with the Original Tim Holtz Village, like any SVG pattern it can be resized to fit the size of your village. I also thought it would be fun to make street lamp ornaments for my Christmas tree, but haven’t tried to do so yet. If anyone makes some ornaments, please send me a picture!

Below is the picture of the Putz House Monthly Bonus Pack I finally released. All of the lamps, including the ones on the walls, can be lit using fairy lights. For readers of my blog, if you prefer the street lamps from the Putz House Monthly bonus pack but don’t want to buy the entire pack, I split the pattern into two, with the Garden Walls and Street Lamps in one pattern, and the Victorian Kiosk, Fountain and Birdbath in the second. I will soon be adding kits for anyone who doesn’t have a cutting machine. Anyone who purchased the 2021 yearly subscription to Putz House Monthly does not need to buy the patterns as you will receive the complete digital bonus pack for free.

Far too many patterns I have promised are very overdue. Once again I feel like I am running as fast as I can and not getting anywhere, in large part because I decided on a very complex building for my December Putz House Monthly pattern that has a lot of angles that aren’t going together easily, and I had family visiting since early December so I didn’t have as much time to work on it as I would like. Teri and I have decided not to continue the Putz House Monthly subscriptions into 2022. Both Teri and I have had a lot of challenges in 2021, and can’t maintain the pace of publishing a house per month. In my case I was trying to do two, one here and one every other month for Putz House Monthly, and really fell down at meeting the deadlines in both places. We will continue to sell the current digital Putz House Monthly patterns on the Putz House Monthly website as well as our own websites, and will occasionally offer new, more advanced patterns for sale on the PHM website too.

The five building I designed for Putz House Monthly so far. All of the patterns are for sale in my shop on this website. My digital patterns, as well as Teri’s patterns, can also be found on the Putz House Monthly Website. They are not available as PDFs.

How You Make the 3D Street Lamp

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Materials to Make 3D Street Lamp

My free pattern for the 3D Street Lamp from the A Cottage in the Forest Library – get the password for free by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.
100 lb. White Cover Cardstock, Stardream Metallic 105lb / 284 gsm Cover Cardstock, or aluminum cans – your choice!
Translucent Vellum. I used an Ochre colored vellum for my models as it has a warm color even when the led lights aren’t turned on. You can also use gold shimmer vellum.
Glue – for the Cover Cardstock I like Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue. I put it in a bottle with a thin metal tip. For aluminum cans, I use Aleene’s The Ultimate Glue.
A Cutting Machine like a Cricut Maker or Cricut Explore or, if you are going to make the pattern from the PDF, a hand-held craft blade like an X-Acto knife or Cricut TrueControl Knife. I recently bought a new type of hand-held knife called the Excel Knife. It is nice in that it uses the cheaper craft blades, but the blade doesn’t work its way loose like the blade in my X-Acto knife often does.
Bone folder (optional, but strongly suggested.) A bone folder helps you make sharp folds when you are using cardstock or cardboard. I have found it even helps with aluminum cans. I now use my bone folder to deepen score lines all the time.
Metallic acrylic paint in the color of your choice (optional, it you use white cardstock.)
Govee Warm White Fairy Lights.

How To Make The 3D Street Lamp

Download the 3D Street Lamp Pattern

Download the 3D Street Lamp pattern from A Cottage in the Forest Library. Don’t forget to unzip it. The pattern is available in multiple formats – as a SVG (scalable vector graphics), DXF (drawing eXchange format) or PDF file. I now include a 1″ square in with all of my SVG files. Scale the pattern so that the square is 1″ to make the street lamps in the size they were designed. Of course the wonderful thing about SVG files is that you can easily scale them to make your street lamps whatever size you would like.

Import the 3D Street Lamp into Design Software and Cut

As of this blog post, a Cricut Design Space update broke the attached score lines. You will need to go through the pattern in Design Space and change the score lines to Score and then attach them to their object. I am still designing so that if someday Design Space fixes their problem score lines and drawings import as actual score lines and drawings attached to their object, though I am losing hope.

Cut out all of your pieces using my pattern. I forgot to add the ladder rest bars and the vellum into my picture, but they are included in the pattern.

Fold and Assemble the Base

The score lines on the base, particularly for the lamp pole, are very close together. I suggest scoring them deeper, then using a straight edge like a ruler to help fold them. I often use a jewelry plier to grasp the cardstock and help me fold it.

Glue together the lamp pole.

Glue together the base. I suggest gluing it into a square and then using your fingers to fold all of the tabs into place. Don’t forget to add a dab of glue to the tabs at the bottom of the lamp pole where it enters the base. Once I glued all of the sides together, I inserted a skewer from the bottom to help push each of those tabs tight against the sides of the base.

Glue on the bottom piece with the hole.

Assemble the Lamp

Glue vellum to the back side of each of the lamp pieces. This is the side that does not have the score line at the top. Then fold the top of each lamp piece back towards the vellum (valley fold.)

Add a thin line of glue to one side of one lamp piece, from the peak down to the bottom, but not across. Place a 2nd piece on top of this piece, being careful to align your edges. I found it helpful to press the edges down with my jewelry pliers or tweezers. Repeat with the other 2 pieces.

Now carefully open up each of the 2 sides of your lamp. I gently pressed them down on the table. Once again add a thin line of glue on one of the pieces and attach the two sides together. At this point you may need to add a dab of glue at the top and press all of the edges together.

Glue the lamp onto your lamp pole. You can also glue on the ladder rest bars I include in the pattern, though with this style I personally like the street lamp better without them. The hole in the base and the lamp posts are large enough to accommodate the doubled fairy light wire so you can push the little fairy light to the top of the pole.

That’s it! Enjoy adding your 3D Street Lamps to your Holiday Village! I would love to see pictures of your village using the street lamps. Please share photos with me by emailing me at Jackie@acottageintheforest.com.