Make Your Own Sparrow House

Cottages, Free Patterns, Halloween, Houses /

I had a bit of a challenge in deciding on a Halloween building for this year. I am teaching another class locally in October, so I wanted to design a building simple enough that a beginner could finish it in 3 hours. I also wanted to make a building that could be used for multiple seasons. Since I like basing many of my patterns on actual buildings I tried a Google search and decided on the Jack Sparrow House in Helston, Cornwall. This cottage is one of Airbnb’s most wish-listed properties in the UK. With seasonal decorations it could be a witch’s cottage, a fairy house, or a building that could fit into Whoville.

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Make Your Own Barn with Stables

Cottages, Free Patterns, Houses, Snow Village /

I had plans for a different design this month, but my friend Lucy Foxworth emailed me while I was on vacation to ask if I would make a barn pattern for her June Challenge. Of course I didn’t realize that I would be so busy on my vacation that I wouldn’t find a minute to design, but I have been working on it since I got home. Like with my pattern for my Detached Garage, I wanted operable barn doors.

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Make Your Own Detached Garage

Cottages, Free Patterns, Houses /

I received a request to make a garage, and due to this being a very busy month for me, decided a small building like a garage would fit into my schedule nicely. I may well end up making more than one garage pattern, but for the first garage I decided on a detached single car garage with a side covered walkway.

I decided that I also wanted to make the garage door operable, so that you could have the garage door open or closed depending upon whether you want to show off a car in your garage.

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Make Your Own Villa Torre

Cottages, Free Patterns, Houses /

I have had several requests in the last few months to update the Halloween-themed Abandoned Mansion so that it can fit into a Christmas Village. Of course I had hoped to have the pattern finished before Christmas, but alas, that was not in the cards. At first I had intended to just a simple change of the windows and doors and planned on leaving the rest of the building the same, but then Lucy Foxworth of Paper Glitter Glue told me of her Make A Castle Challenge and the next thing I knew I was making a hexagonal tower!

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Make Your Own Gingerbread Tudor

Cottages, Free Patterns, Houses, Snow Village /

For this month’s design, I set myself a challenge: I needed to make a house that was easy enough that children could build it as I am teaching another class in December. At the same time, I wanted to design a building that could look quite different depending upon how you decorated it. I also wanted a building that made me think of Christmas. When mentioning all of this to a friend, she suggested I design a classic half-timber Tudor style building.

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Make Your Own Little Crooked House

Cottages, Free Patterns, Halloween, Houses /

It is time for a new Halloween building! I decided I wanted to make something very different than the realistic looking buildings that I have a tendency to design. I also thought about how precise you have to be in making many of these buildings and decided I wanted to make a house where wacky angles and a lack of precision were celebrated. Hence, the Little Crooked House. If you find yourself lining up the steps or the dormer windows, you are making it wrong! I would really love to see pictures of just how wacky you make your house!

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Make Your Own Beach House

Cottages, Free Patterns, Houses /

While it is still summer I wanted to add a summer-themed house to the collection. My Beach House is not based upon any real building, but instead a recreation of an aluminum can house I made back before I bought a Cricut Maker, roughly based on a picture of a dollhouse I found on the internet. I used the Tim Holtz Village Dwelling die to make the original building, but I had to cut the platform out by hand so I only made it once as it was a fair amount of work. For my SVG I’ve made several changes to the house to make it look less like the Village Dwelling.

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Make Your Own Holly Manor With Bay Windows

Cottages, Free Patterns, Houses /

Last year after my friend Hollie opened a craft boutique locally where she sells my kits on commission, she asked me to design more beginner kits for the store. Holly Manor was the first of these designs, and is very easy to make. Yet almost immediately I had people who read my blog asking for bay windows for the building – an element I consider Intermediate instead of beginner. So I decided to make two story bay windows that you can add to Holly Manor.
Even if you made Holly Manor previously you can add on the bay windows as a later addition. The only other addition I made to the house is a deeper porch with roof instead of a step to the front door.

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Guest Designer Cheryl Sablotny: Make Your Own Moss Lodge

Cottages, Free Patterns, Guest Designers, Houses /

It has been almost a year since I last shared a pattern from a guest designer. I really enjoy working with other designers and wish that more were interested in sharing their patterns. I understand their hesitation, though. First, it is a lot of work to design a pattern to share or sell. I have made as many as 15 drafts of a building before being happy with the design. Also, when you know you are going to share a design you have to measure and be precise – you can’t just make a little change with your scissors and move on. You have to go back and revise your pattern for every little change – sometimes over and over again! Lastly, most designers I meet that don’t have their own blog or sell their patterns are only interested in making their pattern once for their own village and then moving on to the next building. Cheryl and I have spent most of this month working on the pattern and the models for Moss Lodge.

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