Free Patterns Archives - Page 4 of 4 - A Cottage in the Forest

3D Evergreen Trees

Trees add interest to your holiday village, and 3D trees add depth. You can glue them onto your bases, or scatter them around between your houses. Many people like to use pre-made sisal trees. While you can get them in various sizes, every tree looks the same to me. I want more variety. So I started to make 3D trees by taking 2D tree cutting dies and folding and gluing them together. They are super simple to make and I like the look I get from them.

If you subscribe to Cricut Access you will find many different tree patterns you can use. You will just need to add your own score lines. Not everyone subscribes to Access, however, and each cutting die you buy only gives you one shape and size. I decided to make a few free 3D evergreen tree SVGs that you can use to add to your village. I’ll keep adding more trees with every season.

Make Your Own Auntie B’s House

Cottages, Free Patterns, Houses, Snow Village / December 11, 2020 February 25, 2023

When I started this house I thought to use two of the Tim Holtz village dies I had bought but almost never used – the bay windows of the Village Fixer Upper, and the side addition of the Village Addition. I didn’t get very far before I decided that I wanted taller walls and front stairs, which made the side additions too short, so they had to be replaced. And then I wanted a different window frame style, so decided to replace the bay windows too. Best laid plans and all that. Some day I will use those dies. If you own the Village Fixer Upper and want to use the die, I left the window cutout the size to fit the die, though then the window frames will not match the rest of the house. You could cut off the crossbars of my windows and use the original Tim Holtz window frames if you would prefer. My door, however, I believe is bigger than the one on the Tim Holtz die.

So my simple house became more complex, which is one of the problems I have found with my creations now that I have learned how to design. I may need someone to tap me on the shoulder now and then and rein me back in.

3D Sleds

Free Patterns, Snow Village, Village Accessories / November 24, 2020 July 20, 2022

I wanted to finish decorating my Jolly Farmhouse. I’ve added Christmas lights under the eaves, a street light, and a couple of wreaths with bows. I often add a snowman to my winter houses, but decided a couple of sleds carelessly left in the yard would be appropriate for a farmhouse. I went looking on Cricut Access, but the sleds were all 2D. On Etsy, the only non-Santa 3D sled pattern I could find was $5! I think it is designed to be a large table centerpiece, not a small sled for a holiday village. So I designed my own. These are very easy to make.

Pinterest Pin Picture for Jolly Farmhouse

Make Your Own Jolly Farmhouse

Cottages, Free Patterns, Houses, Snow Village / November 8, 2020 February 25, 2023

A couple of weeks ago I promised to remake the Halloween farmhouse as a Winter Holiday Farmhouse. Everything always seems to take me longer than expected, but hopefully you will like one of the reasons why: I have learned how to make SVG patterns that import into Cricut Design Space with the score lines as score lines instead of cut lines, and with those score lines already attached to their shapes! This not only makes patterns so much easier for you to make, but also for me to design as I no longer have to make separate files with solid and dashed lines. It was a bit of a learning process, with a fair amount of trial and error since I didn’t have anyone who would teach me this new design technique, but I did have a file with the new technique and reverse engineered it.

I will now go back to my previous projects and redesign them using the new technique. Look for version 2.0 for each of the October 2020 or earlier files in the next couple of weeks.

For the Jolly Farmhouse I took the basic shape of my Halloween Janky Farmhouse, changed the style of the popouts, the doors and window frames, and added a porch with steps to the front door. I also included a file for the “snow” in case you want to to use glitter cardstock to add it as an accent. I use HTV (iron on glitter vinyl) that I iron onto aluminum for mine. Lastly, I included a file for a farm fence.

Pinterest Pin Picture for Janky Farmhouse

Make Your Own Janky Farmhouse

Cottages, Free Patterns, Halloween, Houses / October 24, 2020 February 25, 2023

Who else wishes the Halloween season lasted all year? Though many of the houses I make for Halloween can be used for other seasons, I just find that they are more fun to decorate for Halloween. I decided to sneak in one last Halloween house before moving on to winter holiday houses.

The Janky Farmhouse is another collaboration of Shabby Shimmer Designs and A Cottage in the Forest. Again, my pattern is not an exact replica of the sketches Shabby gave me. I changed the proportions a bit so that would size well with the Tim Holtz Village. Shabby also used reproduction Putz windows and had a Putz-style back (round hole in a blank back.) I provide Halloween themed window and door frames, and also offer two options for the back – either the traditional flat Putz back with a hole, or backs with windows and doors so that the Janky Farmhouse looks like it belongs with the Tim Holtz Village and the other buildings I design.

Make Your Own Abandoned Mansion

Cottages, Free Patterns, Halloween, Houses / September 13, 2020 February 25, 2023

I love browsing through miniature houses on Pinterest, Etsy, and Facebook. It is one of my favorite pastimes while I am using my stationary bike, and helps the hour pass by quickly. Many crafters base their designs on old Putz houses from the 1920s and after. While I am not a glitter kind of girl, I still enjoy seeing all the various styles people make. A lot of them are fairly simplistic, but there are more elaborate designs. Recently, I saw a post in a Facebook group where the poster had recreated a disintegrating cardboard Putz house that she thought was probably from the 1950s. Her husband had sketched out a rough pattern on graph paper and she wanted to share the pattern with the group, but she wasn’t sure how to do so. I thought it would be interesting to take someone else’s complicated design from sketch to finished SVG so I volunteered.

Thus the Abandoned Mansion is a collaboration of Shabby Shimmer Designs and A Cottage in the Forest. My pattern is not an exact replica of what she made. I changed the proportions a bit so that would size well with the Tim Holtz Village. Shabby also used reproduction Putz windows and had a Putz-style back (round hole in a blank back.) I provide Halloween themed window and door frames, and also offer two options for the back – either the traditional flat Putz back with a hole, or backs with windows and doors so that the Abandoned Mansion looks like it belongs with the Tim Holtz Village and the other buildings I design.

3D Take-Out Embellishments

Free Patterns, Village Accessories / August 13, 2020 July 20, 2022

When I first started making my Christmas village I only had the original Tim-Holtz dies. All I could vary were the colors. It wasn’t until I found dies for embellishments like trees, fences and animals that I could let my creativity run wild. The addition of an electronic cutting machine opens up an unlimited number of 2D embellishments. Yet it is the 3D embellishments that really makes your Christmas Village come to life.

Last week I shared the pattern for a Fish & Chips shop that could easily be adapted to be a burger joint, deli or taqueria. This week I am sharing the patterns for all of the 3D embellishments that make the Take-Out restaurant so much fun: picnic benches with either an open or partially closed patio umbrella, litter or recycle cans, planters, and the soda or beer sign you can glue onto the front of your take-out restaurant.

Make Your Own Fish & Chips Shop

Cottages, Free Patterns, Shops and Village Buildings / August 4, 2020 February 25, 2023

Perhaps it was the year I spent living in England when I was a teenager, but I am extraordinarily fond of fish & chips. So when a customer reached out to me, explaining that their family owns a fish & chips shop in Dublin and that they wanted a replica to join their existing Lemax village, I was up for the challenge. This replica was demanding as it is a different scale than I usually work with and really reached the maximum size I could make with aluminum cans. I actually offered to make it from cardboard instead of cans but they liked the uniqueness of the aluminum cans (thank goodness, as I can’t paint.)

Of course I also had in the back of my mind that I could scale and simplify the pattern a bit, and offer it here when I was done. While the building itself is a fairly basic rectangle, it does give me the opportunity to introduce some new elements like exploring different ways to make shop signs, printing and drawing on vellum, and joining together two story buildings of different material or textures. And of course, the picnic tables with patio umbrellas are just the cutest embellishment.

Make Your Own Country Cottage

Cottages, Free Patterns, Houses / July 14, 2020 February 26, 2023

The Country Cottage was the first house I designed myself, so it seemed appropriate that it would be the first building pattern I offered. It has long remained one of my favorites. I originally cut the design by hand, then graduated to using Cricut Design Space once I got my Cricut Maker. Now that I have learned how to make SVG files I can share the pattern with you. Included with the SVG file in my library is a PDF pattern as well as a DXF file.

Over time the pattern has changed as I learned more about house styles and the characteristics that define those styles. With the Country Cottage, I specifically changed the window and chimney styles.

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