Greenhouse Accessories
When I published the second of Cheryl’s patterns for her two greenhouses, I promised a post with some accessories for the greenhouses.
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3D Mailboxes
While I have been steadily working on models and tutorials for more house designs, I also have several other models I have previously made that I need to finish landscaping. For one of them I wanted a US Mail drop box. While I thought I could cut one out by hand fairly quickly, I realized that it might be an accessory other people would want for their village, particularly if you made Teri Hanson’s Post Office that she designed for Putz House Monthly. You can’t have a Post Office without mail drop boxes out front!
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3D Street Lamp
Every once in a while, 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!
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3D Spooky Trees
Just in time for Halloween, here are 3D spooky trees designed using the slot method. With my previous posts, 3D Leafy Trees, and 3D Evergreen Trees II, there are now 15 different trees using this method that you can make to decorate your village.
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3D Evergreen Trees II
After making the patterns for the 3D Leafy Trees this summer using the slot method, I decided that I needed to update my prior patterns for 3D Evergreen trees to use the same method. I ended up updating 3 of the previous patterns and making 2 new patterns. As we head towards fall I hope to make more winterscapes, and I like to use evergreen trees for winter villages.
Since I’ve broken my arm and can’t use more than the tips of my fingers, I also had to come up with models I could do one-handed. At least I thought I could do these one-handed, but even holding them in my left fingertips as I tugged down the slots with my right hand ended up being too much stress on my left arm for now. I do want to make a set of spooky trees for Halloween, but may need to wait until someone can help me make the models.
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3D Leafy 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. This time I tried experimenting with a slot method with leafy trees, and for the most part it works well.
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3D Outhouse
While I am still working on a building pattern for April, I thought I would sneak in this pattern for a little outhouse.
For Christmas each year, I make a different miniature (less than 2″ high) aluminum can building ornament for each of my nephews. This last Christmas, I had thought to make a schoolhouse for them, but my sister mentioned that her boys hadn’t actually been in school since early March – so she didn’t think it fit the circumstances. Getting in the spirit of what fit 2020 best, I made the boys little miniature outhouses. I even cut up toilet paper and made a miniature roll for each outhouse, using part of a toothpick to roll up the toilet paper. Of course, I probably should have had empty rolls in each outhouses to commemorate the great TP shortage of 2020.
Though I have been in a Victorian mood recently and hence added lots of trim to my my outhouse, the pattern works fine without the trim too.
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3D Park & Garden Benches
This week someone in one of the Putz House Facebook groups asked for a bench to go with a building they had made. I couldn’t remember if the person asked for a park bench or a garden bench, so I made both! The sides of each bench are interchangeable, and since I couldn’t decide which seat I made for the garden bench I liked best, I included all four.
These patterns can be cut out of Kraft Board, though I also really liked the look of the 100 lb. cover cardstock. Of course they are even more fun made out of aluminum cans!
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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.
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3D Sleds
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.
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