Halloween

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.

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!

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.

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.