Build your Christmas village one can at a time
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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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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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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I’ve met another generous designer who is willing to share his designs! Steven Leeds designs traditional Putz buildings using CAD and cuts them out of chipboard. He was posting his patterns in PDF form in a Facebook group we both belong to, and people began to ask for his files in SVG format. I volunteered to convert them so they would work in Cricut Design Space, and since Facebook wouldn’t allow me to share SVGs, host the files on my site. Steven has plans to increase his North Pole Village, and I will add additional patterns into my library when he does.
Steven has given me his permission to change his patterns to resize, add window frames & doors, etc. I will begin to do so as I find the time, of course resizing them to fit with the Tim Holtz Village houses. For each of those I will write a tutorial blog post. I probably won’t modify them all, so if you have a request for a specific building let me know.
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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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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.
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Also, wherein I make my first cardboard house and glitter it! Instructions and supplies on how to glitter your own Putz house below.
A few months ago, I met Teri Hanson of The Covered Chipboard through an online Facebook group. Teri also designs Putz-style buildings, and back in October I reviewed her pattern for the Halloweenie Town Dead Inn. Teri approached me with the idea for a joint venture to produce high quality Putz-style kits for people who do not have cutting machines. Shortly thereafter we decided to also offer SVGs of the patterns for people who want to cut their own. Teri’s vision was for us to take turns to produce original and exclusive patterns that would be different than any of the kits or patterns you can find on Etsy. Thus Putz House Monthly was born. Each month we will take turns designing a house or a shop building. The building will be available for only that month, and then the kit or the pattern will be retired for at least a year. Though each of the kits or patterns can be purchased on a monthly basis, we also offer 3, 6 or 12 month subscriptions. Only with the 12 month subscription can you have access to any of the previous months kits and patterns. At the end of 2021, we will have produced 6 houses and 6 shops that YOU will have built and decorated for your village.
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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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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.
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