Make Your Own Cheryl's Place - A Cottage in the Forest

Recently, I received a request to design a L-shaped house with a porch in the L. Since I also needed to design another beginner kit for the local shop where I sell my pre-cut kits on consignment, I decided I needed to keep it fairly simple. So no bay window, no stairs (only a step) and no multi-angled intricate roofs. Like Holly Manor, while there are multiple roofs in this design, they fit together fairly simply.

I actually designed a L-shaped house as a custom house a few years ago, back before I started sharing my designs. I started with that pattern, then went for a walk around my neighborhood to look for more houses with this design to get ideas. One of our neighbors had bought a L-shaped house last summer and spent the fall adding a porch to their house. It is very cute, but they had added very modern windows to the house. I decided I wanted more of a country feel. In addition, I have been on a bit of a Victorian kick recently, so decided I needed to add some fancy trim.

I built the white Kraft Board model for the local store first. Then, for the first time since breaking my arm, I built an aluminum can model. I had forgotten both how much fun I have working with cans, as well as how much of a pain they can sometimes be (as evidenced by the current cuts on my fingers.)

White Kraft Board model I built for the store

This Is How You Make Cheryl’s Place

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Chery’s Place Pattern Materials

My free pattern for Cheryl’s Place from the A Cottage in the Forest Library – get the password for free by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.
Cardstock, Cardboard (Kraft Board), 30 point Chipboard, or Aluminum Can – your choice! For this blog post model, I used aluminum cans. The model for the store was cut from white Kraft Board.
Translucent Vellum
Glue – If using cardstock, I suggest Art Glitter Glue. For aluminum cans, I use Aleene’s The Ultimate Glue. For cardboard or chipboard houses, I like Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue. I put it in a bottle with a thin metal tip.
A Cutting Machine like a Cricut Maker or Cricut Explore or, if you are going to make the pattern from the PDF, a hand-held craft blade like an X-Acto knife or Cricut TrueControl Knife. I recently bought a new type of hand-held knife called the Excel Knife. It is nice in that it uses the cheaper craft blades, but the blade doesn’t work its way loose like the blade in my X-Acto knife often does.
An Embossing Machine and folders. I didn’t emboss any of my pieces for this model.
Bone folder (optional, but strongly suggested) A bone folder helps you make sharp folds when you are using cardstock or cardboard. I have found it even helps with aluminum cans. I now use my bone folder to deepen score lines all the time.
Decorative papers (optional – for cardboard.)
Multi-surface satin finish acrylic paints or Ranger distress inks (for cardboard or cardstock.) I didn’t use any here, but having finally used both on a cardboard house, these work very well. Both the FolkArt and the Craftsmart paint brands work equally well. If you use distress inks, make sure they dry thoroughly before handling the pieces or you will have stained fingers. I speak from experience.

Steps to Make Cheryl’s Place

Download the Cheryl’s Place pattern from A Cottage in the Forest library.
Import the Cheryl’s Place pattern into your design software.
Cut out the pattern – I use my Cricut Maker. Texture if desired.
Fold the body of the house.
Glue on the window frames and doors. Attach vellum windows.
Glue together the body of the house.
Add the bottom insert.
Glue on the roofs.
Add the porch, columns, railings and steps.
Glue on the peak trim.
Make base and decorate as desired.

How To Make Cheryl’s Place

I have a tutorial for the pre-cut kit for Cheryl’s Place that you can find here in case you wish to look at additional pictures with the model cut out of Kraft Board.

Download the Cheryl’s Place Pattern

Download the Cheryl’s Place pattern from A Cottage in the Forest Library. Don’t forget to unzip it. The pattern is available in multiple formats – as a SVG (scalable vector graphics), DXF (drawing eXchange format) or PDF file. Currently, I do not have a Silhouette or Brother Machine to test the corresponding files. If you have problems using those files please let me know so I can troubleshoot what might be going wrong. I do now include a 1″ square in with all of my SVG files. Scale the pattern so that the square is 1″ to make the building in the size it was designed. Of course the wonderful thing about SVG files is that you can easily scale them to make your building whatever size you would like.

Import the Cheryl’s Place Pattern Into Design Software

As of this blog post, a Cricut Design Space update broke the attached score lines. You will need to go through the pattern in Design Space and change the score lines to Score and then attach them to their object. I am still designing so that if someday Design Space fixes their problem score lines and drawings import as actual score lines and drawings attached to their object, though I have pretty much lost hope of that ever happening.

Here is a great tutorial from Jennifer Maker’s website on attaching score lines. I have started making all of my score lines red so that you can tell that they are intended to be are score lines.

Cut out all of your cardstock, Kraft Board or aluminum can pieces using my pattern. If you are using cardboard and don’t intend to glue glitter or decorative papers onto your house, I suggest visiting Lucy Foxworth’s blog at Paper Glitter Glue where Lucy explores multiple ways to paint and texture your cardboard house.

Refer to the PDF I included with the svg pattern for the name of each of the pieces you need to cut out. Texture your pieces using your embossing machine and texture folders if desired.

Fold the Body of the House

Fold each of the body pieces towards the back or inside (mountain folds),except the left tab of the side piece, which you will fold towards you (valley fold.)

Glue on the Window Frames and Doors. Attach Vellum Windows.

Glue all window frames and the doors in place. There is a score line on the back to aid in placing the back door. At this time you can also add the shutters, or leave them off if you prefer the look of the windows without them.

Glue the vellum in place if you are using it.

Glue Together the Body of the House

Glue the body together. Glue the sides together first, then the roof flaps.

Add the Bottom Insert

Check the fit of the bottom insert piece, adjusting any of the fold lines as necessary. You may need to trim the corners. Glue in the bottom insert piece now as it will help to help to stiffen and square the walls of the building. I like to start at the inside corner. Once I know the fit is right, I run the needle tip of my glue bottle between the bottom insert and the sides, making sure each side is glued securely before moving on to the next.

Glue on the Roofs

Glue on the main roof, aligning the cutout for the wing roof.

Glue on the wing roof.

Glue on the porch roof, attaching its tab to the underside of the wing roof. Do not glue the side of the porch roof to the house.

Add the Porch, Columns, Railings and Steps.

Fold the porch. Glue to the front of the building.

Start gluing on your columns. While the column against the building at the back of the porch is optional, it should be full height. You can cut the other three front columns shorter depending on how much you want the porch roof to angle down. I cut them to be slightly over 1 3/4″ tall. Place the columns where you think they look the best. I placed them in from the edge of the porch.

Once you have glued on your columns, cut the porch railings to fit and glue between the columns. If you want the railing to be above the floor of the porch, use a coffee stir stick or several pieces of cardboard glued together to hold the railing at the correct height as the glue dries.

Glue the front and back steps in place.

Glue on the Peak Trim.

Place a bead of glue along the edges of each peak. Hold the peak trim in place until the glue dries. If you have difficulty with this, glue the trim onto one side of the peak, dry, then glue the trim to the other side of the peak.

Lastly, glue on the chimney if you want one.

Make Base and Decorate As Desired

I’ve included a fence pattern in with the SVGs.

Enjoy making Cheryl’s Place! I would love to see your finished design. Please share a photo of it with me by emailing me at Jackie@acottageintheforest.com.