I thought it was time to add another store to the village. I love having the houses in my holiday village surround a downtown park lined with businesses. And once again I wanted a real building for my model, so I found a picture of a cute corner store in England that I thought could be used for any kind of shop. While I wanted to make a little bodega like the ones I see when I visit my son in NY, I believe this building could easily adapted to make a coffee shop, little liquor store, or even a restaurant.
The corner store is freestanding, but can be lined up with other businesses to surround your center park. Here I have the Corner Store with two of the patterns I designed for Putz House Monthly, the Victorian Firehouse and the Old Ale House. While those patterns are not free, I have designed one free pattern for a store before, the Fish & Chips Shop. Unfortunately, I sold my model for that one and haven’t made another one yet so couldn’t add it to the picture.
I have been selling my kits in a local shop that belongs to one of my friends. That too happens to be a corner store, and I am going to adapt this pattern to make her a model of her shop. It is different enough that I will also share that pattern when it is finished, giving you a choice of two different corner stores for your village.
This Is How You Make The Corner Store
Size of the finished building including platform will be approximately 2 7/8″ W x 2 7/8″ D x 4 3/4″ H. These measurements do not include the size of the base. I consider this a beginner pattern.
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The Corner Store Pattern Specific Materials
- My free pattern for The Corner Store from the A Cottage in the Forest Library. Design #62. Get the password for free by filling out the form at the bottom of this page
Favorite Materials Supply List
- Cardstock, Cardboard (Kraft Board), 30 point Chipboard, or Aluminum Can – your choice!
- Translucent Vellum or pictures to go in the windows.
- Glue – If using cardstock, I suggest Bearly Art Glue or 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.
- If using chipboard or kraft colored cardboard, start with a base of either Liquitex white gesso or black gesso as primer.
- Decorative papers (optional – for cardboard.)
- Multi-surface satin finish acrylic paints or Ranger Distress Inks or Distress Crayons (for cardboard or cardstock.) 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.
- Glitter Gel Pens. I love these for coloring in small details. The company also carries another set with metallic, neon and fluorescent gel pens.
- Tim Holtz Texture Paste or Tim Holtz Distress Grit Paste to make brick or stone chimneys, walls or sidewalks. I actually prefer grit paste as it makes my stonework look rougher or more craggy than texture paste.
- Stencils to use with the texture or grit paste to make stone or brickwork. Be careful to buy or make stencils that fit the scale of your building. For brickwork I often use the Honey Bee Salvaged Bricks stencil or the Stretcher Bricks stencil I cut myself. For stonework I usually use either the Chimney Stone stencil I made myself, or the Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Mini Set #28 Stencils.
- 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.
- A Cutting Machine like a Cricut Maker or Cricut Explore
- A hand-held craft blade like an X-Acto knife or Cricut TrueControl Knife. I also have a 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. You will also need a cutting mat or a glass media mat to cut on.
- Metal Edged Ruler with cork backing
- An Embossing Machine and folders.
Steps to Make The Corner Store
- Download The Corner Store pattern from A Cottage in the Forest library.
- Import The Corner Store pattern into your design software.
- Cut out the pattern – I use my Cricut Maker. Texture if desired.
- Fold the body of the building.
- Glue on the window frames and doors. Attach vellum windows.
- Glue together the body of the building.
- Add the bottom insert.
- Glue on the roof.
- Add the step and signs.
- Make base and decorate as desired.
How To Make The Corner Store
Download The Corner Store Pattern
Download The Corner Store pattern from A Cottage in the Forest Library. It is design #62. Don’t forget to unzip it. The pattern is available in multiple formats – as a SVG (scalable vector graphics), DXF (drawing eXchange format), as a studio3 file for Silhouette, or as PDF file. I now include a 1″ square in with all of my SVG, DXF and Studio3 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.
Choose between whether you want a regular back with the light hole at the bottom of the building (this is the option I make below) or if you want to use the Putz Back, where the light hole is in the back of the building.
Import The Corner Store 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 Building
Fold each of the body pieces towards the back or inside (mountain folds), except the front, which will have both mountain and valley folds, as shown below. It you are going to use your stencil and grit paste to make bricks, do so now.
Glue on the Window Frames and Door. Attach Vellum Windows.
Glue the window frames and the door onto the lower front piece. If you would prefer the windows to be one large window, cut out the cross bars on the window frame.
Glue the trim onto the lower front piece, centering the trim under the windows.
Glue the window frames onto the upper front piece and the back. If you stenciled on bricks you may have to trim around the windows a little bit so the bricks don’t extend into you window space..
Glue the vellum in place if you are using it. You may want to use pictures of store content in the large windows. I’ve seen models made using pictures cut out of magazines, as well as ones printed out on a printer.
Glue Together the Body of the House
Fold and glue together the upper front. Glue together the two flaps on the bottom (will become door roof), then glue the roof flaps. If the flaps over the door are of a thick material, you may prefer cutting off the right flap and gluing the left flap in place. Hold until the glue catches.
Glue the lower front to the upper front. I glued one side, waited until it was dry, then glued the other side. glue the tab above the door to the flap above it.
Glue the side walls together.
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 Roof
Glue on the roof. Though I provide the pattern for a peaked roof, you may want to cut out a square for a flat roof instead if the rest of the shops on your block have flat roofs.
Glue on the Step and Signs
The step has tight folds. I used a lighter weight cardstock to make it.
I provide 3 blank signs in the pattern. Use the text boxes to personalize them.
Make Base and Decorate As Desired
I kept my model simple for now, but I was thinking some produce bins would look cute in front of this store, as well as a sign sticking out from the building from the second floor
Enjoy making the Corner Store yourself! I would love to see your finished design. Please share a photo of it with me by emailing me at Jackie@acottageintheforest.com
MAKER’S GALLERY FOR THE CORNER STORE
FREE CUT FILES & PATTERN FOR THE CORNER STORE
Download the Corner Store Pattern
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Get the password for the library with the free Corner Store pattern and SVG/DXF/PDF/Studio3 files here by filling out this form:
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Hi from the U.K. I just wanted to say that your little corner shop is exactly what you would of found here in England. When we were first married, 36 years ago, our first house was sort of opposite, at an angle, an old fashioned corner shop. It looked exactly as you would expect, things hanging outside and then when you walked through the door, it was like an Aladdins cave inside. The door had a little bell and as you stepped through the old man or his wife would step through from their living room at the back to serve you. He was even very grumpy too. The shop was packed with all sorts of things not a tiny space anywhere. The best thing for us was they sold ice creams an ice lollies in the summer so, if you fancied one at anytime of the day or night, up till about 10:00pm, you just popped across the road. My Dad loved it too and every time they visited he would say “Do you need any milk?” Before you could answer he was out the door and off to the little shop. Unfortunately his wife became unwell and they had to sell up. Such a sad day for all the house’s around the little shop. The new owners converted into a normal house. As you can tell, it made a big impression on me. I had grown up in a small country side town so living in a city was very new to me. I was only 21 and I think there was something reassuring about that little shop. If we ever needed anything we could just pop across to the shop. Of course we still have corner shops, we have one where we live now but they are different now. Usually mainly newsagents with a bit of food and drink as well. Not the Aladdins cave of old. Of course they became a life line during the pandemic for many people. I’m so pleased you wanted to add one to your town. x