Make Your Own Little Crooked House

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!

This Is How You Make The Little Crooked House

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The Little Crooked House Pattern Materials

My free pattern for The Little Crooked House 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!
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 (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 Little Crooked House

Download The Little Crooked House pattern from A Cottage in the Forest library.
Import The Little Crooked House 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 door. Attach vellum windows.
Glue the Entryway onto the front.
Glue together the body of the building.
Add the bottom insert.
Glue on the roof.
Add the dormers.
Add the chimney and the stairs.

How To Make The Little Crooked House

Download The Little Crooked House Pattern

Download The Little Crooked House 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 Little Crooked House Pattern Into Design Software

As of this blog post, a Cricut Design Space update in 2021 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

On the front, back, and side pieces with a tab with a curve, or that will be glued to a curve, cut slits into the tabs so you can make the folds.

Fold each of the body pieces towards the back or inside (mountain folds.)

Fold the entryway (all mountain folds), carefully folding on the curves. They will NOT make sharp right angles.

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

Glue all window frames and the door in place. I normally paint all of my pieces before gluing them together, but I forgot to take pictures this time, so here is the picture from the kit instructions.

Glue the vellum in place if you are using it.

Glue the Entryway onto the Front.

Glue the entryway together.

Glue the entryway onto the front.

Glue Together the Body of the House

Glue the the body of the house together. I find it easiest to glue the tall left side to the front first, then the back, then glue on the smaller side.

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 lower it in from the top. 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, with the rectangle cutout on the left, and the square cutout on the right. Once again, I made the roofline wavy, so no need to worry about centering it perfectly. If you are going to shingle the roof, do so now.

Add the Dormers

Glue each of the dormer windows onto the roof, then glue the corresponding roof onto the dormers. Glue the dormers on a crooked as you would like.

Add the Chimney and the Stairs

Glue together the 4 sides of the chimney, making sure you match up the lengths of the sides. Decide where you are going to glue your chimney and trim away the roof overhang to let it sit flush with the house.