Make Your Own Old French Farmhouse

I have been working on this pattern for several months. I played around with how I wanted it to look, never quite happy, then recently found a picture on Pinterest that pulled together what I was looking for. I knew I wanted exposed stone walls. In February I made a stencil to use to make the stones, although I also just used my paintbrush to paint grit paste stones onto the walls, especially at the edges.

I also designed this pattern so that the window trim is on the inside of the walls instead of the outside. You may have to pay extra attention when you glue on the trim. I glued a couple of pieces onto the outside and had to start over again.

When making this building, remember that you want it to show some age, Use inks or dry brushed acrylic paints to age the edges. Rough up the shingles on the roof. If your shingles hang a litte askew, that is prefect!

This Is How You Make the Old French Farmhouse

Size of the finished building as designed will be approximately 4 3/4″ W x 3 1/2″ D x 5 1/4″ H (not including steps). These measurements do not include the size of the base. I consider this an intermediate pattern.

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The Old French Farmhouse Pattern Specific Materials

My free pattern for the Old French Farmhouse from the A Cottage in the Forest Library. Design #100. Get the password for free by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.
Ranger Texture Paste or Galeria Sand Texture Gel if you want a stucco or plaster texture on the buildings. I decided I wanted more texture than the Tim Holtz Texture paste, but not too much, so I mixed the texture paste and the sand texture gel 50-50.
Tim Holtz – Ranger Transclucent Grit Paste to make the exposed stone walls.

Favorite Materials Supply List

Cardstock, Cardboard (Kraft Board or alternative), 30 point Chipboard, or Aluminum Can – your choice! Cricut is no longer selling Kraftboard, so I now link to the 120 lb. cover cardstock by Accent Opaque that I use.
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 Old French Farmhouse

Download the Old French Farmhouse pattern from A Cottage in the Forest library
Import the Old French Farmhouse pattern into your design software
Cut out the pattern – I use my Cricut Maker. Texture if desired.
Fold the body of the building. Paint the building and make the stones.
Glue on the doors and trim. Attach vellum windows.
Glue the body of the building together.
Add the bottom insert.
Add the roofs.
Add steps and shutters.
Add chimneys and window boxes.
Make base and decorate as desired.

How To Make the Old French Farmhouse

Download the Old French Farmhouse Pattern

Download the Old French Farmhouse pattern from A Cottage in the Forest Library. It is design #100. 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 holes 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 Old French Farmhouse Pattern Into Design Software

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. Here is a great tutorial from Jennifer Maker’s website on attaching score lines. Use the included pdf to determine which lines are score lines (the dashed lines.) These need to be changed from “cut” to “score”, then attached to their object. See the example below. All of my score lines are red so that you can tell that they are intended to be score lines.

Cut out all of your cardstock, cardboard or aluminum can pieces using my pattern.

I cut the walls of the building out of 120 lb. cover cardstock. Cricut has discontinued making KraftBoard, but the 120 lb. cover cardstock I link to above is the same weight and thickness as Kraftboard. I cut the window trim and the shingles out of 85 lb. cardstock , and the rest of the pieces out of colored 100 or 110 cover cardstock.

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.

Make the Building

Fold the Body of the Building

Fold the body pieces towards the back or inside (mountain folds.) There are two valley folds marked below.

Texture and/or paint your body pieces now. Since the window trim will be in the inside of the building, make sure you paint the inside of the window openings.

Glue on the Doors and Trim. Attach the Vellum Windows

Glue on the doors and window frames. All of them are glued into the inside of the walls. Glue the door vellum between the two pieces of each door.

Glue the vellum in place if you are using it.

Glue Together the Body of the House

Glue the two sides to the back.

Glue the Front to the Right Side.

Glue the Upper Front piece to the left side, aligning the top corners.

Glue the Front to the Left Side and to the Upper Front Piece, again aligning the top corner.

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.

Add The Roofs

Glue the main roof onto the building. If you are going to shingle your roof, it is easier to add the shingles before gluing the roof onto the building. I have a blogpost where you can find several different shingle patterns

Glue on the two other roofs.

Add the Steps and Shutters

Glue together the steps. Starting at the back, glue a stair strip around each half-circle stair, trimming off any excess. Glue the stairs on to the front and back under the doors.

Glue on the shutters.

Now is a good time age the roof shingles, exposed stones, steps, shutters, and any other items you want to show their age. I used Archival Inks in various colors on a brush to age my farmhouse.

Add the Chimneys and Flower Boxes

I also think this style house would look wonderful with ivy or flowering vines crawling up the walls. I have not added these yet as I wanted you to be able to follow the construction pictures without obscuring them with vines. I think I want to add ivy to my design!

Make Base and Decorate as Desired.

Enjoy making the Old French Farmhouse yourself! I would love to see your finished design. Please share a photo of it with me by emailing me at Jackie@acottageintheforest.com