And now... with book pages...

So... book pages.  Sounds like a great plan for a little glittery house, doesn't it?  Well, let's all see...

I used a pattern from Victoria Magazine that you can find here.  This particular experiment is called the "orange house".  First I traced an outline of the pattern onto 140 lb watercolour paper, then cut it out.  The only alteration I made is that I added tabs at the top of the house... after the last ones I realized that the roof must sit on something that is substantial enough to actually glue it to.

Next step... I used the back of my x-acto knife to score all the lines, and then used the sharp side of the blade to actually cut out the windows as well.

I lied to you a second ago... I also cut a hole in the back of the house (it isn't on the pattern) so that I can insert a light into it should I want to later.

The next logical step to me would seem to be to glue the book pages to the template.  I'm using pages from a book of Mark Twain stories.  Seemed appropriate since this could turn out to be quite the laughing matter.

Once dried (ok, it was sorta dry... I'd let it dry for at least 10 minutes) it was time to cut all of the excess paper away and open those windows and such again.  I also decided to white wash it... seemed appropriate when I thought of Tom Sawyer...

I painted the roof, the window panes (which I now regret.. the window panes, not the roof... at least at this point), the door, and the shutters... which, by the way, I will make a shade longer next time.

Then the fun starts... using tacky glue I first re-folded all the scored lines and glued the front of the house and the back of the house together, and attached the porch.

Next... the roofs and doors... I took this one just for that handsome boy in the photo...

And this one just to show how really handsome he is... even if he is still ticked off at me and won't get any closer than this to me right now.

And, finally, here it is so far... everything glued in place, and ready to dry thoroughly.  I love the shape of the house... and I very much like the paper on the house... but overall, I really am just not thrilled with it at this point.  Nothing to really worry about there though, I find I am often not really excited about something in the middle of creating it, but end up loving it when it is finished...

Next I plan to create the base and get to the glittering.  And, at some point, I'm going to check around to see if I can find some wee bottle brush trees, I mean heck, it's almost September, the Christmas stuff should be out everywhere... right?