Glitter "Putz" House

I grew up with these cute little sparkly houses that would get set up on top of the television at Christmas time with bulbs in the back of them to light them up and that angel hair stuff as snow.  I loved these houses and I loved to play with them.  I don’t know where they disappeared to (probably hanging out with the elves somewhere) but I don’t have any of them.  So I was so happy to discover many patterns for little houses available in the Silhouette store; one of them caught my eye as it really looked like the little glitter houses from my childhood.  It was called a “Putz” house – I had no idea there was a name for these houses let alone collectors and websites that helped you restore them.   After more research and many patterns I decided that I would try to make one of these houses for my Mom for Christmas, hoping it brings back good memories for her as they do me.  So I made the Putz house, which is designed by  Samantha Walker.  There are even instructions on her site, which I didn’t find until I was almost done (of course), but they are very good directions and every easy to follow.  So please join me on this journey to create a glittery Putz house ~

Ta da! I had originally neglected to put the vellum in the windows - but it makes a HUGE difference!

What I Used to Make my House:

Silhouette CAMEO Machine
Glitter Putz House cut file by Samantha Walker (Silhouette Store)
12 x 12 piece of medium weight chipboard
Loose glitter in Hot Kiss by The Art Institute
Loose glitter in Dazzling Diamonds by Stampin’ Up!
Glitter Glue (the bottle is blank so I have no idea who made it)
The Crafters Pick “The Ultimate” glue
Spray Adhesive by 3M
Glitter Paper by Core’dinations “Glitter Silk”
Ranger Wendy Vecchi Ink in Potting Soil and Red Geranium
 

Gessoing the chipboard

OK, I never even thought about using glitter paper until I couldn’t get an even coat of glitter on the house.  I cut all of the pieces using one piece of chipboard and put everything to the side except for the main house.  I spread the glue all over it and dumped the glitter all around the glue and it never dawned on me that I would have an issue with the glitter.  Well, I did.  Not only did I get glitter in places that should NEVER be glittered, the color of the glitter was uneven.

Uneven glitter :(

  There were parts of the house that were darker than others because of the unevenness of the glue.  Finally I thought if maybe I used spray adhesive I could get the glitter to be nice and cover evenly.  Luckily, that worked well enough for me, because if it didn’t this post would never have been written.  I used the Hot Kiss glitter for the body of the house and when it came time to glitter all the little windows and the door I realized how much easier the process would have been had I used glitter paper instead of loose glitter. So I used a different color of the glitter paper, I guess you’d call it a pink, for the

The construction

windows and the door and cut out the hanging snow in I guess what you’d call white.  I set them aside to tackle the roof and the chimney.

The roof was inked up using Wendy Vecchi’s Potting Soil.  I just wiped the ink pad all around the roof and then tried to do the same with the chimney using Red Geranium.  It worked wonderfully on the roof, but miserably with the chimney – I think because there were so many bends on the chimney I couldn’t get the ink pad close enough to the chipboard.  So I just put a few drops in a tiny cup and used a paint brush to finish the chimney off.  By now I had found the directions since I had no idea how to attach the chimney to the roof.

Once everything was dry, I adhered the windows and the door to the main

My snow & chimney drying

house and glittered the roof with the Dazzling Diamonds (before attaching it) – the glitter was supposed to look like snow, but too much of the brown showed through to get the look I wanted.  So I had to move on to the chimney since it was my plan to use the no name glitter glue on the roof to make it look more like icy snow but I needed to attach the chimney first.  Another hiccup – I could not get the little tabs on the chimney to attach to the roof the way it said to in the directions.  I ended up using masking tape and more glue (on the inside, where the chimney attached to the roof) than I should have, but it is attached now.  I put the hanging snow around the chimney and used a rubber band to keep it all inline (a loose rubber band – too tight and the chimney would be crushed and so would the house).  I let the house sit overnight.  I think we both needed a break.

Roof & chimney close up

Finally, the last step was to attach the hanging snow (I am not sure if it supposed to be icicles or snow; snow is easier to spell) onto the roof and the roof to the house.  At this point the roof still had the initial glitter “that should look like snow” on it and it was amazing how much glitter came off and once again ended up in the oddest places.  But I persisted.  I had to put the roof under a large book overnight because it warped so much, but it worked fairly well – there is one part that no matter what I did I could not get the hanging snow to completely adhere to the roof, but at this point I am just trying to get the house done so I can finally clean up all the glitter.  But I tried everything to get the dumb thing to stick – nope.  It’s ok; I know when I am beaten.  And the roof won

Roof "scallops"

that round. The last step was to make that icy snow on the roof – the rest of the house was all put together and holding its own, so I get the no name glitter glue and test it out.  Clogged.  I clear the nozzle.  Clogged. I cut the tip down a bit and begin to put the glitter glue in scallops all over the roof.  Didn’t matter that the glitter glue was coming out a tad fast, as the drips that occurred actually look better to me than the nice & neat scallops I tried to doodle with the glitter glue.  In retrospect I think if I had used my brain and the glittered cardstock, things would have gone much smoother.  But, Mom is going to love it and she won’t even notice all the glitter that ends up on her floor (hehe).  I hope to make one of these a year (at least) and eventually have a village for my Mom to enjoy!  Thanks for stopping by & I hope your holiday plans are going smoothly ~ Christi

Another view of the finished house

Difficult to get a good picture of it lit

I tried everything to get these pictures to stay even - they look fine in my view, but they get wonky in the "real" view - Sorry! 

I would like to enter my glitter "Putz" house in the following challenges:
Use Your Stuff Challenge Blog (2w) - #166, Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge (1w) - Anything Goes 
*That's Crafty Challenge Blog (1/2/15) - Anything Goes
Stuck on Us Sketches (2w) - Anything Christmas Die Cut Challenge
Crafts 4 Eternity - #206, Anything Goes Christmas
Decorate to Celebrate - #90, Anything Goes
*That Craft Place - Anything Goes, Christmas
Eclectic Ellapu (m)- purple team, Anything Christmas (not a card)(runs til 2/1/15)
*Silhouette Challenges (m) - #20, Anything Goes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Where did I find these awesome challenges!?!? At Challenges for Days!! An easy to read, easy to understand list of challenges that is posted every day ~ check it out!!

My craft FAIL that became a craft SAVE!

I love trying new techniques.  And I will happily jump on the next bandwagon of “must have products” be it embossing powders or spray inks as well as the next embellishment craze from eyelets to birdcages.  I admit I have gotten a lot better than when I first started crafting.  Of course, since I was new, I started “behind” everyone else and I had to have everything that “they” were using because if I only had the right tools my art will be just as beautiful as theirs and I, too, will be making book deals, videos and appearances on Carol Duvall (I miss that show SO much!!).  Now I know that the chances of me being able to sustain myself purely on the items I make are slim to none – and I am very OK with that.  And I know that no matter how many cool art toys I have I will never be as good as my favorite artists.  And that’s cool, too, because they will never be as good as me, either. On that note I want to introduce you to a craft fail of mine.  Granted, there are a lot of these fails, but they rarely around long enough for me to photograph it or it is absolutely too horrendous to share. And I thought this fail was funny enough to share, especially since I saved it.

On Unruly PaperArts (one of my very favorite places) they have 2 challenges each month and I have been trying to participate in them (in fact, in 2014 I WILL participate in each of them) and one of last months challenges was to use a stencil in your project.  Easy peasy, especially since I have jumped on that bandwagon wholeheartedly and I have a few (really, just a few!) stencils.  One of the best things about Unruly PaperArts is the columnists – they write up tutorials and such to match the challenges and the first one of the month was The Neat Freak: Sharing her Fav technique using stencils (I have her permission to share this with you).  I could do this! Now, you really need to go read the article (should only take you a few) otherwise, the rest of this fail is not going to make sense.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

See how nice her stenciling print came out? This is what mine looked like:

(the green spray was already on the paper, I thought it would make a very festive holiday card).

 If you look close you can kinda see the outline of the houses, kinda. But 
remember, this isn't the paper I used to make the card; I used the paper
that I sprayed on - this paper is the failed result of trying to duplicate
the print technique shown on Unruly PaperArts.

OK, so what do we do? How can I salvage this? I thought the houses came out fine so I decided to use them and turned a fail into a win!

This is what I used to make my “winning” card:

• The Crafters Workshop 6x6 stencil designed by Ronda Palzzari, Home Sweet Home
• Dylusion’s Ink Spray in Postbox Red
• Piece of white cardstock that has the actual stencil on it
• Watercolor paper for the background of the card (the sky)
• Off white base card
• Pigma Micron pen in Black, # 01 (or whatever size fits through your stencil)
• Various glitters & adhesives
• Ranger Stickles in Rainbow, Diamond, Crystal & Star Dust
• Distress Paints in Chipped Sapphire, Pickett Fence & Pewter
• Distress Ink in Black Soot
• Santa Stamp from Just For Fun
• Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black
• Craft Sheet
• Water Spritzer 

After your houses dry, put the stencil back over them and outline them with the Micron pen.  Measure your houses so they fit the card size you are using (I always use A2 size, which is 4 ¼ x 5 ½, unless otherwise specified), I had to cut a house or 2 off but I saved them to use them later. Trim your houses as needed and add the glitter and Stickles to simulate snow.  I used Crystal Stickles on the bottom and Jones Tones glitter on the roof.  Set aside.

Using your craft sheet, dab a few dabs of the Chipped Sapphire & then tap the Black Soot Ink pad near it (I don’t have Black Soot paint, so I am using my ink pad – lovely how all the Distress products work together), spritz it with water and paint it on your watercolor paper (I always make my background paper a bit bigger than I need it because there is going to be a part that I will want to cut off).  The goal here was to make the sky look like night.  Once I was happy with the color, I used some Pewter paint and brushed it over the sky, lightly, to give it a nice bit of sparkle. Once that was dry, trim your background paper to fit your base card, I left a border around mine, but it’s up to you. Next, figure out where you want your Santa to go.  Since the sky was so dark, I took a wee bit of Pickett Fence and made an oval so you’d be able to see Santa better. 

I stamped my Santa with the Jet Black ink and glued my night sky and my houses to the base card.  I had these awesome star stickers so I used a few of those and a moon sticker as well.  Then to add more sparkle I put little random dots of Stickles all around the sky.  The card looks much better in person; you know how hard it is to capture sparkle on a picture.

I am sharing both photos because I think each one shows a different view of the card.  The image on the top shows a lighter version of the card which I think helps you see the different colors I used in the night sky and the image on the bottom is actually closer to what the card looks like in person. 

I hope you enjoyed my "Win" card - I try to use every scrap of my craft supplies and I am proud of myself that I didn't just toss this in the trash (I still have the failed red & green print paper, too!)

                                   

PS: If you'd like to see either of the photos larger, just click on the image.  This works on every photo on my blog (for some reason when I made the photos larger I ended up with a huge space between my text - I am still new at this blogging thing and the only way I could fix that space was make the pictures small)

 

I hope you enjoyed my little card and hopefully you won't look at your fails so harshly - there is always something you can make with your mistakes ~ Have a glorious holiday season!

I would like to enter my card in the following challenges:

One Crazy Stamper -  Winter/Holiday Challenge
The Artistic Stamper - December Challenge Anything Goes
Make My Monday - A Frosty Theme
The Cheerful Stamp Pad - Challenge #75, Signs of Christmas