Victorian Christmas House

After a wee bit of a blogging break, I'm back today with another Village Dwelling creation based on the theme of "Song Lyrics" over at Creative Carte Blanche this month, where we're challenged to create a project using the lyrics of a song as inspiration.

My song choice is There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays and it couldn't be more true, don't you agree? No matter how far away you are, when you come home for the holidays it's such a warm, familiar feeling. And with Jamie home from her first semester away at college, I find that I'm filled with EXTRA amounts of joy having us all together during this happy time of year. While I love the Perry Como version of this song, I have fond memories of this version by The Carpenters.

I adore the Victorian style, especially homes during the holidays, so I created a miniature Victorian Christmas house mixing several Sizzix dwelling dies and the accessory dies. As I created it over the course of a few days, I enjoyed Christmas music in the background, a hot cup of coffee, and thoroughly got lost in the process. A great feeling! Now, I'm happy to share how I created it with you.

I started with the Village Brownstone in a sea glass colored exterior. To create the appearance of siding, I cut 1/4" strips of the same cardstock, inked the lower long edge and adhered each on the dwelling structure, working around the windows and adding them later.

While researching the Victorian style, I discovered many homes had rounded turrets as part of their architecture. Here's a great website if you'd like to check out some really wonderful Victorian style homes. But how to build my own turret? I wasn't sure if it would work, but I tried the Bell Tower accessory die. I die-cut two of the tower pieces and two roofs, put each together overlapping the first and last portions of each to create a 7-sided tower. It worked!

I created dark gray shingles and some accent trim pieces using the Rooftops die, and randomly pounced ink to create a variation in color.

My turret needed height, so I created a simple 7-sided tower and adhered the top piece and roof as shown here, then added shingles and siding pieces. (Yes, a tedious process, but one I strangely enjoy.)

Next, I finished up the Brownstone structure (above right) by adding the shingles. The main portion of my Victorian house is made from the base Village Dwelling die and the Village Manor accessory die. (I knew when I first assembled the manor for Halloween it would make a wonderful Victorian style home as well, and it's been in the back of my mind ever since.)

After finishing the assembly of the three house parts, I added the front door, the remaining windows and porches (the long porch comes from the Village Surf Shack accessory die). Later, I added windows and a porch floor for the turret as well. 

After adhering the two house pieces together with hot glue, I added the railing which is from the Village Cottage accessory die. I snipped off the tips of the fence pieces and layered a border trim across the top. 

I used this same border trim under windows and other areas of my Victorian house.

My turret needed a base to to match the rest of the house, so I created this piece from cardstock, above. Basically, it's a 7-sided polygon with a 1/4" score all the way around, slits cut at the joints, and assembled in the same fashion as the rectangular porch pieces. After the glue was dry, I cut away the left edge and adhered the base to my existing structure.

More railings around this area. And as you can see, I've added the turret, its windows and trim.

For the snow, I applied Texture Paste and immediately sprinkled Distress Glitter. I set this aside for about 30 minutes to dry. Meanwhile, I created some small accents to adorn my Victorian house.

From the Tidings paper stash, I cut small squares and rectangles of this wood pattern and rolled them up tight and sealed them with glue.

I bundled them together to create a little log pile tied with red twine. 

I die cut several pieces of greenery from the Mini Holiday Greens die, and three small poinsettias from the Sled die (Elizabeth Craft Designs). I added more to the greenery as you'll see. I also used two Jingle Brads on my front door.

I began adding greenery and poinsettias to my house. The log bundle sits on the front porch behind the railing and more greenery adorns the railing. For this, I used the Holly Bead & Snowflake Garland die (an oldie but a goodie) plus some red twine.

My wreath is made from various greenery pieces layered on a circle frame, and is adorned with red Prills. 

I pried the prongs off the two Jingle Brads and hot glued them in place with some greenery.

The turret is adorned in the same way, with another few logs, greenery, and poinsettias.

I took a step back and decided I was done.  

It sure looks sweet with battery-operated tea lights inside. I'd love to live in a house like this. 

What fun it was to create this Victorian House using the parts and pieces from several of the Sizzix dwelling dies. It's one of my favorite things to do! I hope you enjoyed it and hope you join us at Creative Carte Blanche with your creation based on Song Lyrics. Just go to the December challenge page HERE and join the fun!