The Dreadful's Christmas House

The Dreadful's Christmas House

It's that time of year, before Thanksgiving is even here, when some people get all Clark Griswold on us and take out their Christmas decorations. Then they take those decorations and actually decorate. Before Thanksgiving...

In typical Dreadful manner, the Dreadfuls have gone all out with their decorating this year. Last year the neighborhood Mrs. Kravitz suggested that they may want to consider using a bit more of a festive palette for this year. The Dreadfuls took her advice to heart and hoped that busybody old biddy was happy how they went all out this year. (Although Mrs. Dreadful thought that the vibrant greenery in the window boxes was overdoing it just a tad.

This month's kit at Alpha Stamps is the Chipboard House Ornament Kit, reminiscent of the vintage Putz houses! The house is a whopping 2-3/4" tall, 2-1/2" square at the base of the house. Includes 2 holes in the roof for hanging, but you can just paper over the holes if not needed. The house can either be used as an ornament, or you can add the bottom base to it and create your own winter scene.

Here are a few of the things that I did in creating the house:

• The roof and "snow" on the ground is made by using Twinklets Diamond Dust*.
• The "icicles" edging the roof is German Glass Glitter*.
• Design elements on the top of front windows and the planters at the bottom are made with Paperclay and a silicone mold. Find a decorative mold you like and just use pieces of the castings to fit window width.
• Foilage was made by snipping off branches from 2 Inch Pine Trees, and then covered in Black Diamond Stickles.
• The snowman was made with Paperclay and his teenie-weenie top hat is made out of a drinking straw and Black Half Circle Dresden cut down to fit the top, and slightly larger than the bottom of hat.
• The garland on the trees is made out of a plain silver pipe cleaner, with Mushroom Alcohol Ink rubbed on it to give a tarnished effect.

*note - Twinklets and German Glass Glitter really is REAL glass. You may want to wear gloves when using to protect your fingers; when using it without gloves you can't feel your fingers getting cut. It's not enough to make them bleed, but it is enough to make you think that Satan himself is blowing on your fingers if you get something acidic on them on them later. 

You can find a supply list for everything that I used all in one place here.