What have I done?

I seem to have messed up the links to my blog. I really shouldn't fiddle with technical things I have no clue about.

Castle Keep

Before I put my Christmas Village away until next year, I just had to make a castle.  This one is based on a Scottish Tower House, and there are many of these dotted around the countryside hear abouts.  Particularly in the Borders area of Scotland (near the border with England) as there were many cross border skirmishes and lots of cattle rustling in days gone by. These houses were built as defensible strongholds, no windows near the ground and usually only one door to defend. Livestock would be kept secure on the ground floor and people lived up high, away from fire and arrows.

Here's a couple of real tower houses, but I not sure what the names are..

Gorgeous to look at, but probably not very cosy to live in.

Back to work tomorrow. Blurgh.

Hurry up, it's Hogmanay!

I've been so enthralled with building my holiday village over the last few weeks that I never got around to making my December tag for The 12 tags of 2015, and tomorrow it would be too late because it's Hogmanay today. I live in Scotland and Hogmanay (the last night of the old year) is traditionally a bigger event than Christmas in this part of the world. But my friend Cheryl sent me a message yesterday demanding to know where December's tag was. So here it is...

The burlap panel is Tim's and is inked with DecoArt Media shimmer mister in turquoise, using Tim's Christmas stencil.  I wanted a blue theme to go with my vintage baubles.

Cheryl sent me some die cuts recently, including this Merry Christmas, so that was perfect for this tag. I coloured the white card with peacock feathers distress ink and used vintage platinum glitter dust to add sparkle to the snowflake. I raised this up on sticky dots to give dimension.  

I didn't have the dies that Tim used to create his wreath but found a length of wired holly and used that instead. The pale aqua rayon ribbon I didn't grunge up this time, just made a triple wrap bow so it was fluffier, and the tiny baubles are vintage ones I had in my stash.

And, guess what. I finished ALL the tags for the year, so that's the one and only new year resolution that I managed to keep!  Here's a picture of my tag board. 

October tag is in the White frame to the right, displayed with all my Tim goodies that I was lucky enough to get from Tim because he liked my witchy tag so much. Still can't get over that!

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Can't wait for the 2016 tag challenge, but that will only be until tomorrow. Happy New Year!

Last one, again

Okay, positively the last one, for now.  I've no more room on my mantelpiece.

This is the one I made today...

This one is a Tudor thatched cottage, and I've altered the die cut to add another window. This was achieved by cutting out two sets of the dwelling and then snipping off the window on the right and left side of each of the second set, including the tab, and glueing those to the tabs on th first set, so adding an extension. I also had to add an extra strip to the roof piece - though take care which side you add the piece to as I put it on the wrong side to start with and so the dormer didn't sit in the right place.  I'm sure you'll not be as stupid as me though.  

The beauty of 'black and white' houses is that they tend to be a bit on the squint, so any mistakes can be put down as historical accuracy.  For instance, I made my back extension a little too wide and now the back of the cottage is slightly curved. ;-) but that's fine by me. But my one big piece of advice when doing a black and white house is to draw all the lines before sticking the walls together. It makes decorating so much easier.

I had such fun drawing the lines. Google 'black and white Tudor house' and you get some amazing images to work from.  And if your hand is a little wobbly then that adds authenticity too. These houses are NEVER made in straight lines!

The windows in made slightly differently this time. I used some frosted paper one of last year's Xmas cards. This paper had some images on it so I cut away the mostly blank bits, and used those. I kept a couple of pieces with images and coloured them in using alcohol ink pens so you can see a Xmas tree, parcel and a star through the front windows. I had decided not to do diamond panes of glass, but it didn't look right once I the Windows were stuck on. I drew panes with a graphite pencil and actually like this technique better than using the ink pen like I did on the pub. Can get window panes much more to scale.

 

I cut out another door using a bit of card with spare window from the cannibalised set. I made this a rectangular door as the curved one just isn't right for a Tudor house, I painted it black and covered it in glossy accents so it looks painted.  The wreath decoration is a snip from a jewelled ribbon that I coloured with alcohol ink.

The thatched roof is felt sprayed th adirondack espresso ink, and the dormer has been shortened so it doesn't stick out over the roofline by much. I had to hand cut the snow felt as the roof is a little longer due to the extension. I made the chimney in red 'Tudor bricks' (barn door and fired brick distress pens).  

These little house look amazing when lit with a battery operated candle. I can't wait for Xmas day when I can switch them all on.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Last one. Maybe

Okay, so my mantelpiece is just about full now, so I think this will have to be the last of the dwelling for now.  I should have been doing some Christmas shopping today, but got sidetracked into doing this little building.

Every village should have a fire station, just in case the Christmas turkey roasting gets out of hand. This one has a very old appliance that needs replacing but the brigade have been spending money on more managers and giving themselves higher salaries, whilst at the same time reducing the number of actual firefighters so they didn't have budget to replace it with a new engine.  Maybe next year.  

Every station has a tower. Mine is modelled on the one I see out of my office window, every working day as I work for the Fire Service. The first time the firefighters dropped their realistic training dummy over the parapet I nearly died of shock. Used to it now, but still a little unsettling when you catch it falling from the corner of your eye.

That silvery thing in the left corner (from prima marketing) is the extractor that takes exhaust fumes from the engine bay to the outside world.  You probably knew that already.

Christmas Shopping

My mantelpiece is filling up fast, but you can't have a village without a shop-come-postoffice, so that's what I've made this time. And another two storey dwelling, so the shopkeeper can live over the shop. I treated the top storey like I did the previous ones, covered the door area and made a window, but this window is the one I cut away from the lower storey, where the door now is ( more later...)

This one has a thatched roof, which is just white felt sprayed with Adirondack Espresso spray ink. I cut it slightly bigger all round than the roof pieces, then stuck the felt down and folded over the excess and stuck  that with ds tape. That gives the rounded profile you get on thatch, not a sharp edge.  Warning! If you try this yourself don't be fooled into thinking your felt is dry. I left mine for an hour, and gently waved a heat gun at it, but as I was sticking it down I found it was still pretty wet. Going to have brown fingers for a day or two!

I wanted to make a large bay window for this shop, so I made a little box sized to cover over both the window and the pre cut door. The window is acetate, and at the back is a snippet of Tim's seasonal stash papers which I stuck on after I had 'dressed' the window. There's a little shelf (folded card) for a tree to sit on, and the tinsel is also Tim's. I heated that with a heat gun to curl it up a bit as it was a bit too spiky.  The billboard above the window is also from the seasonal stash, as is the poster in the side of the building.

I needed to cut away the left hand window to make a door (and used this spare window on the top storey), and the door is also acetate with a little silver pen added. It's a bit modern for the building, and I'm now making up stories about the shop keeper having heated discussions with the town council planning department about it.  Sorry, it was 2.30am when I finished this house, after a bad day atvwork, and I think I was overtired.  Maybe I will make another door, but it depends on what the planning officer decides.

So here's pictures of the finished shop.  Must get on with Christmas shopping...

Every Good Village Needs a Pub.

The house building obsession continues...

Yesterday I made a modern 2 storey house for my village, and decided that a flat metal roof would suit it. This was achieved by cutting off the gables from the top storey. I ended up with half a window at each side of the building but, well, why not?  I made the a roof using card slightly wider and about half an inch deeper than the building, covering it with metal tape and then running it through my Bigshot using Tim's Rivited Metal embossing folder. I grunged it up by swiping it with white paint (picket fence), and rubbing most of that off to give a zinc look, not too shiny.  Then I rubbed a little black paint into the rivets to age it a bit.   I curled then front and back edges over so it looked a bit quirky and modern.

To match the metal roof, I outlined the windows in a silver pen and made a metal door.

My village is coming along nicely, but every good village needs a decent pub, and preferably one with a bit of history, oak beams and a roaring log fire to welcome you in on a snowy day.  So I made one...

I started by making up the walls of 2 dwellings and sticking them together. As I didn't need 2 doors,  I removed the one on the right, then I cut a strip of card and punched another window in it using the movers and shapers small window die (forgot what it is called, sorry) and stuck this where the door had been. I outlined all the windows with black pen.

I then made up a third building, painted it black and used a pen to mark 'weatherboard cladding' on it.

I removed the door and made a window embrasure (3 layers of card) to cover up the hole, and gave all the windows the leaded pane treatment 

This became the upper storey for one side of the pub but I left the other side as a single storey.  The roof of the single storey building had to have small sliver cut from the left hand edge because there would be no overhang at this side. And you will see that the roofline has a definite lean, but it's a very old building (built 1588 according to the sign) so that's okay. :-)

My pub needed a name, and because it looked kind of like a smugglers den by the sea, I called it 

The 3 Ships (and it is for Christmas) painted a little sign for the front of the building, and gave it a big, studded Andy old black oak door.

Oh look, it's opening time. Mine's a G&T, thanks.