When I started the hobby of making putz houses, I made only winter / Christmas houses. Eventually, I thought about making seasonal houses. I expanded into spring, summer and autumn, in addition to the winter putz.
For spring, I make Valentine houses, Irish cottages for St. Patrick’s Day, Easter houses and churches, and spring flowering putz of all kinds. Houses, barns, churches. etc.
Summer houses are made with flower beds, a summer tree and perhaps a rocking chair on the porch. And, of course, Independence Day fireworks!
Autumn / Thanksgiving houses are all about pumpkins, sunflowers, autumn trees and fallen leaves.
Here are examples of Valentine houses I have made. The heart arch over the first house is made with a piece of wired, foil, heart garland. The sidewalk is made from scrapbook paper. The bottle brush trees were white. I painted them with acrylic craft paint and sprinkled glitter on the wet paint. The base is an upcycled greeting card.
This Valentine house has a second story, wrap-around porch. The porch posts are made from craft match sticks. The green and red, wired beads are from a Christmas garland that I took apart.
The sidewalk of this house is made with paper hearts. The pip stem tree is made of five pip stems, held together with hot glue at the base. The stems are wired and can be bent to fit the space. I like the way this one arches over the house. I painted the bottle brush tree red, using acrylic craft paint. While the paint was wet, I covered it with glitter.
The heart-punched fence used on this putz isn’t hard to make. You can find my tutorial for making the fence HERE. The stepping stone sidewalk is painted on the base, then outlined with faux moss which is glued down with hot glue.
This cute house is made with a heart-shaped cardboard box. The vine outlining the front of the house is made with mini pip stems. The mini-size pip stems can be hard to find. I get the pink ones (also mini red pips) from the Etsy shop SilkyBlossom. The fence is a wooden picket fence. It is made from wooden, coffee stir sticks. My tutorial for making picket fences is HERE.
This house features a budding, pip stem tree and a flowering vine. The vine is made by gluing flowers and pips onto the house, then tucking small bits of faux moss into the line of flowers to tie it together. I use hot glue to attach the flowers and moss to the house. The fence is made by using a scallop scissor for the top of a 1/2″ poster board strip, then cutting triangles from the bottom of the strip to make the heart shape.
The arch over this house is made from pip stems. They meet in the middle, at the top. Pip clusters were used as flowers on either side of the house. The clusters have shiny pips and berry pips in each little section. Each section can be cut from the main bunch and used as a cluster of flowers or budding flowers. The stepping stone sidewalk is painted on the base and outlined with faux moss.
Pip stems make great vines on houses. I almost always put a vine on the Irish cottages I make. The vine on the first house below is made with mini pip stems. I used to decorate the backs of houses with artificial foliage, but don’t do that as often as I used to. The red foliage does look good with the second house. The “Happy Valentine’s Day” is written with Stickles glitter glue. The shutters on the third house form a heart cutout when closed. They are not made to stay closed, however. I made the shutters as part of the window frame.
I will continue this series of seasonal houses with a blog post about the Irish cottages I make for St. Patrick’s Day.
I also plan to write a post on how my putz art has changed over the past fifteen years or so. Stay tuned for that!
If you have any questions about these houses, or about creating your own putz houses, please ask. I am happy to share what I have learned about the art of putzing.
If you would like to see more of my putz houses, as well as Christmas ornaments I have made from upcycled holiday cards, please visit my Etsy shop.
If you are interested in crafting Putz houses of your own, check out my putz tutorials for more information. My blog can be searched, as well. Some of the turorials haven’t been listed on the tutorial page. Working on that! https://christmasnotebook.com/putz-little-glitter-houses/
All proceeds from my Etsy shop benefit Kenya Mercy Ministries. They work with the urban poor of Nairobi, Kenya, particularly the children and their families who live in Kibera, the largest urban slum in Africa. Thank you for your part in helping these children when you purchase items from my shop!
~~Rhonda 🙂