finishing the blue and green putz house

Today, I continued work on the five Putz houses I have on my desk currently. Last night I left off with three houses and their fences glued to their bases. Today, I glued down the other two houses and their fences. I promised to paint at least one fence a different color than white. Here are two.

green Putz house

Today I finished this little green house with a blue roof. This is partway through the embellishing.

green Putz house

Finished…

green Putz house

I have a new light box for taking Etsy-worthy pictures of the items I am selling in my Etsy shop.

Blue Door Putz House

IMG_8483

Up close…

IMG_8488

IMG_8487

Tomorrow I will work on embellishing the other houses and the church.

~~Rhonda

making fences for putz houses

Today I made fences for some of the Putz houses.

You can read the tutorial here: making fences for putz houses

I start with 1/2″ strips of cardboard and use punches or scissors to give them some decoration.

making fences for Putz housesoration.

I used some of the fence posts I made yesterday.

adding fence posts

making fences for Putz houses

making fences for Putz houses

The little yellow house got a fence, too.

making fences for Putz houses

I made a hedge for this house. I formed the greenery stem into a zigzag pattern and hot glued it to the base.

making fences for Putz houses

I gave it white paint and glitter for a pretty snowy effect

making fences for Putz houses

Finished hedge…

making fences for Putz houses

making fences for Putz houses

Two fences and a hedge done today. I will do the other two fences tomorrow. I need to remember to paint one a color other than white!

making fences for Putz houses

~~Rhonda

bases for more Putz houses

I worked on bases for Putz houses on Monday. Took most of the day to finish five. It always takes longer than I remember! All five are completed. Construction, base coat of paint, two coats of sandy paint, and a dip in the fine glitter. It’s hard to tell from the pictures that they’ve been glittered. In person, they sparkle like new snow.

Making bases

The next step is to make fences for them, then embellishments. I’m looking forward to that part.

Bases and houses

Should keep me busy for a few days!

Untitled

Another church.

Base and church

Love this shade of blue.

Base and house

I also made a stockpile of fence posts.

Posts for fences

Maybe I’ll paint the fence for one of these houses a color other than white. Check back. I’ll post as soon as I have one done.

~~Rhonda

menu plan monday ~ march 28, 2016

We had a fun Easter weekend. Older Son and his family were here for Sunday dinner, an egg hunt and decorating sugar cookies. A full afternoon!

The Bacon Brown Sugar Pork Tenderloin was delicious! We will be having this again.

Easter dinner

And we had nice weather for the egg hunt.

Easter

We decorated spring themed sugar cookies for our daughter-in-law to take to work as a special treat for her co-workers.

Decorating cookies

Butterflies, tulips and daisies…

Spring cookies

Here’s the menu for the week. Anything look good to you?

Monday
Fridge Food (Plenty of Easter leftovers.)

Tuesday
Chicken and Pasta Tomato Soup
Based on the recipe for Beefy Tomato Soup

Wednesday
Spicy Tomato Cream Pasta
Garlic Bread
Green Salad

Thursday
BBQ Pork Steaks
Summer Squash
Corn
Cucumber Slices

Friday
Chicken and Rice Bake
Cheddar Bay Biscuits
Steamed Broccoli

Saturday
Fridge Food

Sunday
Toasted Ham and Cheese Sandwiches
Garden Salad

You can find more menus and ideas at Menu Plan Monday.

~~Rhonda

spring is advancing

Just a quick note. I’ve had a bad cough this week that wears me out. But I am doing what I can. I don’t want to be left behind with spring to enjoy. The yard is full of daffodils and other plants are popping up. The Poet’s daffodils are later than most and the first ones have opened this week.

Poet's daffodil

And the Bleeding Hearts are looking beautiful under the big oak tree out back.

Bleeding Hearts

I have been busy stocking my new Etsy store which will be open soon. I’m doing the tedious part now. Taking pictures of products, writing up descriptions, etc. I’ll let you know when it’s open!

~~Rhonda

green ski-slope putz house, finished

In my last post, the little green Putz house was ready to be attached to the base.

green and pink ski-slope Putz

Somehow I missed taking pictures of the pinning process. This one was pretty easy to pin down, though.

green ski-slope Putz house

This is after pinning and gluing the house. If you look closely, you can see the bead of glue around the house and also a hot glue sidewalk from the front door to the gate. This is prior to painting.

green ski-slope Putz house

Close-up of sidewalk.

green ski-slope Putz house

Here’s the house after painting and glittering both the bead of glue around the house and the sidewalk.

green ski-slope Putz house

I pulled out several different bits and bobs for this house. After working with them for a while, I finally began to see a direction.

green ski-slope Putz house

in process

The green bottle brush trees seemed too dark for this house. I tried these trees and liked them much better. They have a softer look. I brushed glue over them and sprinkled them with large glitter.

trying different trees

And the finished Putz house…

green ski-slope Putz house

green ski-slope Putz house

green ski-slope Putz house

green ski-slope Putz house

~~Rhonda

next putz house is a green ski-slope

I have started the next Putz house embellishment. I thought I took a picture of it before I started, but I can’t find it anywhere. In this photo, it is the green house with pink roof toward the back. I love the ski-slope roof on this one.

Putz houses to finish.

The first thing I did was to add window panes. I used the same vellum that I used in my last Putz house, but used a yellow pencil to color it instead of using the yellow Sharpie marker. Worked well and I didn’t have to blend it with the tip of my finger. I measured bits of vellum against the windows that needed to be covered and cut it to fit. Leave room around the edge for applying the glue.

green and pink ski-slope Putz

I used a small bead of hot glue to affix the vellum to the inside of the house. Look closely and you can see that this house was made with the cardboard from a Ritz cracker box.

green and pink ski-slope Putz

green and pink ski-slope Putz

At this point, I stopped to make a base for the house. You can find the tutorial for making bases here:

tutorial for making putz house bases

I took this picture to show the difference a little texture can make. I used my usual blend of 1:1 paint and glue with a sprinkle of sand in it. It doesn’t take a lot of sand, especially when mixing very small batches of paint.

sandy texture

And here is the finished base. Still wet.

base done

I keep strips of 1/2″ wide cardboard on hand for fences. I decided to use the curved design scissors for this fence. Didn’t take any time at all to cut the pieces. I needed to use two strips of cardboard to get the length I wanted, so I made them the right length to meet in the back right hand corner to disguise the seam. I also cut frames for the windows.

fence and window frames

I gave the window frames a base coat of pink. When dry, I added a bit of sand and gave them a second coat.

green and pink ski-slope Putz

Then I gave the fence a base coat of white paint, followed by a second coat of sanded paint.

painting the fence

Time to pin the fence to the base.

green and pink ski-slope Putz

I had to fiddle with the fence a bit to make it fit. I ended up refolding the pieces to make the sides a bit longer.

pinning the fence

After gluing the fence down, removing the pins, and painting over the glue bead, I made fence posts for the front entrance. The opening became wider than I had planned after I made the two sides of the fence longer. The posts helped fill in some of the extra space.

fencing done

Detail of the fence posts…

fence posts done

My tutorial for making fence posts can be found here:

tutorial for making fence posts for putz houses

As you may have noticed, there was a tiny bit of hot glue showing above the triple window frame. I wanted to cover that, so I chose some coordinating tinsel (pipecleaner).

green and pink ski-slope Putz

I put a bit over each window and over the door. I think I will add one more over the door.

green and pink ski-slope Putz

That’s were I left the project today. Tomorrow, I hope to glue the house to the base and add some embellishments.

~~Rhoda

menu plan monday ~ march 21, 2016

We had a fun weekend with the twins visiting. They had lots of fun on Saturday with Pa. He let them explore the heavens with his phone’s constellation/star finder. Snow White was so excited when she found the sun! Rose Red found the Big Dipper. They found planets and constellations, the Summer Triangle, and stars. All very exciting!

Checking the star finder

They picked “about a thousand!” daffodils for their mama who has been away on a work related trip for over a week.

picking bouquets

They went into the woods and cleared paths of fallen branches.

in the woods

And they swung on grapevines.

swinging on grape vines

They went on the roof of the house with Pa. Snow White assured me they stayed in the middle!

on the roof

Everything is an adventure with the grands! We are looking forward to having them back next weekend to share Easter dinner and an egg hunt. Hoping we have nice enough weather to do that outside. Here’s the menu for the week.

Monday
Carry Out

Tuesday
Beefy Noodle Bake
Steamed Sugar Snap Peas

Wednesday
Hamburgers
Homemade Buns
Crash Hot Potatoes

Thursday
Lasagna
Garlic Bread
Peas
Corn

Friday
Pork Chop Dinner
Baby Baked Potatoes
Green Beans

Saturday
Fridge Food

Easter Sunday
Bacon Brown Sugar Pork Tenderloin
Cheesy Tortellini Casserole
Mashed Potatoes
Asparagus
Balsamic Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Deviled Eggs
Homemade Rolls
Nelda’s Pudding Dessert

You can find more menus and ideas at Menu Plan Monday.

~~Rhonda

green gabled house, finished

This one was fun. Maybe because I love the colors so much. In the last post, I left off here…

Green gabled house

Partway through the process…

green gabled Putz house

Here are some of the bits and bobs I used to embellish this Putz house.

Ferns, in a color I call “champagne.” These came on a long stem. I bought them on Amazon.

green gabled Putz house

These little bits are parts of a larger stem. I pull them off the larger stem for embellishing. They are an odd color of green that doesn’t work well with many colors, but when they do work, it’s very pretty.

green gabled Putz house

Eucalyptus stems. These are also that funny champagne color. Not quite silver, not quite gold. It’s nice to have the contrast of the larger leaves next to the smaller ones.

green gabled Putz house

Blue snowflakes. They come on a long stem.

bits and bobs

I also used small blue and green beads to embellish the bottle brush trees and around the bottoms of the trees. I was so into it that I neglected to take more photos of the process! Here is is finished.

green gabled Putz house

The back…

green gabled Putz house

green gabled Putz house

Front…

green gabled Putz house

Close up…the tree topper is a bead cap that I pounded flat and glued on top the tree. The one I used is like these on Amazon.

green gabled Putz house

This Putz house is a new favorite. I will be hard pressed to put it up for sale!

green gabled Putz house

Which one should I do next?

Putz houses to finish.

~~Rhonda

green gabled house, continued

As I said in my last post, I chose this little Putz house for my next project.

green gabled Putz house

I didn’t have any ink jet acetate for making window panes. Added it to my shopping list. Middle Daughter did find some vellum in the craft room for me to try. I used a yellow Sharpie to color the vellum. The little bit of yellow to the left is about how much I did at a time. Before the ink dried, I rubbed it with my finger to even out the color. Worked great.

green gabled Putz house

Measuring against the house, I cut pieces to cover the window and the little hole above it.

green gabled Putz house

green gabled Putz house

I ran a little hot glue around the yellow vellum and quickly placed it on the inside of the house. It takes such a small amount of glue that, if you hesitate, it will set before you try to stick the vellum to the inside of the house. I know this from personal experience… This would be a good time to use white glue, if used sparingly. It shouldn’t show from the outside when the vellum is in place.

green gabled Putz house

All windows covered.

green gabled Putz house

At this point, I decided the house needed window frames, so I made some with lightweight poster board. Took a little fiddling because I was working without a pattern, but it didn’t take too long.

window frames

I mixed a bit of sand, glue and paint.

green gabled Putz house

The needle nose tweezers are very handy for working with little pieces.

window frames

All the frames got a base coat of color.

green gabled Putz house

When they were dry, they received a second coat of paint and a sprinkle of fine glitter over the wet paint. In this closeup, you can easily see the texture the sand adds to the paint.

green gabled Putz house

When dry, I attached each frame to the house with a bead of hot glue on the back of the frame. Then the house was ready to be attached to the base. First by pinning…

green gabled Putz house

Back…

green gabled Putz house

Then the glue was applied.

green gabled Putz house

When the glue set, the pins were removed by twisting them so they didn’t pull off any glue or paint.

green gabled Putz house

At this point, I mixed sand, glue and white paint and covered the bead of hot glue. I gave it two coats and used the thick paint to hide the contours of the hot glue. While the second coat was still wet, I sprinkled it with fine glitter.

I glued the bottle brush trees down and then decided to put stepping stones to the front door. I used egg carton cardboard to make small circles because they have such a nice texture. One layer didn’t seem thick enough, so I glued two pieces together. Seems to me that egg cartons used to be thicker.

green gabled Putz house

I painted them white. My grand-daughter thought they should be grey because they would be hard to see if they were white like the background. So I sprinkled them with silver glitter.

green gabled Putz house

green gabled Putz house

Here are some of the “bits and bobs” I may use on this house. It’s always a process and could totally change once I get into the actual placement. In case you wonder about the tipsy trees, I took this picture before they were glued down!

green gabled Putz house

The grands are here this weekend, so I’m not sure when I will be able to proceed with the embellishment of the little house. I’ll post the process when I finish it. I hope you have enjoyed the post. More to come soon!

~~Rhonda