As a little girl some of my fondest Christmas memories were going to my Aunt Leone’s home to see her little glitter house display beneath her artificial Christmas tree. We always had a live tree, and I never understood why she would want an artificial one. Now that I am older, I can see why artificial trees are so much easier! I loved her beautifully decorated home, and the love I felt from her whenever I went there. My husband also has fond memories of his Grandpa Peterson having a large display of little hand-made homes at Christmas time.

With the return of vintage things in the past few years, these little glitter houses have become popular once again. Life seems to go faster and faster, and for me, these little houses are a reminder of slower, gentler times. I don’t know about you, but I love the thought of that! These little houses were originally called “Putz Houses”. The word “Putz” comes from the German word “putzen”, which means to decorate or adorn.

When we became empty-nesters a few years ago, Ron said to me one day, “We need to have a hobby that we do together, and I was thinking it would be fun to make some of those little houses like my Grandma and Grandpa had under their Christmas tree.” This actually came as quite a shock to hear him suggest we craft together, as I am generally the one coming up with crazy crafting ideas. But anytime the word craft, or create comes out count me in!!! My assignment was to find out all I could about how to make them. I did a little bit of study and found some websites dedicated to the making of “Putz Houses”. This is an art form and the people that make them are true artisans. They are made the old fashioned way with cardboard re-purposed from cereal boxes or something similar, and each piece hand cut with an x-acto knife. Since we don’t eat cereal, we asked our married kids to start saving their empty cereal boxes for us. We soon had more than we would ever use, and we started with a simple little home design. I had gone out and bought the tools necessary to hand-cut and assemble these time consuming little homes. We differed on how we wanted to complete the exteriors. I wanted mine to be a true glitter-house with pretty colors, snow on the roof, sprinkled with bigger crystals that look like ice crystals - just like Aunt Leone’s. Ron preferred his to be covered with tiny rocks, sticks, and wood like Grandpa Peterson’s. We each made a small one, and from there I was hooked. We chose a bigger project for our next one. Mine was a cute little home, and Ron chose to make a train station complete with water tower. I finished mine in a light minty green turquoise glitter, and Ron’s is still under construction . . .

It was about this time I decided to see if I could cut these homes out on my Cameo Silhouette machine that I had bought about a year prior to our little home building venture. Much to my delight, I found some patterns for little houses, and discovered I could change them and re-design them to fit my personal liking. Which basically means, I turned them from something simple into something much more detailed and time consuming to create.

Each year at Christmas our neighborhood does a progressive dinner, and we end up at Elen Belnap’s home. Dean and Elen Belnap were an amazing couple who understood the definition of kindness, service and friendship. They have both since passed away, but Elen is the one who started these dinners so many years ago. Her grandson and his cute family now live in the home, and open it up to us each year for all to gather back together for a special English dessert, and visiting. This past year, our church Relief Society presidency made 110 glitter house ornaments to give to each person in our neighborhood for Christmas. The theme for this gathering was “Light From Within”, and it became my challenge to design the ornament, glitter house, and then figure out how to light these little homes. We began in August or September of 2018, and completed them just in time for our dinner the first week of December.

Tools and Supplies:

Silhouette Cameo Machine - You will LOVE this machine!!!
Silhouette Cameo Cutting Matt
Silhouette Cameo Cutting Knife
Silhouette Cameo Spatula Tool
Palette knife - Craft Store
Fabric scissors - Did you know paper dulls fabric scissors?
Paper scissors - Did you know fabric dulls paper scissors?
8 1/2” x 11” white card stock paper
Tombow Mono Aqua liquid glue - Craft Store
Elmer’s white glue
glue gun and glue sticks
White latex house paint - Home Depot
Metallic gold acrylic paint - Hobby Lobby
Martha Stewart glitter - Michael’s
Aleene’s Glitter Snow - paste
Sulyn Industries Inc. Glitter - clear for snow on roof
Antique Gold Metallic Cover Paper - Paper Source
Velum Paper - optional for windows
1 1/2” wide Gold Sheer Organza Ribbon - 1 yard
1/2” wide Gold Sheer Organza Ribbon - 1 yard
1/2” wide Gold Satin Ribbon - 1 yard
1/8” wide Gold Satin Ribbon - 1/4 yard
Yihong Fairy String Lights” LED battery with the copper wire 7.2 feet - 20 LED's - Amazon

Instructions:

Step 1: Buy a “Silhouette Cameo” machine"!!! You will love it!!!! Not only to make glitter houses, but for cards, banners, and just about anything else you can think of!

Step 2: Choose a little 3-D home design from the Silhouette Design Store

Step 3: For the little glitter ornament houses we made, I reduced the size, and was able to cut four homes on one piece of plain white 8 1/2” x 11” card stock paper. You will want to use a new blade and a new mat as the windows are tiny, and need a sharp blade.

Step 4: Once the homes were cut, I folded them and glued them together using “Tombow Mono Aqua Liquid Glue”. I added a chimney to mine as well as changing the shape of the door, and windows. I also added a small round hole in the back wall of the house to run my fairy lights through. I like to open the door a little bit.

Step 5: When the homes are dry, paint the inside and outside with white latex house paint. I don’t dilute it since this is what makes the home strong and stable. I generally let mine dry overnight.

Step 6: Next I paint the outside walls and sides of the chimney the color I am going to glitter the home with. I also paint both sides of the door with the gold acrylic paint, and glitter. I leave the inside of the house white. In this case, I used a metallic gold acrylic paint from Hobby Lobby. Be creative!!! Use any color you want!!! Just be sure to match your glitter to the paint color.

Step 7: This is optional, you can glue vellum paper to the inside of the home for the windows. Because my homes are so tiny, I didn’t do this. Bigger homes will need this step for sure.

Step 8: Once the metallic gold paint is dry, paint the outside of the house and the sides of the chimney with plain white Elmer’s glue. You will need to work kind of quickly here. I do two walls at a time. When you have two painted with the glue, sprinkle the matching color of glitter heavily onto the glue. My favorite brand of glitter is the Martha Stewart coarse glitter. I bought a variety pack of colors from Michael’s a few years ago. Sadly, I don’t think they carry it anymore, but they do have a similar variety pack of a different brand. If the windows get plugged up with glue and glitter, use a toothpick or straight pin to clean them out. Continue with the other two walls, and the sides of the chimney trying not to get the glue on the top of the roof. I let this dry overnight before I go on to the next step. I use a little plastic glitter tray I bought at the “Paper Source” store at Fashion Place Mall in Murray, Utah to catch the extra glitter. It has a little funnel molded right into the tray to make it easy to dump the excess glitter back into the bottle. I wait until I have a lot of glitter in the tray before I dump it back in.

Step 9: Using a small palette knife used in painting on canvas paintings, You will add the wet glitter snow paste to the roof and the top of the chimney. I like “Aleene’s Glitter Snow” that comes in a 4 oz jar. This is something you will want to practice with a little bit on a piece of cardboard to get the hang of it. Think of making small peaks on the meringue of a lemon meringue pie. I start by spreading the snow paste on like you would a peanut butter sandwich. Then I go back over it and make sure the edges are covered and start “pulling” up the snow with the palette knife.

Step 10: Before the snow paste has a chance to dry at all, sprinkle it with a heavier crusty “sugar” type glitter. I like to use “Sulyn Industries Inc. Glitter”. It is perfect to add the final clear sugary coat to your snowy paste. Allow this to dry overnight.

Step 11: Once the house is completely dry, you are ready to attach it to the base. I cut a piece of heavy chipboard for this - card stock is not quite heavy enough. I cut mine about 1/4” - 3/8” larger than the base of my glitter house. You will need to paint the top and bottom of this piece with the white latex house paint and let it completely dry. If you are adding bottle brush trees around your home, you will need to make your base piece bigger to accommodate the trees. You will need to add a thick enough layer of “Glitter Snow Paste” to the base so that when you push the glitter house down into it, the snow will dry and keep the house in place. After you spread the snow paste, you will "sugar” it with the clear glitter like you did the roof of the house. Press the house into the snow, and let it dry overnight. This will hold the house in place.

Step 12: I cut a round circle for the base of the ornament. I love the heavy Antique Gold color metallic cover stock paper I used from “The Paper Source” for this project. I made eight scoring marks on the round circle on my Silhouette Cameo when I cut them so that I would have the marks to show me where to glue the ribbons.

Step 13: I cut 8 pieces of 1 1/2” wide x 4 1/2” long pieces of sheer organza ribbon, folded them in half and glued them with a glue gun. Then I hot glued them around the edge evenly spaced to create the ribbon rosette. I glued the top, bottom and both sides first, then I hot glued the other four in between.

Step 14: I cut four pieces of satin ribbon pieces 2” long to hot glue on top of the folded sheer organza ribbon. Hot glue them on.

Step 15: I cut 2 pieces of 2” wide x 11” long for the accordion folded rosette on the Silhouette Cameo, and cut a hole to run the fairy light wire through. I accordion folded the paper rosette pieces and glued them together to make a continuous circle. Once that was dry, I and glued it together in the center with a hot glue gun. Be careful here, it’s easy to get burned.

Step 16: I ran the short strand of fairy lights through the back of the ribbon rosette, through the paper rosette, and then made a clump of lights to run into the hold in the back of the house. I ordered my fairy lights on Amazon - I like the “Yihong Fairy String Lights” LED battery with the copper wire 7.2 feet with 20 LEDs - I only insert 3 into the tiny houses. The rest are hidden between the layers of the rosette. On Black Friday, they were about $1.00 per strand and come 6 to a box. I glued the on/off switch to the back of the card stock circle that I glued the folded ribbons to. And then I glued all the layers together, hiding the extra wire from the lights in between the ribbon rosette, and the folded accordion card stock rosette.

Step 17: Cut two pieces of 1/2” x 4 1/2” long satin ribbon and glue them in a criss-cross design in the middle. Cut two pieces of sheer organza ribbon and do the same. Now glue them on top of each other so that it forms an 8 pointed star. Glue to the center of the accordion card stock. Make a slit in the ribbon near the center for the fairy lights to go through into the house.

Step 18: Carefully run the lights into the house, and glue the house to the ornament base using a hot glue gun.

Step 19: Cut the 1/8” wide gold satin ribbon about 8-9” long. Tie an overhand knot. Using the glue gun, glue behind accordion pleated paper rosette. This need to be exactly at the top center of the ornament so that it will hang straight.

Yes, this a a very detailed project! But did you have fun? How did yours turn out? I have to admit, glitter houses have become a bit of an obsession with me!!! I love to make them! They are time consuming but fairly inexpensive little gifts or favors.

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Glitter House Ornaments