Building a Glitterhouse - Howard's How-To's, from Littleglitterhouses.com. Note from Editor: Howard Lamey, in Jacksonville, Florida, has retired from a full-time job in advertising that included designing window displays for a major retailer. Now he has turned those artistic talents to designing and building vintage-style cardboard buildings for his family and friends.
Howard is building his own site, but he has graciously agreed to share some of his craft knowledge with our readers. Also, you should know that most collectors and builders of vintage pasteboard houses call them "putz" houses because they were often used in "putzes," the German-American term for Christmas villages of the 1930's-1950's. If most of this information is new to you, you can read up on these classic cardboard Christmas communities in the Big Indoor Trains "What is a Glitterhouse? " article. The house shown in the photo is a good starting product for learning to build "putz" houses. What You Will Need Printing the Plans Double-click on the plans above to see the large versions. Conclusion. Build a Cardboard House. Building cardboard houses | rudy and the dodo. Imagine how much fun your little ones could have building a decorating their own cardboard box house, just like this one?
Grab some of your recycling, some glue and your imaginations. If you want more inspiration you can follow these guidelines. Happy building! X Like this: Like Loading... Holiday patterns for candle mats, table runners and placemats. Holiday patterns for candle mats, table runners and placemats. Cardboard Shoe Box Play House With Egg Carton Furniture. Today, I wanted to share "E"s cardboard box play house with you. She spent an entire afternoon and part of an evening working on it and I think it is adorable! She found this nice big shoe box in our garage recycling pile and wanted to make a little play doll house out of it. Of course as soon as she decided to make a play house, her little sister wanted to make one too so she found a second box for "C" and divided her time to help her sister make a little house too.
She drew a door and windows on the back wall of the shoebox house and asked me to help her cut them out with my craft knife. She added a handle on top to make it portable. Then, she attached it to the box with a couple of brads. "E" wanted to make furniture out of egg cartons like the cute egg carton furniture we saw So, I helped her cut the egg cartons apart and she fit them together into the pieces of furniture she wanted for her little house.
Here is the bed made out of egg cartons with a little basket on top. The artist at work. Fondly, What is a Glitter House? Many baby boomers remember their family building little communities around their nativity, Christmas tree, or train set at the holidays. Quite a few remember including inexpensive, glitter-sprinkled buildings made of pasteboard and imported from Japan. Our family had at least two very small sets that were probably postwar, but apparently the best sets were made in the 1930s. I actually haven't thought about them for decades. Then I was contacted by Howard Lamey, a fellow who builds these little houses as a hobby. The First "Christmas Villages" Between 1910 and 1960, many familes set houses, scenery, and other accessories around their train sets, Nativity displays, and/or Christmas trees.
It turns out that many German-Americans used the term "putz" the way we might use the term "putter. " What is a Putz House? The Christmas Garden/Train Garden/Putz tradition was probably well in place before Japanese paste-board houses arrived in this country. Where Did They Come From, Anyway? Conclusion. What is a Glitter House?