I got a bee in my bonnet (or maybe I should say a bat in my belfry)
a couple weeks ago to make a haunted house. I didn’t have the funds to buy
another cartridge to make the house so I used my Winter Woodland Cricut
cartridge instead. I figured a haunted house is just a house that’s spooky
looking, right? I didn’t think that
regular cardstock would be sturdy enough for a house so I bought a couple pieces
of poster board. I found some that was black on one side and orange on the
other at our local grocery store. I used the orange side for the inside house
and the black for the exterior. Since I
was feeling ambitious I decided on the 2 story house with dormers. Using my 12”
x 24” cutting mat, I cut the house out at width 23.43 and height 10.23 setting the
depth on 6, speed on 3 and pressure on 5. I cut it twice. I
used some brown cardstock I had on hand for the roof. I ran it through my
Texture Boutique with a Sizzix embossing card I thought looked vaguely like
a roof pattern. I used a Cuttlebug embossing card that looked like wood for the door.
 |
| The roof of the Two Story House |
|
Even using the directions for building the houses in the
back of the Winter Woodland booklet it was a little confusing to put together, especially
the dormers and the stoop. But I just kept going back to the pictures and
experimenting until it made sense.
*TIPS*: Use Aileen’s Tacky Glue. It holds better than Tacky
Tape; don’t permanently attach the roof until after you get the dormers on.
I really like the way the orange sort of glows through the
windows, but it still needed some character.
I used the Pumpkin Carving Cricut cartridge to cut
some ghoulish embellishments. The ones I wanted to use all had circles around
them so I just snipped the circles off after cutting. In a few instances I had
to do a little free hand cutting to keep the shape.
I liked the look of the first house so much I decided to
make another one. This time I chose the single story house with the round
window in front. I used the same materials and cut it at 19.77” x 6.20”. The
door was too small at this size and I had to re-size it to 9.93 x 7.15. The
hinge goes on the inside, but I glued the hinge outside so the door could open
and you could see the giant cat. I also had to cut the door off at the bottom
so it would open over the step. Using
Pumpkin Carving once again, I cut out the bats and the ghost, using it as smoke
coming from the chimney.
 |
| One Story Haunted House |
 |
| Won't they make great table decor for our Halloween Party? |
