Painting Little Houses
Yes, it took me a long time to start and finish the latest Plastercraft houses. These houses were produced by California Creation, (which has gone out of business), and painted by me. The houses are painted with acrylic paint and sealed with gloss varnish.
Pizza Parlor
Fire Station
Okay, I only painted three Plastercraft Houses in 2020 – so far. After I finished the last two, I was looking through the box of houses that wasn’t damaged in the 2016 flood, and found the “Hot Rod Parts” building. Since I normally paint three houses at a time, I continue to look and found a second “Hot Rod Parts” building, and then I found a third “Hot Rod Parts” building. So, I decided to paint all three. One for my sister, who I started painting houses for many years ago. One for my other sister, who rescue the houses from the flood and one for me. They were surprise! Especially, since California Creations went out of business.
Yes, it appears that I only painted two houses in 2019. I did not get a chance to seal the houses until a few weeks ago, because of cold weather and Covid-19. (I can’t varnish if someone in the household sinuses gets upset around paint and varnish.)
These are California Creations houses. The company went out of business in the early 2000s. Yes, these have been in storage waiting for me to paint them.
Pink House
Bed and Breakfast
Another three house painted from my Rescued Houses series. Why are they called “Rescued Houses.” In August 2016, South Louisiana had what some believed to be a 1000 year flood. The storage unit which held these houses flooded. These plaster houses were in water for over week. There is minor damage to all the houses, but that may add to their charm.
The entire story is in Part One.
Notice the Railroad Crossing sign. It is not original to the house. The original sign is currently missing, which means it could be in another box. Therefore, I created the sign in Tinkercad, printed with my 3D printer, and painted the sign.  I only had to print one sign, because I got the measurements right on the first design.
Railroad Depot
Music Store
Jewelry Store
After two weeks of being back from my long trip, I realized I missed painting my little plaster houses. It is something that I believe that I am good at doing. I am also good at painting walls too. I finished these three houses and started painting three more. I typically paint three houses at a time, so others can be drying as I work on one.
Thatch Roof House
School House
Library
If you would like to know why I called them my rescued houses, check at this blog post:Â Rescued Houses – Part One
It is the Christmas Season! All the presents are wrapped and all the cards have mailed; it is time that I share with you my Christmas Card of 2017.
I usually start thinking about my Christmas Cards around July. If I wait until Thanksgiving, I sure that disasters will strike and I would be force into buying Christmas cards from the store. This year the ideal was a Snow Globe Christmas card. I researched the ideal and knew it was possible.
But, I didn’t really want to put a piece of plastic wrap or it’s equivalent on the card. And, than I found Jullibean Soup’s Large Circles by Hampton Art. It was a quick Click and Order from Amazon. Once the circles came in, I started to work on the card.
I thought about designing a village scene to put inside the snow globe, but I wanted a little deep. Then it occurred to me; I have polymer clay, I have cutters for snowman and trees. The card was coming together.
The snowman, trees, and snow were made with Sculpey Polymer Clay using a setting of 3 in the pasta machine and cut with “cookie” cutters, bake and covered with sparkle varnish. (Which was the first mistake.) However, I need to draw the face and buttons, and color the hats on the snowman. I got out may Sharpie pens and colored the hats. They looked awful. I should not have varnished the snowmen first. What was I going to do, paint all the snowmen? Nooooo! I had just recent purchase a set of Chameleon Pens, which worked with beautiful results. It even covered where I used a Sharpie.
Since the Snowman were coming together, I could now design the inside of the card. This was done using Corel Draw. I probably spend too much time making snowflakes, but I was having so much fun. I hope the shading on the snowman gives it some dimension.
At Office Depot, I found dual color cardstock. It was light blue on one side and white on the other side. This was perfect for my card. It would give me the blue sky I wanted behind the snowman scene on the front and white on the inside. I found the snowflake paper at Hobby Lobby. I found some nice light blue glitter paper at JoAnn’s and had the silver paper left over from last year.
The Jullibean Soup circle comes with adhesive around the circle, so it was not necessary to stick it through the first layer of paper and glue everything down. I used Silhouette Studio to design the silver snow globe and the cut for the top paper layer. Everything was cut using my Silhouette Curio. I was really dreading gluing it all together.
More research. I found this wonderful blog that talked about ways to glue paper together. Did you know you can put cheap plastic wrap between two piece of paper and use a hot iron to fix them together. I didn’t use plastic wrap. The blog also talk about Xyron Creative Station for sticking paper together. This is the best machine I have bought all year. It did exactly what I expected. It basically creates stickers when you roll your paper through the machine. Afterwards, you just peel it off and stick it where you want it. It even handled the delicate “Merry Christmas”.
To assemble the card:
First step: print the inside of the card on cardstock on the correct side of the paper and cut everything. Run the snowflake paper, the silver snow globe, and the Merry Christmas through the Xyron Creative Station.
Second step: stick the snowflake paper to the correct side of the card.
Third step: Use glue dots to fix the snowman, trees, and snow to the card. Top with snow. (Second mistake.) After sitting in a box for several weeks, the trees and snowman started to come loose. The problem was I did not use permanent glue dots for those items. I had to gently open up at least half of the cards and redo the inside. I am glad I switched glue dots during the assembly.
Fourth step: Place plastic circle on tope of snowman and snow.
Fifth step: Place silver globe around circle and add Merry Christmas.
We have a finished card. Well, almost. It needed something else. I used glitter glue to around the border to give it more sparkle.
I put the card in an envelope that I stamped with snowflakes. Both, envelope and card was mail in a bubble mailer. Any thicker and the card could not be sent First Class mail.
In August 2016, my storage unit flooded when areas of Louisiana received over 25 inches of rain within 24 hours. I was going to abandon the houses that sat in flood water for over a week, but my sister rescued them.
I was excited to paint these house, because they were interesting and unique.
Tailor Shop: Yes, it needed a cooper roof. I had trouble deciding on a color for the door, so I decided to let it stand out.
English Cottage: Painted it a traditional colors. The front door needed to be stained glass colors.
Bed and Breakfast: I wanted my Bed and Breakfast house to have a white porch, but I didn’t want the house to be too dark or pink. I wanted the roof to be a grayish blue.
In August 2016, the storage unit where I kept my belonging flooded. In those belonging was all my Christmas Village Plastercraft Houses. Many of the houses, painted and unpainted, was either wet or underwater for about a week. I was going to abandon them because I had no means of drying or cleaning them. My sister, who showed up to help me salvage what belonging I could, insisted that I could not abandon my houses.
She took all the wet houses to her flooded house, unwrapped, cleaned, and let the houses dry out while her house was drying out. After everything was dried, she carefully packed the house. In June, I was able to retrieve the unpainted houses from her. She did an amazing job. All three of these houses have minor damage, but no house is perfect. Of course, the inserts with suggested painting is gone, so I choose the colors myself.
These are the first three houses that she recovered that I have painted.
Don’s Donuts: I decided I would paint it the colors of the best donut shop, Krispy Kreme. The car had to be blue.
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Bowling Alley:Â I thought this building needed to be bright and metallic.
Toy Maker: Deciding the colors were a little difficult. What colors would Santa have on his shop?
There will be more houses to come. I usually paint three at a time.
Most of the time, I would work on several houses together. As parts on one was drying, I would work on the others.
Gabled House
French Blue
Farmhouse
Craftsman House
Country Home
Country Christmas House
Country Barn Christmas
Country Antique Store
Corner Store
Corner Store 2
This obsession got so big, I created a database to keep track of the houses I painted and ones that are waiting to be painted.
Boutique
Brick Church
Brick Home
Butcher Shop
Candy Store
Christmas Lighthouse
Church
City Church
City News
Cobblestone Cottage
Sarah Cath's Adventures 