Church / Chapel with Bell Tower

Just a few weeks ago I discovered a range of dies by Tim Holtz / Sizzix - Village Dwelling. Fascinated as I am with making small things, the appeal of making these little houses was irresistible.  As soon as I received my dies I set about making my first little house. I made a little Church first, complete with Bell Tower and tiny brass Bell! :)

The lower part (the house) is made using the Sizzix Bigz XL die called "Village Dwelling".  It cuts the basic shapes for the house, roof, porch, base etc.  The "Bell Tower" die is a separate item, so if you don't want to make a church, you can just get the Dwelling die and make little houses.  I've made quite a few already, which you can see from my header image. I'll post more on these over the next few days.

I have found that recycled cardboard packaging is excellent for making these (..and its free!). Once painted and dried becomes they are pretty sturdy. For colouring I use a mixture of household matt emulsion, chalk paint or acrylic, and I colour the roof, windows and doors with Distress Inks and/or paint. I used an embossing folder to make the pattern of tiles on the roof.

I decided it needed to have a built-in tea-light holder (battery LED tealights only!!) and I wanted it to stay sitting neatly on its base where I intended it to sit, so I created a hinge on the back.

And so that it can be picked up by its roof without and remain attached to its base, I added a magnetic closure with just enough strength to hold it.

I hope you like the finished result?  I'll post some of my little houses shortly. Oh, and if you're wondering about the bottle-brush trees, the bigger ones were ones I bought online and bleached  and coloured myself. But I now make my own so that I can make them to any size and colour needed for the houses.  You'll see more examples of them as go along.  I'll share how I made them another time...

Alli xx