Make a Halloween House...

My kids LOVE our Halloween village.  We have 2 houses.  It's a small village...

For a fun afternoon craft, I made this little house for them.  I have a design background as well as a drafting background, so these came together pretty easily for me.  We cut them out, glued them together and painted them all to be spooky.  Here's a quick tutorial if you want to make your own with your kids!

The houses are about 10" tall and about 7" wide when assembled.  For smaller kids, you may want to use copy paper and a glue stick or tape.  For bigger kids {and adults} you may want to use card stock and a glue gun.  The card stock houses will definitely hold up better than the copy paper ones.

Step 1: Color or the house with crayons, markers or colored pencils. You could paint the house, but the paint may make the paper wavy when it dries.  I used watercolors to paint mine when it was all done.

Step 2: Cut out the parts of the house. You will cut ALL the lines that are SOLID BLACK that are not windows or doors.

Step 3:  Fold ALL the lines that are GRAY DASHED.  It is best to fold all the tabs to the back of the printed part.  The stairs will have an accordion fold.  Start by folding them to the front.

Step 4: Begin assembling your house, gluing on the tabs marked with an ‘x’.

First assemble the main body of the house, parts E, F, G and H. Glue the side tabs on E and put G & H on it. Finish by gluing the side tabs on F and attaching the rest of the house.

Glue the top tabs of E and F and add the Roof {M}, making sure the tabs for the chimney are in the back of the house.  You may have to lay it on its side to press it into place.  Glue the top tabs of G and H, also pressing into place.

Glue the side tabs {the ones that are circled} on the Tower L Side {C} to the Tower Front/R Side {A} making the tower box.  Slide the tower into place on the main house and glue the tabs into place on the inside of the main house and roof.

Assemble the tower roof {P}.  Glue the top tabs on the Tower and set the roof on top.  Press from the inside of the tower into place.

Assemble the chimney {D}.  Put glue on the roof tabs for the chimney.  Slide it into place and press from the inside.

Assemble the front window {B} by gluing only the tabs WITHOUT the circles.  When it is all assembled, then glue the tabs with the circled X’s and attach it to the front of the tower {A} where the gray box is located.

Glue the roof cap {J} onto the roof.

Glue the Roof top fence {K} and Front window fence {L} into place.

All done!!  You can download the instructions and .pdf files of the house

HERE if you want to make your own!  For Free!!

**SOME TIPS**

Cut out the windows and glue yellow tissue paper inside over the windows. You can put a small strand of Christmas lights inside to illuminate it.

Google ‘free Halloween clip art’ and cut and paste images to your house to make it spooky.

Print your house out on scrapbook paper that looks like wood or brick to make it more realistic.

Add glitter!

Make another one for Christmas!

We also made a school, that is painted very spooky.

And an equally spooky church.  Our village is almost complete!!

Also, I added some bats to the wall and bent the wings out to make it look a little more realistic.  Piper gets a big kick out of them on the wall!

If you have a Silhouette and want some bats of your own, you can download the .studio file HERE.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!