Friday, 13 December 2013

Glitter Houses, reuse-centre style


Glitter houses (sometimes referred to 'putz' houses) are an old decorating favourite around Christmas time. Nowadays, the store bought ones are made of various products, but in early to mid- 20th century, glitter houses were made of cardboard and mostly imported from Japan. The trend nowadays is to replicate these little houses, experimenting with modern materials to create the look and feel of the originals.  

Our blogger group got together a few weeks ago, holiday treats in hand,  to see what reusable materials we could use to make these vintage holiday favourites, and we had a whale of a time.

It was three hours of fun! We ate lots of delicious sugary homemade treats, and cut, pasted and sprinkled our way to glitter house glory.

We got our template for the glitter houses from LittleGlitterHouses.com (we used Cottage Plan 1). It specifies quite a few supplies to make glitter houses, but we were a bit informal and used what we had access to. This strategy seemed to work just fine! However, if you would like more specific instructions, check out this blog post on the Christmas Notebook blog.

What we used:
  • used Christmas gift cards
  • copious amounts of glitter
  • various kinds of glue (glue guns, glue sticks and white glue)
  • various crafty embellishments (e.g. puff balls, pipe cleaners, lace, fabric)
  • thick cardboard (for the house foundation)

Emma impressed us with her skills opening the glue bottle

then we ate some delicious treats 

Then we got down to business! 

The creativity was flowing

Viola! Michelle shows off her creation

Emma made some smokey smoke stacks

A close up of the glittery houses


Sarah's wintery scene

A penguin watches over Lana's little village
Glitter houses are fun, cheap and a great idea for reusing those items that can be found around the house and turn them into charming holiday display items that can be reused for years to come. Add a dessert potluck to make a party of it!

We've displayed our glitter houses at the Reuse Centre so stop by to have a look!

- Hayley (Staff)

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