3d paper village craft cottage | maker heart cottage papercraft | christmas craft | mrs clause | free cricut svg cut files

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Day 1 Gift for MAKE IT MERRY: 25 Days of DIY Maker Projects & CraftsHappy December! Today is the first day of my MAKE IT MERRY: 25 Days of Maker Projects here on the JenniferMaker blog. I’m starting out this fun endeavor in a big way with a DIY paper village cottage I designed. I call this my Maker Heart Cottage, and it’s the first in the series of 3D paper village buildings.

The Maker Heart Cottage is a crafty little cottage. Details include craft tools “carved” into the roofline and crafty hearts on the shutters. The door opens and inside is a crafty lady (or Mrs. Claus, your choice) standing inside. You can personalize her with your favorite craft! The top of the building lifts off so you can put two LED tealights inside for added effect.

I designed this cottage to be about the same size as popular ceramic holiday village buildings, so it will fit right in with your display if you already have one.

I also did my best to make this as easy to cut out as possible, eliminating all traditional score lines in favor of perforated lines. That means you should just be able to upload and go!

Here’s what this cute little cottage looks like when it’s lit up!

3d paper village craft cottage | maker heart cottage papercraft | christmas craft | mrs clause | free cricut svg cut files

Here are the craft tools at the top of the roof:

Craft tools carved into the roof of my DIY Paper Village House: The Maker Heart Cottage

And here is the crafty lady inside (could it be Mrs. Claus)?

Mrs. Claus inside the Maker Heart Cottage DIY Paper Village

My friend Amy over at amygonnacraft.com made my paper house and it’s adorable!

Maker Heart Cottage Paper House made by Amygonnacraft and designed by JenniferMaker

Maker Heart Cottage Paper House made by Amygonnacraft and designed by JenniferMaker

You can make this yourself! I will show you how to do it. This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission but it won’t cost you a penny more)!  Read my full disclosure policy.

Materials for the DIY Paper Village (Maker Heart Cottage)

How to Assemble the Maker Heart Cottage

First, cut out all of your cardstock pieces. If you upload this to Cricut Design Space, you need only to click “Make It” and the software will organize the file into 8 mats by color. Change everything to 8.5 x 11, except for one of the light brown sheets, which needs to be 12″ x 12″. There are no traditional score lines. I am experimenting with putting in perforated lines instead of score lines to make it easier to cut out and fold.

Upload the svg cut file to Cricut Design Space to cut out the Maker Heart Cottage paper village house

Note: The gray layer shown at the bottom is the vellum layer—everything else is card stock.

Here are the pieces cut out and ready to assemble:

DIY Paper Village Materials

The first thing you should do is glue the vellum windows to the snowy window frames (with the snow in front). There are seven sets of these. Light glue or spray adhesive works best here.

Glue the vellum onto the back of the snowed-in window frames on your paper village house

Next, glue the vellum/snow windows onto the back side of each wall piece. Match up the sizes to determine which window goes where. You want the white cardstock snow layer to be sandwiched in between the outer wall and the vellum. And the snow should be piling up on the bottom of each window frame.

Glue the windows onto the back of each wall

The window glued to the wall of the diy paper village house

Glue the brown frames onto the front of the walls. Do this for six of the windows, but do not yet do the bay window.

Put the brown window frame on the outside of the wall.

When you glue on the window frame with the shutters, fold the shutters up a bit and don’t glue the shutters to the paper.

Fold up the shutters on the diy paper village house

To assemble the bay window, first fold the thing that looks like a double-sided comb. The “teeth” on the top get folded in one direction, while the teeth on the bottom get folded in the opposite direction.

Assembling the bay window of the diy paper village house

Assembling the bay window of the diy paper village house

Now put glue on the shorter set of “teeth” and glue the arch piece to it. This will start to create the archway of the bay window.

Glue the teeth to the arch for the bay window Glue the teeth to the arch for the bay window

Now glue that arch to the back of your bay window (onto the vellum side).

Glue the arch and attach to the back of the bay window of your diy paper village house

Glue the arch and attach to the back of the bay window of your diy paper village house

Fold the side of the bay window so they form the sides of the window. Then fold again, at the second line, in the opposite direction.

Fold the sides of the bay window

Before you finish with the bay window, glue the small white rectangle onto the top to simulate snow.

Glue the snow on top of the bay window of your diy paper village house

Gently push the bay window into the wall (from the front) and glue it down in the back.

Pushing the bay window into the wall and gluing it down to the diy paper village house

Pushing the bay window into the wall and gluing it down to the diy paper village house

Glue the red rectangles under the windows (these are “window boxes”). Just match up the size to each window (with the frame on). There will be a big long one leftover—that goes on the back of the house.

Putting on the window boxes

Attach the flower boxes to your diy paper village house

Assemble and glue your Mrs Claus / crafty lady. Feel free to personalize her as you wish! I designed her so she could be holding your favorite craft in her hands. Glue her to the largest piece of vellum, aligned at the center bottom.

Assemble and attach your Mrs Claus to the vellum of your diy paper village house

Now glue that vellum to the back of the portico wall.

Assemble and attach your Mrs Claus to the vellum of your diy paper village house

Glue the snow, vellum, and frame onto the window on the door (if you haven’t already), attach a mini brad for the door handle, and glue the door’s tab to the underside of the portico wall.

Attach the door to the portico of the diy paper village house

Ok, that’s it for the walls!

Now, to assemble the base, begin by laying out your strips in this order and arrangement, then glue them all together at the tabs on the end.

Glue the base strips together

Glue the base strips together

Now fold in all of the tabs at the top and bottom of your glued strip.

Fold in the tabs at the top and bottom of the glued strip

Now glue the bottom of the strip to one of the large white base pieces.

Glue the strip to the base

Glue the strip to the base

Flip it over and glue the other large white base piece to the other side of the strip. This is your base! It will keep your house sturdy and make it easier to move about.

Glue the other large white piece to the other side of your base

Let’s get our walls up! Fold in the tabs on the sides of your two big walls and attach them to one another on both sides.

Attach your walls of your diy paper village house

Attach your walls of your diy paper village house

Now fold up the tabs on the bottom and glue each corner so the tabs adhere to each other at the edges. This will make it easier to glue down to the base later.

Glue down the corners of the wall tabs

Glue the corners of the tabs down

Fold the portico and glue to the front of the cottage. Note that there are small slits on the cottage to indicate where the portico’s right side should go (to help you get it in the right position).

Glue the portico to the cottage

Glue the portico to the cottage

Fold and glue the long white roof onto the portico.

Glue the roof onto the portico

Note that there are tabs on the portico’s roof that glue to the side of the cottage, too.

Glue the roof onto the portico

Insert the floor of the cottage so that it rests on top of the folded tabs at the base of the cottage.

Insert the floor into the cottage

Glue the folded tabs at the bottom of your walls to your base. There should be an equal about of space on the base that sticks out from the house on all sides. The base is intended to be larger than the house.

Glue the cottage to the base

Glue the cottage to the base

We’re almost done! Fold the tabs down on the roof pieces. Glue the tabs together at the corner to form a sort of lid that will go on the house.

Fold and glue the tabs on the roof

Now glue the two roof pieces together, with the last piece (the roofline finial) sandwiched in between. You can tell which sides of the roof glue together because there are no icicles hanging down on those sides.

Glue the roof together

The roof can now simply rest on top of the cottage. I don’t recommend you glue it down, because then you can get in and out to put in tealights!

Place the roof on top of your diy paper village house

Speaking of tealights, the rectangle with the two circles is for putting tealights in. You just squeeze the lights into those holes. Then they won’t slide around on you inside, and it’s easier to put in and out, too!

Put in the teaights for your diy paper village house

Put the lights in, put the roof back on, and you’re done!

The finished DIY Paper Village House: Maker Heart Cottage

If you make this paper village house, please let me know! Share a photo with me at [email protected] or tag me on social media with #jennifermaker.

 

Get my free template and cut files for the Maker Heart Village

https://forms.convertkit.com/303932?v=6

Also, be sure to visit tomorrow to open the Day 2 gift of my MAKE IT MERRY: 25 Days of Maker Projects Christmas! If you want to be notified of when there is a new gift ready to open on my blog, just fill out this form!

Love,

JenniferMaker.com

Want to remember this? Save the Maker Heart Cottage to your favorite Pinterest board!

DIY Papr House Craft Cottage | 3d paper village craft cottage | maker heart cottage papercraft | christmas craft | mrs clause | free cricut svg cut files

More gifts for you in my MAKE IT MERRY: 25 Days of Maker Projects Christmas:

Easy Tree Advent Calendar | Papercraft Christmas Holiday Project \ Free SVG Files |  Paper Orb Gift Box + Ornament | Free Papercraft Pattern and SVG Cut File | Cricut | Christmas Box | #christmasdecor Snow Globe Top Mason Jars + Rose Gold Glitter Globe Jars | How to Make | Mason Jar Ideas | DIY Gift Ideas | Christmas Gift in a Jar DIY 3D Paper Star: Moravian Star 20 Points | Christmas Tree Topper | #chrismtascrafts | free Cricut SVG cut files | how to make a moravian star DIY Tear-Away Gift Tag to keep anyone from peeking! | Christmas present tags SVG cut files for Cricut | reveal tags DIY Elf Stocking with a Curly Toe, Snowflakes, and Hearts for #Christmas | Free Sewing Pattern | Cricut SVG Cut File | Felt and Fleece Christmas Stocking | #christmas decor

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6 Comments

  1. I LOVE your patterns. You are so creative. I a lolsove that you changed the score lines to cut/score lines. I did that myself to your fairy cottage because honestly I don’t think the Cricut scoring tool works that great on all types of cardstock. So, thanks for doing that!

    Also, thank you for so generously sharing your hard work!!!

    Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy New Year!

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