My Tiny Christmas Village

I've always dreamed of owning one of those adorable Christmas villages all sparkling and smothered in snow. I did not want the fancy porcelain ones, I wanted to make it my own, but

the building of one seemed a little daunting.

When I found this great web site about Glitter houses (a.k.a Putz Houses) :

http://www.bigindoortrains.com/primer/glitterhouses/glitterhouses.htm

That also provided a few plans, I was inspired to try my hand at building one.

Well it went okay, not perfect but not awful either, so I did a few more, using Mr Paul D. Race's plan of the basic cottage. Eventually I modified the basic cottage to give it a somewhat pointier, taller roof (reminds me of Europe) then I saw that I needed a church, so I designed one (it's pretty easy really, the basic shape is a box with a slanted roof) I wanted something a little more "cathedrally" but I chickened out at the last minute and stuck to basics, probably a good idea ; )

The pink house was my very first and I made a mistake : I put the back of the house in the front yard when I glued the house to the base, so I slapped a door over the "light hole" and called it a day, it turned out alright, what do you think?
Below are my 2 modified cottages. The light aqua one has a wee problem with the roof, I used a card stock, apparently too thin and it buckled after painting it. Maybe after Christmas I'll give it a new roof

Anyhoo, This is a lot of fun (very messy too) so I also built three Halloween houses, two following the "Big Indoor Trains" plans, and one of my own design, they turned out quite brilliant (bow, bow, ever so humbly :) I'll post them when we are out of the Christmas season, I dont want to detract from the mood.

Addendum : I just finished the Big Indoor Trains' "Little charmer" and I love it; gotta take a picture. Thank you Mr Race and Mr Lamey for the great tutorials. I think I'm going to keep doing this.

TTFN.

TEXTE EN FRANCAIS

Il y a longtemps que je reve d'un petit village de Noel, mais je n'avais pas envie d'en acheter un(car ceux qui me plaisent vraiment coutent tres cher) Alors quand j'ai decouvert ce super site:

http://www.bigindoortrains.com/primer/glitterhouses/glitterhouses.htm

qui donne des plans pour des petites maisons, j'ai decide de faire un essai de construction... Ca n'a pas trop mal marche. J'ai construit six maisons et une eglise, j'ai bien fait quelques erreurs, mais c'est comme ca qu'on apprend.

Ca m'a tellement plu que j'ai aussi commence a faire un village d'Halloween qui est d'un esprit completement different, je vous les montrerai apres Noel (Je ne veux pas gacher l'humeur de fetes :)