My Whimcees

My Whimcees

Thursday, October 1, 2015

October 1st - And Progress Made On My Halloween House

Hello!

Happy first day of October! Can't believe it is here already! Thoughts of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas projects going through my head! But one at a time and right now the progress is continuing on my 2015 Halloween House. Today I am sharing photos of making the window frames.

To make the outside window frames, I first taped the strips of paper to be used for the frames to the outside of the house I was working on - remembering to have the paper side that you want showing in your frames to be facing out.


Then turn the house over so the outside wall with the strips taped to it is on the bottom, laying flat on the surface, and trace the windows from the inside. A ballpoint pen works well.


This house has an outside base, so I had to lay the house on top of some paper packs the same height as this base to lift it off of the table so the wall of windows I was tracing was laying flat on a surface to allow me to trace around the windows. Does that make sense?


After you have traced the windows - remember BEFORE you make one pen mark that this should be the backside of the paper - be sure to draw an arrow to indicate which is a top window or a bottom window and is it the left or right side of the wall. None of the windows is exactly the same in most all of the paper mache houses, and if you choose to skip this step, you may have difficulty - and much time lost - in deciding which window is which. Don't say I didn't warn you! :<) Been there, done that.


The easiest way I have found to fussy cut inside small areas is to cut from the center to the four corners and then cut around the sides, working your way around from one corner to the next until you have completed the inside shape. This works well with both straight and curved sides.

If you click on the photo below to enlarge them, you can see more clearly the square in the upper left has the four cuts to the corners and then I will cut up the four sides to complete the cut out square.


Only one side of the square left to cut in this window frame! Look at all the little triangles that have been cut! Confetti! :<)


See the arrow in the middle of the window frame? It also says TOP below the window above, but don't know if you can make that out.


When the window centers were cut out, I then separated and cut the two individual windows (I had drawn lines around them for the depth of the frame to equal the thickness of the inside cross), turned them to the right side out and there you have it! Window frames! :<) That was fun, but I had to cut 12 window frames for this house! I was so happy the back of the house was a solid wall!


I outline ALL of my fussy cut pieces - inside and out - with withe either a black or a brown marker, depending on the papers I am using.


Add some white Elmer's School Glue - my glue of choice for paper mache projects - on the paper piece, and glue to the appropriate window. Did you remember to label with an arrow and if it was right side or left of the wall you were working on? :<)


And there you are - a house with window frames! I also added a door piece to get a perspective of how to proceed with that. Hope you enjoyed the mini tutorial!




Thank you for visiting my blog today! Sun is out here today in this part of WI but was it COLD this morning! Back to a turtleneck today for the first time - Fall is definitely here! Wishing you all good things today!

Hugs,

Barbara Diane