What are the Best Tools for Making Putz Houses or Paper Houses? Patterns and Templates

What are the best tools for making Putz Houses or little glitter houses?

Well, here is my Paper House Putz House making list broken down by categories according to the steps involved.

For this first post, I am going to concentrate on the first item on the list - patterns available for making little house.

1.  Putz House Patterns
2.  Paper material for the body of the Putz house
3. Transfer pattern to cardboard
4. Cutting Materials
5. Glue
6. Paint
7. Glitter
8. Base for the house
9. Embellishments for Putz Houses

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Patterns for Putz Houses

To make your search easier here are great options for finding patterns to make the little paper houses.

First, let’s talk about the books that are available for making little houses - the Cut and Assemble series

The most famous books for making building structures are the Cut and Assemble books by Edmund V. Gillon Jr. written from 1977 to 1996.

Below are a few of my favorite examples:

Cut & Assemble Victorian Houses

There are 4 house patterns in this book - an Italianate Mansion, a Second Empire house, an Octagonal house as well as one described as a Victorian "Stick Style". One of my little house-making friends made the stick style Victorian house in this book. Just look at what a great house it is.

 

You can find more details on how he made this house on the Glitter and Putz House Private Facebook group. Just ask to join. I am the moderator for this Facebook Glitter and Putz house group page as well as my own group - Paper Houses and Paper Crafts Hosted by PaperGlitterGlue.

Cut & Assemble Suburban Houses of the Twenties: Four Buildings in H-O Scale

Included in this book are the Dutch Colonial, a Tudor house, a bungalow and a Mediterranean-styled house. Cut and Assemble Colonial Houses in Full Color: Five Historic Buildings in H-O Scale.

Cut & Assemble Victorian Cottage: An Easy-to-Make Paper Model

This is a marvelous seaside Victorian cottage that is seriously inspiring.

And then there is a devilishly tricky - Cut & Assemble Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House: A Full-Color Paper Model

I doubt many people who purchased this book actually completed making the Robie House. But I am including it just to show you the scope of the paper houses in these Cut & Assemble books.

More Cut and Assemble Books

Matt Bergstrom has also authored Cut and Assemble books for making little houses. The one that appeals to me the most is the Haunted House version. That one looks like serious fun. It even looks a bit like the Abandoned Italianate Mansion that I made in 2017.

Cut & Assemble Haunted House: Easy-to-Make Paper Model

Another really fun one by Matt Bergstrom which would be fun to make with kids is the Santa’s Workshop book.

Cut & Assemble Santa's Workshop

And then finally he authored the Cut and Assemble book for making the US Capital building.

Cut & Assemble the Capitol Building: An Easy-to-Make Paper Model

Build a Christmas Village: Paper Houses to Make and Decorate for the Holidays is written by Leonard Hospidor. It's a complete kit containing scored, perforated templates that you can use to make a church, an English Tudor house, as well as Colonial and Alpine houses. You can even copy some of these templates to make your own versions of the houses. This is a fun option if you are starting out making little houses or if you want to make houses with your kids.

So those are some great examples of books that are available with patterns for making paper houses.

Now let's move onto Online Pattern Options for Paper Houses and Putz Houses

Here are my top choices for finding patterns online.

First, there is the classic magazine article, Pack-O-Fun Putz House Plans about making little houses. It’s not a book, just a 4 page article with plans for making 5 different little houses. Paul Race who runs the BigIndoortrains.com website and Cardboard Christmas forum got permission from the original publisher to reprint this inspiring article. 

Then Howard Lamey, one of the prolific builders of little houses on the Cardboard Christmas forum, designed a whole series of houses to fit the size of the Pack O’Fun houses. You can check out that series of Pack O'Fun Putz house patterns here. Lots of PDF patterns under this forum topic. But you can find are many, many more patterns throughout the Cardboard Christmas forums.

Now Howard is building the  Ten Cent City based on 1950s Putz Houses which is incredible series of miniature houses. Here is an example you can find on the Cardboard Christmas forum.

And you know I have a bunch of little house patterns in my Paper Glitter Glue library.

Here is the simplest template to make a paper house called the Easy Paper House. I've even made an SVG version for making this miniature house. You can download them both versions by subscribing to the library and then you get access to all of my free printable and SVG patterns.

But in addition to these printable patterns which are either printed or PDF patterns, you can find SVG patterns as well. SVG stands for scalable vector graphics and is a program that allows you to change the size of the image without losing detail.  Basically, for our purposes it is allows us to use an automatic cutting machine to cut the pattern out on our cardboard or cardstock. I’ll go into more detail about the automatic cutting machines as a tool later.

Finally, learn how to make your own paper house patterns

I learned to make SVG patterns from a course called A Cut Above by JenniferMaker. She teaches how to make SVG cut files on both Inkscape and Adobe Illustrator. It’s expensive, but it has been invaluable for me. If you want to make your own SVG patterns, this is the best course to teach you how to make them.

And here is the link to the second article in this series - choosing cardboard material for your little houses and paper crafts.

Thank you for reading.
Lucy