House Guardians for the Halloween "Tree" House

I decided that the trees around the house looked like they are guarding the house so I call them the "House Guardians". I glued a crow in one of the trees as a guardian as well.

I've talked about this before how what you plan in your head is not often what comes out when you complete a project. Sometimes that is a good thing and sometimes it's a bust. (The previous "tree" house was not a successful design.) This house does not look like what I envisioned, but I am very happy with this iteration.

The trees are pretty rustic-looking which is ok for this design. I really like how all the leaves pop and provide color to the house. I made the leaves by coloring watercolor paper with various stains and sprays then used a Fishers leaf punch to make the leaves. Since I used watercolor paper there was a conspicuous white edge to the leaves so I distressed some with Walnut distress ink (one by one - my fingers are still stained brown 24 hours later) and others I sprayed Fossilized Amber and smooshed them around in the stain to obscure the white edge.

In my original house plan, I didn't put any windows except the circular ones and I realized after gluing the house together that that was a mistake. So I cut out some window frames and backed them with black cardstock and glued them on the house.

This is the back of the house. I usually leave a hole in the back just like in the Japanese putz houses, but my base has a square cut out large enough for one LED tea light. I drew the boards on the house  with a fine tipped pen and then distressed it with some dilute black gesso. You can see one of the tree roots extending over the edge of the base just to increase the creepy factor a little bit.

I enjoyed making this house. Next will be a much more complicated design based on a house I found on pinterest.