Make the Miniature Two-Sided Apothecary Halloween House

Here is how you make the Two-Sided Apothecary Halloween House or really any two-sided miniature house based on the pattern in my resource library. These are the detailed instructions for making the house that I didn't include in the last post. To illustrate many of the construction details, I used the Harlequin House Used Bookstore as the model for most of these photos because I remembered to take photos during construction. This house is made exactly the same way as the Apothecary Halloween house. I'll post the miniature bookstore Halloween house right after this tutorial.

Links to Information related to this tutorial:

• Apothecary Halloween House
• Harlequin House Used Bookstore - Miniature Halloween House
• Stone Texture for your little house

Steps for Making Your Little House

Briefly, these are the steps in making this cardboard house:

• Copy and cut out the pattern - Design No. 7
• Decorate the outside of the house
• Make reinforcement cardboard pieces to provide good support for the house
• Decorate the inside of the house
• Make shelves for the apothecary cabinet
• Glue the house together
• Glue the roof on and install the shelves
• Add the shingles or roofing of choice
• Make and decorate the base

In the Apothecary Halloween House post I talked about the many decorative elements for that particular house. I'll talk about the elements for the Halloween bookstore in the next post.

Overall this is a fairly easy house to build.

Download the pattern to make your Apothecary Halloween house or the Halloween bookstore from my resource library.

You can get the password for my resource library that has the pattern for the Apothecary Halloween House and other future freebies by filling out the newsletter subscription form located at the bottom of this post. You will also receive my newsletter every two weeks or so.

Detailed Information to Construct Your Own Two-Sided Apothecary Halloween House

• Copy the pattern onto your cardboard, score and cut the pattern

The pattern itself is very simple – it is a basic gable house with the back open. I generally make my patterns so they fit on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper and cardboard. This house is taller than usual to make room for the decorative elements in the back. You may shrink or enlarge your pattern to whatever size you want depending on your sources of paper and size of cardboard.

Once you have the pattern copied, the score along the fold lines BEFORE you cut it out. It is so much easier to score before you cut because you have a bigger area to hold on to.

• Main body of the Halloween house

• Roof piece for the Miniature House

• Decorate the Outside of Your Miniature House

Here are two versions of the same pattern decorated. The first is the Apothecary Halloween House and the second is the Harlequin House Used Bookstore.

Please note it is easier to glue on windows and doors at this stage than when the house is glued together.

• Reinforce the sides of the house with extra cardboard

I know that these edges aren't really going to show, but just in case, I paint them because I don't want raw cardboard to show. As much as I love cardboard - I don't like raw, unpainted cardboard.

• Make Shelves for Your Miniature Two-Sided House

The shelves are made the same way for both houses. Each shelf is a little narrower than the shelf below it. I designed them that way to allow a little more light to reach the bottom shelf. Decorate each shelf as you choose. Paint is the simplest choice. Stamping or stenciling on paper then glue to the individual shelf. If the underside is going to be seen as well, then cover it the same way. Bend the glue tabs down for the top 2 shelves. The bottom shelf glue tabs bend upward to fit within the house.

• Glue the house together

Now you glue the house together. It's a bit different from previous little houses which are completely enclosed. Primarily, you glue the roof flaps down to form the structure of the house. When you install the shelves, they provide more support for the house and pull the sides together better.

• Glue the roof on and install the shelves

• Add the shingles or roofing of choice

For both of these houses I used offcuts from the Tim Holtz Village Rooftops dies. I cut out so many of these dies that I hate to waste the leftovers because they make pretty cool rooftop shingles as well.

After you have the house completely constructed, you get to decorate your little Halloween house which really is the fun part. I'll go over the decorations on the Harlequin House Used Bookstore in the next post.

• Make and decorate the base for the house

These bases are very simple to make because you don't have to cut a hole in the bottom to install an LED light. Basically, each base consists of 4-5 layers of cardboard glued together with hot glue, covered with paper, then painted. For the Halloween Used Bookstore I stacked two bases together just because I liked how it looked.

In the next post, I'll go over more details about decorating the Harlequin House Used Bookstore.

Thank you for reading.

Lucy

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