The Snowy Church - Christmas Putz House No. 10

Snowy Church paper church putz house 12 Houses for Christmas — Snowy Christmas Church in a Christmas wreath. It's 10th in the 12 Houses for Christmas series.

Just finished the latest Christmas Putz house - the Snowy Church. It's a small church 2.5 inches wide and 2.5 inches deep with a snowy roof - hence the name, of course. But it is 7 inches tall. I didn't really mean for it to be that tall, but that's what worked with the proportions. If I use it on my Christmas wreath it will have to a centerpiece, I think. We'll see in a couple of days when I finish the 12 Houses for Christmas challenge.

12 different free templates to make your own Christmas village — Here are most of the little houses completed so far. What is your favorite?

Table of Contents

HERE ARE THE LINKS TO ALL THE OTHER LITTLE Christmas HOUSES in this series YOU CAN MAKE:

12 Houses for Christmas Challenge
Christmas Putz House No. 1
Christmas Putz House No. 2 – Log Cabin Putz House
Christmas Putz House No. 3 – Twin Gable Front Putz House
Christmas Putz House No. 4
Christmas Putz House No. 5 – Little Church with Side Steeple
Christmas Putz House No. 6 – Frosty Barn
Christmas Putz House No. 7 – Round Arch House
Christmas Putz House No. 8 – Happy Holiday House
Christmas Putz House No. 9 - Swiss Chalet
Christmas Putz House No. 10 - Snowy Church
Christmas Putz House No. 11 - Winter Cottage
Christmas Putz House No. 12 - Split Level House
Winter Village Wreath - where all the little houses reside now

Where to get the free printable template for this little Snowy Church?

You can get the free pattern to make this little village in the Paper Glitter Glue Library. Just subscribe to my newsletter with the form below if you haven't already done so and you'll get the password right away. Then you will have access to all of my patterns - I think it's over 30 patterns now. And I add new ones all the time.

There are 2 files for this particular pattern - a PDF and a SVG file saved in a Zip folder in the Paper Glitter Glue library. The SVG file was kindly corrected by Jennifer Maker, an amazing crafter. Be sure to check out her blog because what she makes will astound you. Thank you so much, Jennifer.

In the library you will find the patterns added chronologically with the most recent file at the top.

Design Challenges

First I'd like to show you some design challenges. Figuring out the proportions for the steeple took a little while. The first steeple was too fat and chunky. The second steeple was better but too short. And the third steeple - just right.

First Pattern

In addition to the too chunky steeple, you can also see the notes I made on changing the pattern. The first church itself was about ½ inch taller, but that doesn't fit well with the other little houses for the Christmas village.

Too chunky steeple for Snowy Church Christmas glitter house — Initial pattern but the paper steeple is too chunky

Second Pattern

After the too chunky steeple, I made a better design, but I think the steeple is just a little too short compared to the body of the church.

too short steeple snowy church christmas paper house — Better design, but still the pattern needs a little tweaking.

Third Pattern - just right

Here's the paper pattern taped together to test the third steeple design. The steeple is tilted at a jaunty angle. But I glued it on right on the final house.

Just right steeple snowy church template for paper house — Just right steeple for the Snowy Church

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Here are the supplies you need to easily make this little Putz church:

Snowy Church free printable pattern from the library or the SVG file for this church
Cutting mat - I think these two cutting mats the best - Tim Holtz Glass Mat and the Fiskars Self-Healing cutting mat. The nice thing about the Tim Holtz Glass Mat is that you can paint on it and clean it easily.
Cutting utensils - craft knife and scissors or automatic cutting machine like a Cricut Explore Air 2, Cricut Maker or Silhouette Cameo
Metal edge ruler - It really helps even if you have an automatic cutting machine
Cardboard - poster board works, but this cardboard is the thickness I use
PVA Glue – Aleene’s Fast Grab and Glossy Accents
Tracing paper for transferring the pattern
Stylus for tracing
Painter’s tape - love Frog Tape Painter's tape
Paints:
- Gesso
- Ranger Distress Paint:
  - Stormy Sky - the absolute perfect blue for this little church
Clear acetate for the windows
Alcohol ink to stain the windows and door
Gold pen to make the church door - Uniball Gel Impact is what I used
Christmas embellishments
- Idea-ology Decorative Deer or other tiny deer
Rock Candy Glitter
Snow-Tex

Directions to make the Snowy Church:

Download the Snowy Church paper pattern - Design No. 37

If you cut by hand which is what I usually do, then print out the pattern and trace it onto your cardboard but whatever method works for you. Usually I use tracing paper and a stylus to trace the pattern onto my cardboard.

The pattern is Design No. 37 in the Paper Glitter Glue library.

Cut the pattern out using your cutting machine or by hand.

On the church I cut out on my Cricut Explore I still had to score the lines because they weren't deep enough. Use your metal edged ruler for scoring. And I even use it for folding to make sure I make a nice straight fold in the cardboard.

Score the score lines with metal ruler to make paper house — A metal edge ruler is an invaluable tool in little paper house making

Trim the steeple pattern just a little bit - fixed no

Oh, there is one thing you will have to cut out that I left off the pattern. I didn't realize that the glue tab for the steeple would overlap one of the windows. So cut out a small wedge to make sure the tab doesn't overlap the windows. ** I fixed that problem on the pattern in the library. **

Cut out on steeple tower snowy church bell tower — Here is the little excess cardboard on the glue tab that overlaps one of the steeple tower windows. ** Fixed as of July 24, 2019. **

Here is the way the pattern looks in Cricut Design Space. Below see the score lines as well.

And here is the top part of the Snowy Church.

Bottom part of the snowy church pattern template

Paint your little church in whatever colors appeal to you.

The previous little church was painted with Squeezed Lemonade yellow and Picked Raspberry to make a Raspberry Lemonade church.

Little Yellow Church with a side steeple and a pink bottlebrush tree. Free Printable pattern and tutorial — A little Putz church with a side steeple and a pink bottlebrush trees.

For this church I painted it a dusty blue distress paint shade called Stormy Sky. It is exactly what I wanted.

cardboard pieces for snowy church christmas paper house — All the cardboard pieces for the Snowy Church

Now test fit your cardboard cutouts for the Snowy Church

Yep. They're going to fit fine.

All the cardboard parts are going to fit on the snowy church christmas putz house

Make the windows and door

To make the door you see above, I drew it on the back of a piece of acetate stained with red alcohol ink. The best pen I know of to make something like this is made by Uniball. It smeared a little bit on my test door so I made sure the side I wrote on was glued on the inside of the house so it wouldn't smear.

Draw gold door for snowy church christmas putz house — First I traced the door outline on a piece of paper. Then I used a gold pen to draw the door on a piece of acetate plastic.

Now glue the doors and windows on the back of the house

My favorite glue for this step is called Glossy Accents. It's my favorite because it dries quickly and adheres really well - even glues non-porous materials like acetate to cardboard well.

Windows and door glued on the body snowy church paper christmas house

Assemble the house

Here's a trick for the front church portico.

Glue those roof flaps down on snowy church paper christmas house — That line of glue is to hold the roof flaps in place and then steady the front gable.

Glue down those roof flaps.

Now glue all the roofs down. Painter's tape helps a lot.

Glue that roof down on the snowy church with front portico and gold door paper house

After your house is completely assembled, glue your house to its cardboard base. For these houses the cardboard base is just two layers of cardboard glued together.

And finally you get to decorate your little Snowy Church Christmas Hous

Snowy Church paper church for 12 Houses for Christmas — The glittered deer is always looking about and ready to run if need be.

I love snow. I've always lived in the South where snow is a rare and delightful treat. It means days off from school (but not work - I work in the emergency department. We don't ever get off for stuff like that). But it still makes me happy to see snow. So I decided to totally cover the roof with snow (Snow Tex is the material I use) and glitter. Also because the house is relatively big compared to the other houses in this series, I made the base very small, only a little larger than the house itself. That means I only had a tiny space for Christmas embellishments. Guess what I chose? Yep. The little deer. Only this time I glittered the deer.

Two Putz house churches for the 12 Houses for Christmas series — Two little snowy roof putz house churches to decorate a Christmas village. I got better at applying snow. Hum! The sky looks like it might snow.

So that's it for the Snowy Church which is the 10th house in the 12 Houses for Christmas series. Only two more houses to go. What's next? You'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out.

Questions? Comments? Leave a comment here or email me at [email protected] so I can help.

Thank you for reading.

Lucy

P.S. Here is a pink version of the Snowy Church that I made as a baby gift.