Dream Houses- more how-to details

This is one of my favorite house views not seen in the magazine.

In this months Cloth Paper Scissors magazine you can find the directions for making my Dream Houses also referred to as the bird houses. There are a lot of steps to making these and in fairness to the other contributors of the magazine only so many pages could be devoted to my article and as a result the photos included in the article were fairly small. So I thought I would give you some nice big detailed photos to see the process.


In this first photo you can see I use a ball stylus to mark the metal. Light pressure will score a line through the paper, so it is easy to see for cutting.
I use firm pressure to score lines that I will be folding. The metal cuts easily with an x-acto knife. cut once with moderate pressure and wiggle the metal back and forth in your hands and the cut line will separate. After cutting the basic house shape the outside edge is trimmed with decorative craft scissors.
To fold a straight line fold the metal up against the edge of the ruler.
The ruler is about the same thickness as the Peltex used in making the house, so I fold the metal over the edge of the ruler on all four sides of the opening.
Then I gently straighten the edges up and fit it through the door hole cut in the house then fold the metal flaps flat against the inside wall of the house.
The metal sews easily, it is very soft. Lengthen your stitch length and sew slowly.
I use the ball stylus to draw on the metal, free form doodles. Scoring a line that echoes the decorative cut edge is always a good place to start. Then fill in with dots, lines and zigzags.
I sew all the house walls together working left to right, stitching over a fused strip of painted fabric to reinforce the hinge.
This is my high-tech way of using an iron for fusing a 3-dimensional piece. Find the right combination of paperbacks from the library to fill the space, so when you iron the top edge you don't squish the structure.
Always put a press cloth over the painted surface before ironing, this is a cold iron for the photo.
I tape the metal strips in place on the roof and sew adding each metal strip just before I get to it.

After sewing the metal on the roof, I emboss it and fold the edges down to fit over the house.
Finished houses ready for roofs.
I always like to make sure there is something to catch your eye when you look through the door.