Santa's Matchbox Cottage

Lately I have been hooked on making accordion books, especially house-shaped ones. It's two good things in one, really. Now if only there was a tiny house-shaped accordion book... 
  
Ahem. Enter this month's kit from Alpha Stamps. Yep, it is a wee accordion book. Looks like a house. Tucked inside a 1 1/2" x 2 1/4" matchbox. EEEEE! HAS CHRISTMAS COME EARLY??

It was quite exciting, lemme tell you. Inside the smaller matchbox is the "book", which is actually a four room cottage that unfolds from the pages, and the larger 2" x 3" matchbox holds itty bitty furniture to use in the rooms.

Untie and open out the book:

Fold down the floors, re-tie the book, and now it is a cottage. Time to get decorating!

Santa has a welcoming living room with a comfy chair and cozy fire. The armchair was made from cardboard and fabric and the fire is simply colored broken toothpicks with hot glue flames.

Next to the living room is the kitchen, where it looks like Mrs. Claus has baked some cookies.

 There is a gingerbread house on the dining room table,

And Santa has been busy checking his list in the office. I loved putting this little thing together! The 1/4 scale furniture fit perfectly with the cottage, and I only altered a few pieces with bits of paper. The flooring and accessories are from the China Cabinet House Accessories collage sheet, so construction of the house was really all I had to do. 

Let's make a cottage, shall we? You will need two Tiny Houses Accordion books (there's one in the kit, so be sure to buy a second), the paper from the kit, the China Cabinet House Accessories collage sheet, thin ribbon, glue, and a strip of linen or fabric tape.

The Tiny Houses Accordion Book is a strip of five houses and you only need eight, so chop off two from the second Accordion Book. Set those aside. Tape the two strips together on the back side only, then paint all of the edges. Paint the tape too.

 We need to wallpaper all of our rooms, so take the two houses you chopped off and sandwich the paper between the houses with the edge of the paper lined up with the edge of the house. Trace around house and cut out wallpaper. Repeat for all four rooms (eight pieces total).

Glue wallpaper to the front of the strip (the side without the tape).

Cut out the entire floor from the collage sheet and sandwich it between the houses as before. Mark along the side and cut. (this was quicker than measuring, and it's clear I avoid rulers if at all possible). Repeat for the other three rooms.

Now you have a row of rooms and four floors.

The floors fold out, so you need a flap to glue to the back of the room. You could measure the width of the room, make a mark on the floor, then fold along that mark, or eyeball it like I did.

Glue the flap to the back of the room, like so, but on the strip of rooms with the wallpaper. 

After gluing all of the floors in place, you are going to glue the book together. I had a great picture of what to do, but it seems this computer has eaten it. You are going to add glue to the back of the rooms and fold them together. So, I glued the right side of the first room to the left side of the second room, the right side of the second room to the left side of the third room, and so forth. Do not glue the first and last flaps! These are the book's covers! I clipped the pages together until dry. The next picture shows the rooms glued together and the front and back covers are left unglued.

Time for the covers. Fold the floors up and close the book. Glue a ribbon tie to the front and back. Cover the ties with paper.

Tie the ribbon and there you have it!

It would be fun to have a Haunted House version with black furniture and ghosts...maybe next year!

The supply list can be found HERE, and remember to get that second Tiny Houses Accordion Book!