Homemade Ornament Exchange

My cousins and I are all pretty crafty, and one thing we used to do that was so much fun was a homemade ornament exchange. At the time, we all lived close by and it was fun to see what everyone came up with (or the person who ran out of time and ended up giving something store-bought! For shame!)

Now, we are all over the place, so we don’t get to celebrate the holidays together as often as we’d like, but this year we resurrected the homemade ornament exchange. Trouble is, we didn’t do it until this month! So we’re all scrambling for what to put together. My oldest cousin is already done with hers, she’s always so efficient. Anyways, I was thinking of what to make and came up with the idea of a take off on the paper house. You’ve seen these around the web probably, they are everywhere and very popular. They are usually closed, and have glitter and windows, and they’re very cute.

I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if I opened my paper house up and put a picture of my cousins and I in it from when we were kids. I found this picture:

and thought it was hilarious. Do you love the carton of cigarettes and ash tray under the tree? I’m seated on the floor (in case you can’t tell) with the dolly in my hands. I could never be parted from that doll! So I had to have her in this picture. My cousin Shelly (next to me) is probably telling me to put it down right now, and I’m saying, “Huh?”  (Good to know I usually have the same look on my face now when I pose for pictures.)

The first thing I did for the paper house was make up a template. I “wing it” a lot with crafting, and you know sometimes you should just search to see if there is a pattern available somewhere. (I’ll explain why in a minute.) I made my template out of grocery bags (my favorite thing to use in crafting):

So far, so good.  Then, I used scrapbook paper for the walls and roof. I glued two pieces back to back, so they had a different inside and outside pattern, plus it made it extra sturdy.

On the inside back wall I glued a copy of my picture.  I also used stamps to emboss a chair and clock on the internal walls to give it some interest.

Then, I glued on the roof.

And put it together.

And now, you see my mistake. I didn’t allow any tabs to secure the roof to the sides. It’s set on the back, but it won’t be enough to hold this thing together for the long haul. Also, I’m thinking of putting a floor on it to make it even more stable.

Well, this was my prototype, so now I know what I have to do to fix all this. Plus, I realized there are paper house templates all over the place, so maybe I should actually get one that’s been tested instead of winging it with my own! LOL! But crafting is all about testing and making mistakes, right? Besides, I’ve got enough of the design down where it should be easy to make a bunch of these with a few tweaks. I think my cousins are going to love these. I’ve also decided to blow up that old picture so they can have a copy too. I think that will be nice.