Stone House Tutorial

Hello dear readers,

As promised, here is the tutorial.  I chose it as a Christmas gift to you, because these kind of stone
walled houses are what you see in Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem and other ancient cities in Israel. If you wish, there is enough time to create a Nativity scene using this technique.

First of all, please watch again very carefully the video here. It shows you exactly how to carve the styrofoam.

The sizes are in centimeters.

Materials:

Styrofoam trays 0.5 cm thick.  Use only the center parts which are completely flat and unmarked.
Color not important. (My trays are 23 x 17.5 yielding a workable piece of about 15 x 10 centimeters.)

Tacky glue ( or any quick drying white plastic glue that dries clear).  You can try to glue two spare pieces of foam together to see if it works. My advice is to practice on spare pieces before taking on a project.

Acrylic paints.
Terracotta,  Flesh color and linen or beige.

Mod podge.  I don't have any at hand and will use diluted tacky glue to seal the pieces.

One wooden tongue depressor and one larger craft stick for window and door.

A little piece of brown fimo. Tiny bits of findings for door knob and hinges.

Tools:

Cut out the center flat part of the tray. I used three.

Trim it to 15 x 10 to make the side walls, 3 cm each and the back 9 cm. Do not cut, you can start carving the three together, following the video tutorial above.

Now you can cut away the side walls from the back and cut out the triangle.

Take the second cut out piece of flat foam to make the front wall and the roof.

This is how to cut the ends of the roof tiles.

The third cut out is for the base. You can make a larger base for outdoor decoration.
This tutorial is for a simple cottage only.  After you acquire the skill you can make different
designed houses.

This is the door, windows and flower box. ( I prepared one more window as a spare) Cut the craft sticks to the desired size.  From the brown fimo you roll out a long snake and place it around the cut pieces.  Bake the door and window (not the foam flower boxes.) The foam will melt away if you bake it.

Paint all the walls the color of your choice and glue them together. First glue the side walls to the back as shown.

Next glue the door and window  to the front piece.

Glue the front to the back and to the base.

Glue on the roof.

To seal the house you'll need to use Mod Podge or diluted white plastic glue.
(One part glue, 2 parts water.)  Looks like like milk.

Paint the house all over with this mixture. Seems a little messy but not to worry if will dry out fine.

The finished house.  I hope this was not too long a tutorial and apologize for my not very eloquent
English.  I'll be happy to answer any questions.

I wish you all a wonderful sunny weekend and blessings.