Little boxes, little boxes, little boxes made of ticky-tacky...

So every now and then we are all guilty of gleaning ideas and inspiration. Well, here is my confession of such a replication. The picture below is a shop in East LA; I was walking by it one afternoon and noticed their window decorations. It was clear to me as soon as I saw them what must be done. Consider them the victim of gleaning. 

 

 I was going to actually construct the edifices out of cardboard but then I found these little house boxes at
 Michael's Craft store, on the cheap.

 I removed the chimney off the smaller one because I liked the look without it.

 I used a 'bleached titanium' colored acrylic paint, the coverage was thick enough I only needed one
coat and then a few touch ups here and there.

 I painted all the sides white, that I wanted white I guess.

 The roof and the chimney top would be black.

Once the paint dried, I used a grey marker and a folded paper (for a straight edge) to outline my designs.

The black completely covered any marker remnants--it was hard to make the line perfect.

But I kind of liked those imperfections in the end.

Finished product. I should have taken more pictures. Oh well, I do plan on making more of these and will have to add some more pictures. But they are fun to make and you can go crazy with the patterns. Also, they would be a really cute house warming party decoration...if you did actually make some lighter ones and hang them. Anyone moving soon?