Ten Two Studios

This week, I had to make something to cheer up my friend Mary, who is in the hospital. I decided to whip something up using the new Row House Books, and ended up designing a whole bunch of backgrounds and a door alphabet that I’m sure some of you will put to good use.

To make your own row house book, you’ll need:

• A Little Row House Book from Ten Two Studios.

• House Printables, also from Ten Two Studios.
• A sanding block or a piece of sand paper.
• A glue stick and narrow masking tape.
• Glitter, sequins, flowers, or whatever you’d like to use to embellish your houses.
• Assorted scraps of ribbon, and a stapler.

Little Row House Book .99

House Book Printables 3.99 via download

Christmas House Book Printables 4.99 via download

Rough up the printed side of the house book, using a sanding block or sand paper. You don’t have to sand very much—just enough to break up the shiny surface a little.

Plan out how many houses you’ll need to write your message. I found it easiest to just write each letter on the house sections with a pencil. Don’t forget to skip a house between words, to leave a space. There are extra blank doors in the alphabet set to allow for this.

If your message doesn’t use up all the houses, just trim the extras off at the fold. Save the extras to use as house-shaped tags on another project.

Flatten the book out, printed side up. All the way to the left are the cover sections: two house shapes, plus a narrow spine. Cover the far left house and the spine with a scrap of coordinating paper. You can let the paper lap over the second house cover section.

Trim around the covered sections to retain the house shapes.

Fold on the existing lines at the spine to recreate the cover shape.

Print out the house and roof printables, and cut the sections apart. Lay them over the house sections, and arrange them in the order in which you’d like them to appear.

Starting at the far right house, glue the printable block down, lining up the right side with the house edge. It will lap over the fold a little bit.

Tape down the section that laps over the fold, letting the tape come all the way up to the fold line. This will keep the individual sections from popping up when the book is folded.

Glue the next section in place, covering the tape.

Keep gluing and taping your way down the row of houses, until everything is covered, including the remaining bare cover section.

Trim off the excess background on the front cover.

Trim away any paper that covers curved sections—mostly, the little V shaped sections at the top and bottom of the folds.

Now, glue down the roof sections, one at a time.

Trim away the excess paper on each roof before gluing down the next one.

Print out the letter alphabet, and cut out the letters and blanks you need. Lay them out on the house sections. Glue the letters down to the house fronts, centering them between folds.

Decorate the houses as you wish.

Fold scraps of ribbon in half, and staple them to the roof sections.

A little glitter glue never hurts!

This house book was made with the Christmas House Book Printables.

And this one was made using the Valentine House Book Printables.