Making a Medieval Peasant Cottage - Tutorial

 Medieval Peasant Cottage

Making a Medieval Peasant Cottage:

We're using Answers in Genesis' Kingdom Chronicles this year in VBS (Vacation Bible School).

The Medieval Peasant Cottage is not part of the suggested crafts, but I wanted to make one and thought the kids might enjoy it too. There is a 'Castle Catapult' suggested for the juniors and primaries, but it's made with a little wood ice cream spoon and a bottle cap, not exactly the kind of stuff my craft buddy and I like to use. Now if we could make an actual catapult...

Anyway, the Medieval Peasant Cottage is going to be a two-day project, allowing an overnight for the stucco and the paint to dry.

For this VBS craft, I used the following supplies:

• 5 x 5 x 5 cardboard box (with flaps)

• 6 x 9 piece of chipboard for roof

• 8 x 8 piece of cardboard for the platform on which the cottage sits (tiny lot)

• 4 1/2  x 2 1/2 piece of chipboard or heavy cardstock for chimney

• Tiny fake flowers for window box

• Moss for bushes

• Coconut matting (loose) for thatch, or you can use straw

• Tiny gravel or fish rocks for walkway

• Acrylic paints: Green, Brown, Black, Gray

• Vimasco (vinyl acrylic mastic) for the stucco effect on the outside of the house

I'll admit, there are definitely perks for being married to a contractor. We have just about everything around here. (That's also the downside.)  But if you don't have Vimasco sitting around, you can use a heavy white paint with sand added. 

• 1" wide paint brushes for applying the Vimasco

• Assorted narrow paint brushes for applying the detail

• Tacky glue (which the kids will paint onto the roof before applying straw 'thatch.')

• Hot Glue gun and glue sticks. The adults will be doing the hot glue. I don't want the kids losing any fingerprints, like I almost did.)

Here's how:

Assemble the box, taping the bottom closed with Scotch packing tape.

Cut two opposite-end top flaps of the box so that each forms a triangle. Now bend the side flaps inward. Your roof will be affixed to these side flaps.

End flaps cut to form triangles

Construct a chimney by folding the 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 piece of heavy cardstock or chipboard at 1-inch intervals with a half inch leftover as a tab to glue or tape to one of the sides.

Fold 6 x 9 chipboard (roof) in half and cut a square (the size of the chimney) out of it.The 6x9 gives the roof a little overhang.

6x9 roof with hole for chimney

Hot glue the roof to the side (top) flaps of the house.

Glue the chimney in place. When that's dry, Give the chimney a stone look by dabbling gray and black paint onto it.

Paint the platform with a green acrylic paint (The platform is not yet glued to the house)

Paint the roof brown.

When the roof is dry...Apply the Vimasco 'stucco' to the outside of the house and let dry overnight.

***

Now paint the brown timbers, the window frames, the walkway, etc.

Adults hot glue the cottage to the platform.

Now would be the time for the kids to use Tacky glue to adhere flowers to a 'windowbox,' gravel to the walkway, and lastly, the straw to the roof.

The kids can use the 1" wide paintbrushes to paint the Tacky glue onto each side of the roof, then sprinkling straw on, like you'd add glitter to something. Probably best to do one side at a time.

Although I like the look of the coconut matting on the roof of the one I made (in the photo), an adult would have to hot glue that on. So at VBS, we're going to go with the chopped straw instead, so that the kids can do it themselves.

P.S. If you have any questions or if I left anything out, be sure to email me or leave your questions in a comment.

****

And speaking of Coconut Matting...

Lord Peter Wimsey, Harriet Vane

tumbler.com

Lord Peter: "I was rather hurt. Fancy having to ask the Morning Star where the pole-star of one’s own heaven has gone to. . . How do these things get into the papers?”

“I rang them up myself,” replied Harriet. “First-class publicity, you know, and all that.”

“So it is,” agreed Wimsey, helping himself lavishly to butter. “Rang ‘em up, did you, with all the gory details?”

“Naturally; that was the first thing I thought of.”

“You’re a woman of business. But does it not, pardon me, indicate a certain coarsening of the fibers?”

“Obviously,” said Harriet. “My fibers at this moment resemble coconut matting.”

“Without even ‘Welcome’ written across them..."

                                               from Have His Carcase, by Dorothy L. Sayers

***

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