The idea of this work came to me when I saw this simple template for coloring.

I don't like to decorate useless items. This house was exactly like that. How can you use a small house with slotted windows?

I decided to make a box-lamp of it which during the Christmas holidays can be used as a Christmas decoration.

In the first place my attention was drawn to the roof of the house — it could be easily removed. That's what I did.

I sawed off the "fangs" fixing the roof, processed the sawed edges with sandpaper and puttied the holes in the roof.

Then I applied the same putty on all the walls and the roof, creating texture.

After the putty dried out well, I processed it with sandpaper to remove all the burrs and sharp edges. But I preserved the texture.

The shape of the house prompted further actions.
Such is the nature of an Alpine chalet.
I wanted to make a small half-timbered house. A half-timbered house is a traditional type of construction in many European countries.
They call it "fachwerk" in Germany, which literally can be understood as a framework structure. The carrying part of fachwerks is a dimensional section of inclined girders. These girders are visible from the outside, which gives the house a specific, recognizable form. The space between the girders is filled with clay material or bricks, in rare cases, with wood.
I think all of you have seen these houses.

And I started to construct.
I needed corrugated cardboard. Considering the scale of my house, I could use only the thinnest cardboard with small corrugated layer.
This cardboard is very easily disassembled into layers. I cut the middle wavy layer into narrow strips.

They had to imitate the girders of a half-timbered house.
You can attach them with any glue for paper, pre-measuring the desired segments.

In the lower part of the house I "laid" a stone foundation with the help of simple contour in a tube with a thin nozzle, just making uneven volume spots at some distance from each other.

When the design was ready, I started to paint.
I used three paints — gray for pebbles, dark brown for girders and ivory for walls.

I fixed the dried paint with lacquer. At this stage you can use any lacquer — matte or glossy. It is needed to correct errors in subsequent layers.

When the lacquer dried, I used the method of a dry-brush to applied bright paint on dark parts of the house in order to emphasize the texture.

After that, I decided to make the house older.

I used dark paint. I added to the paint drying inhibitor for acrylic paints so that the paint didn't dry fast.

I applied the mixture with a thick layer on all the surface and removed the excess with a textile — simply washed the excess paint. At the same time I toned a little the area near the walls with the remained paint.

After working with a drying inhibitor the work will dry longer than usual.

And once it happens, you can cover the work with lacquer (although it is not necessary — acrylic paint create a dense film on surface and it can be considered to be a finishing coating).
There are many options. If you want to achieve the effect of ceramics, cover the house with 2 layers of high gloss lacquer.
If you want the house to be as realistic as possible, cover it with matte lacquer.
I chose the second option.
Now it's time for interior decor.
For me it is important that the house can be used as a jewelry box, and everything inside should be nice and cozy. And at the same time I want to leave the windows translucent, so that it can be used as a lamp.
Therefore, for the "interior decor" I chose a beautiful bright napkin and transparent plastic, which gave rigidity to the napkin.
I made a pattern of the walls and cut out plastic details using it.

Then I glued the napkin on the plastic with usual acrylic lacquer. The lacquer is applied directly to the cloth, impregnates it and holds reliably on the surface.
After the lacquer is dried you can easily remove the excess edges of the napkin with scissors, a knife or sandpaper.

Using transparent structural gel, I glued colored parts of the walls of napkin on the inner part of the house and the glossy plastic became visible in the window openings.

Instead of transparent gel, you can use any glue that is good with plastic.
After all the decorative panels were installed on the walls, I again very carefully covered all the interior space of the house with matte lacquer.

For the flooring I chose felt of a contrasting color. However, the color of one of the strips on the wallpaper exactly matches the color of the felt.
I cut out a detail for the flooring using a pattern and glue it with Mod Podge glue. This work could be done by any other not too runny glue.

Well, it's finally time to return the roof to the place, making a lid of the box of it.
Then I needed a loop with screws and a tool to install it.

Because the detail of the roof was not designed to open, its thickness prevented easy opening and closing of the lid.

I had to make this part of the lid thinner, I easily did that with a utility knife and sandpaper.

The loop is in the place and the roof lid opens easily.

I put small electric candles in the house to make a lamp of it.

If the light source is strong enough, then it can get through the gap in the roof.
To avoid this, I made a weather strip of leather — it is usually a strap that covers the gaps on furniture, windows and doors.
I cut a strip of leather and simply glued it with Mod Podge glue.

I planned to decorate the bottom of the house from the outside with the same leather.

I didn't fully paint the bottom, but not out of greed. I made it to improve the surface adhesion with the skin.
Why did I paint the central part of the bottom?

And now I'm ready to tell you how our box-lamp can turn into a Christmas tree decoration!
I made two cuts in a piece of leather, before the I marked them with a ruler and a pen on the reverse side.

I thickly smeared Mod Podge glue across the entire wrong side with the exception of the central rectangle. And I thoroughly pressed the leather bottom to the bottom of the plywood.

As the central part is not glued (and that's why I painted it), you can absolutely safely to put through it, for example, a beautiful ribbon or a strap from a wrist watch, or a regular hair clip, like I did.
And this gives you the opportunity...

... to fix the house on any spruce bough!

Here is the story of transformation of a simple blank for coloring into a versatile interior decoration.
This is a Christmas tree ornament and a small lamp, a nightlight, and a small original box.

Thank you for your attention. I hope you enjoyed this DIY.