Christmastime Houses

Lindsey and I made Gingerbread houses!  It was her first time ever to decorate a Gingerbread house and I think she did a fabulous job!  We had a great time decorating the houses while Cornbread and Michael Bacon watched some really bad silly movies.  We all ate way too much candy, and had delicious pizza from Filippi's Pizza Grotto.

I used the Elfin cottage pattern from my 1982 Wilton Celebrate!: Christmas book.  I had a batch of gingerbread in the freezer that was left from last year's house.  And I made one batch of the Grandma's gingerbread from my Wilton book.  They both baked up pretty well.  But cutting out the pieces and baking a gingerbread house from scratch is really hard work.  I miss my cast iron gingerbread mold!  Maybe next year...

I've also been busy making more cardboard glitter houses.  The little green two story house is a pattern that Howard from littleglitterhouses.com shared on the cardboard Christmas forums.  I was going to wait until next year to make it, but then he surprised me with an adorable Santa figure.  I thought I should make the little guy a new house and I did the whole thing yesterday.

Howard suggested repainting the Santa and giving him a clear coat.  I did repaint him and add some glitter to his base, but I'm still deciding if I want to clear coat him.  I only have gloss clear coat right now, and Michael says he likes him flat.  Maybe I'll try to find some flat clear coat, but for now Santa has a new home.  Thanks, Howard!

I also made another one of the Urban Debris mini Putz houses for my Grandma's Christmas present.  The vintage-looking tall tree, Santa and silver gift boxes all came from WalMart.  I just hot-glued the little scene on the top of a Christmas tin and I plan to fill it with candy and sweets for her. 

Christmastime

Most of my supplies for extra curricular activities are in storage while we're in the condo including my gingerbread house cookie mold. So this year I decided to do it the old-fashioned way and design and build a gingerbread house from scratch. I used a recipe I found online and cut out the pieces based on a paper pattern I drafted.

I won't use that gingerbread recipe again, the one that came with my cookie mold is much better. The pieces weren't as strong as I like and they warped A LOT! But I trudged on. The over-hang on the roof was a little lacking and the front of the house was far from straight.

I did use the royal icing recipe that I always use. And, once it's covered with icing and candy, the house doesn't look too bad. I also bought a box of Pepperidge Farm ginger family cookies and stuck them in the front yard. They're cute, but there is no way they'll fit in their house. :)

We also got the tree out of storage and crammed it in to our tiny little living room. I'm so happy with how our new tree skirt turned out! I LOVE the Alexander Henry Yuletide 2D Zoo fabric I ordered from Etsy. It's the perfect combination of traditional Christmas and whimsy. Plus it doesn't smell like cat pee!