Gingerbread House

I wanted to share a new CandyBox Crafts kit that I 'requested'....as I intend teaching it for the November workshop.

I had two purposes for it.  The first was to sit on my Christmas dinner table, holding table gifts for everyone (I have dogs that don't like crackers, which is why I usually buy a small gift instead....better than the rubbish you find in crackers).  The second purpose was to fill it with sweets, preferably CHOCOLATE :), for the build up to Christmas.

 
It has been an absolute pleasure putting this together and decorating it.  I used Kaisercolour acrylic Mud Puddle, as I felt it was a gingerbread colour.  The papers were from the First Edition collection, Christmas Wishes.  In the kit were also gingerbread people, stars and candy canes...oh and little squares, which could be made into scrabble tiles to put your house name on.  I used them to make a few extra sweets....the glittery ones, like square fruit pastilles.
 
The stars, I simply painted and added some card candi...I thought they looked like smarties or skittles.  You will see the square pastlles (painted and glittered), and also some fimo sweets and candy canes I made.  The larger MDF canes in the kit, I papered, inked the edges and added some crackle glaze.  Two of these I used to frame the front door, which you will see in a later photo.

The window frames I painted white and added DecoArt crystal Glamour Dust to the second layer of wet paint.
 
 
I painted the path grey and used a stencil mask to create the path around the house.

And here are some of the table gifts inside :)

The label I draped around the chimney, happened to be something I took off a jar of marmalade, recently purchased at our local food festival (pink grapefruit and prosecco...mmmm)  I think the company was called Peckish, if I recall ?





 
I also found some letter stickers in my scrapbooking drawers, and I thought they looked a little like jellybeans, so I decided to use them rather than the square tiles to put our name on.

 There was also a tree in the kit.....fabulous value for money...or what ?!?!

I painted, papered and inked as I had with the house, and added card candi for baubles. I made the paper chains using quilling papers,

 This is a close up of the door with two candy canes overlapped to frame it.  The icing was done with liquid pearls and the handle was something I found in my craft stash.  You will notice I used some fimo sweets to define the path to the front door.

And look at these chocolates....alas they didn't last very long.  Unfortunately my waistline is expanding.

The gingerbread men were decorated with liquid pearls, enamel accents and Stickles.  I had intended using black beads for the 'currants', but once you start delving into your craft goodies, you find other things you feel would work better.  I also wrapped some small ring boxes for parcels under the tree.

This was enormous fun to make, and I will be using it year on year.

You should find most of the goodies in stock in the shop, or arriving very soon if you want to have a go.


Christine