Gingerbread House Tree Decorations.

Christmas stash busting ……….

OMG, these gingerbread houses seemed to take forever to put together ……

…….. they started as a very basic idea to help use up some of the wooden, fairy door embellishments I bought from Hobbycraft about two years ago ………

……… but then they seemed to take on a life of their own as I kept adding one more bit of fiddle fart after another.

I used two MDF shapes for base of the house, one was actually a dog kennel (eBay),  these I coloured with a tannish brown felt pen …….

…….. while I painted both sides of  the other  houses with a Wilko emulsion tester pot.

Then I think I did things in totally the wrong order, but hey ho. I added white Tulip Slick dimensional fabric paint to the roof and then cut a template to cover the back of the kennel houses with a suitably sized and patterned Christmas design paper.  Adding  a small bail and more Slick to the back of the roof, before adding a few faux stitches using a fine tipped felt pen along the bottom and sides when dry.

At this point I wasn’t very sure where I was going with the idea ………

I put a scrap of yellow paper behind the window of the door to give the illusion of a light being on behind it.

Then decided to add two roughly painted craft sticks glued one on top of the other along the bottom of the house to give extra dimension for sticking an MDF Christmas tree either side of the door, plus a gingerbread man to ……

  

……. but these extras all needed painting, varnishing and doodling on, as did the MDF Gingerbread men, all adding to the mounting fiddle fart …..

……. but finally it was time to put everything together.

…… with a little more doodling using a white Arisito marker pen around the doors.

There were so many tiny flat back gems, Fimo, nail art candy swirls and snowflakes and tiny holly punchies  on the table I didn’t know where to turn ………. but I got there in the end.

However, not content with just decorating the front, my attention then turned to the back of the houses, adding another gingerbread man plus Fimo candy swirls and snowflakes from eBay These bags were such good value I will definitely be ordering the snowflakes at least again, as I can see their proportions working on so many other Christmas ideas going into next year.

I love how they turned out…….

……. but they were so much work, with all the individual, plain, MDF embellishments needing to be prepared and embellished and then I always seemed to be waiting for the Slick to dry.

With all the house shapes used up, I am now thinking (in the new year), I should try the idea again but this time using the log cabin idea from last week, we shall see.

Sorry for this rambling post, I hope it makes sense!

Charity Shop Bargain ………………

When I was in my favourite Evesham Charity shop “Vale Wildlife” the other week I noticed that the counter was covered in lots of small Chinese pottery figures.

They were not my sort of thing, but then I noticed that they had also bagged up a lot of smaller figures, which made me a little more curious …….

…… especially when I saw the little pagodas, bridges and other buildings.

I still hivered and hovered, they were priced up at £4 a flipping bag and then I heard Marc’s voice in my ear telling me that was about the price of a posh coffee …… so with some trepidation I went and bought two!

When I got home and finally unpacked them I found that there were over sixty figures and buildings in each bag, so Marc’s telepathic beckoning was right ……

…….. as you can see what they were originally priced up/sold at.

With Rick, Marc’s partners birthday coming up at the end of the month these are going to be perfect “tut” for his present, as he loves this sort of thing and will no doubt put them in various pots and trays to make little “bonsai” scenes in the garden.

I am not inspired at the moment, but will definitely put a few aside for me for when inspiration does hit …….. in the meantime all ideas will be very, very welcome.

Christmas Log Cabin Christmas Tree Decoration

Just a heads up ......... I think for the month of November, at least, I will only be posting once a week, on a Monday. After almost eleven months of crafting and posting, an awful lot of it of a festive type nature,  I am almost totally Christmased out and as I've got lots going on during that month, it seems a good time to try and catch my breath ............. 

Christmas stash busting ……….

I think I need to get into houses at the moment as a way of trying to use up the mountain of Hobbycraft fairy doors I purchased a couple of years back (pack of 4 for £1). I was excited when the doors first arrived, but at that time I just couldn’t make them work for the ideas I had in mind.

However, two years on and I have tried again with these Christmas cabins, with two different size craft sticks and a pile of small MDF squares to use up.  I ordered the squares from China, again a while back, but they were so small that, until now, I didn’t have a clue what to do with them.

I started by getting all the various parts of the cabin put together, six sticks glued together for the main body……….

……. then two for the roof, reasoning that it would be a lot easier to cut two sticks than when all eight were stuck together, if that makes sense?

I put a scrap of yellow paper behind the doors and frames to give the impression that there was a light on behind them.

While the glue was still a bit tacky I added the door and windows which helped to keep the sticks together while they dried.

This was swiftly followed by the shaped sticks and roof, which were shorter and narrower than the others. I also cut the ends of the smaller sticks to make a canopy for over the door.  It was fiddly to get them in position as first, but using E-7000 I knew I would get a secure fix.  I also added two sticks directly stuck together to add a foundation to the cabin.  It was then time to let everything settle before all the fiddle fart.

The wooden snowmen and Christmas trees were duly coloured and varnished.  I put a scrap of black paper at the back of the snowman so you couldn’t see through the holes but didn’t bother with the tree.

Then came all the fiddle fart:- two holly sprig punchies on the door with three, tiny, red flat back pearls for the berries, a red pearl for the door handle, tiny green Fimo nail art Christmas trees in the windows and a wooden heart coloured red at the top of the roof  ……….

……. followed by the snowman and wooden Christmas tree ……..

……… then the Tulip Slick snow ……………

…….. and finally a little Ranger Glossy Accents to help make things pop and look more “professional”.  The Tulip Slick really takes a while to dry, so all the cabins had to then be carefully put aside and forgotten about for another 24 hours. I am currently looking for a quicker alternative to the Tulip.

When the cabin fronts were completely dry it was the turn of the back, nothing fancy, just a small flat bail to hang the decoration from and more Slick, followed by another 24 hour wait.

Looking at the “finished” cabins in the pictures now, I think I will add a little ultra fine translucent glitter to the snow and then varnish the backs, perhaps adding a few streaks of subtle colour underneath to add to the wood effect, before packaging them all up.

I’ve only made 6 of these cabins (of late I’ve been trying to make at least 20 of everything to really try and use as much stash up as possible) however, I fully intend to return to the idea in the New Year, to finally use up all the fairy doors (I did buy rather a lot), as well as the small squares.

Now ……. I am wondering if there’s any way to cover up the Merry Christmas on the door to make a Halloween House or Easter cottage ………hmmmmmmmm