Gingerbread House Ornament

I tried making a mini gingerbread house ornament a few years ago but I didn't like the way it looked. Since then I've come up with a better way to do it, which I'm going to share.

 I started the same way, cutting all the sides of the house out of my card of choice; Amazon packaging. Then I glued all the bits together.

 Next I needed to paint the house a gingerbready colour using acrylic paint.

 Here comes the game changer. Using the same polyfiller and water mix in a bottle with small nozzle that I used here I was able to be more precise with the piping of the 'icing'.

Not too bad if I say so myself! I could see myself getting a little production line going and making a whole bunch of these.

Gingerbread House Ornament

This post is more to share an idea than a finished product. Because the finished product didn't turn out too great...but I still like the idea!

Having made gingerbread men ornaments I thought a gingerbread house ornament would be fun, and you know how I like making miniature buildings.

I made some simple houses out of card and put a loop of gold thread between the roof so that they could hang.

I painted the houses with acrylic paint. The colour may have been the first mistake. It looks maybe a bit too orange for gingerbread.

For the icing/frosting detail I wanted something three-dimensional to replicate the real stuff.

I found this big tube of filler for 99p and thought it might be perfect for the job.

My Mum made me a piping bag out of greaseproof paper and I squeeze some of the filler in.

The piping in this photo isn't too bad, but other areas were a hot mess.

My piping skills aren't that bad - see last years actual gingerbread house - but the filler is thicker than icing and doesn't flow as well.

 This is what I ended up with.

I think the cardboard is too flat/lacking texture compared the filler which is maybe too big for the scale of the houses.

Any ideas for alternative ways to do this?

Or any other uses for the filler now that I have a whole tube of it?

Gingerbread Men Ornaments

It might be a little bit too early to be thinking about Christmas, but I've got some Christmas craft fairs coming up so I need to think ahead.

In addition to the things I make for Etsy, I've been adding to my stock with some seasonal items.

This gingerbread man ornaments is made out of Sculpey - a flat base with the features added on - and then painted with acrylic.

I also made some smaller gingerbread men.

Gingerbros, if you will.

For these I painted on the features, using the tiniest brush, instead of making the bits with Sculpey first, as I thought that would get a bit fiddly.

I love how these turned out and I'm looking forward to seeing what people think of them [whether they buy them or not!]

My first craft fair of the season is this Saturday.

For anyone local reading pop down to the Letchworth Settlement between 10:00 and 4:00 for the Garden House Hospice Arts, Craft & Design Fair.

Dinosaurs and Daleks

My sister's boyfriend likes dinosaurs and lego.

So for Christmas I made him a photo holder that is a dinosaur holding a block of lego!

It seemed like the natural conclusion given his two interests.

My other sister thought the dinosaur should be slightly formal so she made him a little collar and tie.

Business dinosaur likes lego...he also likes to party.

To complete the present we made some gingerbread dinosaurs.

We freehanded them as our imaginations would only be restricted by cookie cutters.

Also, there were gingerbread daleks.

He loved them!

Gingerbread Village

On Christmas Eve my sisters and I put together a little ginger bread village.

My Mum bought us a kit so all we had to do was assemble the pieces and then decorate with candy. 

Then my sister made it snow over the village!

These were the two buildings that I did.

I think I did a pretty good job, since my degree is pretty much making miniature models.

Did everyone have nice Christmases?

Eat a lot?

What's your favourite Christmas food?