A Love Affair with Gingerbread

I have a little secret I have yet to share with the blogging world.  It may be a little strange and make me seem like an old lady but here I go, I am going to confess..... I have an obsession with gingerbread. To be more specific, gingerbread pieces glued together with icing to form a house. Wow, what a load of my mind to finally have that out in the open! Now we can get down to business.

Tonight as I was searching online for pictures of cute houses that I could replicate for my gingerbread house this year it dawned on me, I want to share what I have learned about gingerbread houses the past few years with all of you! It is November 16th and I feel I am running a little behind schedule to get this gingerbread house done in time for the beginning of the Christmas season. I first attempted a gingerbread house 5 years ago and I immediately fell in love with every aspect of building one. I have made one each year since and I learn so much with each one.

In this post I will share a little about each of the gingerbread houses I have made.  For detailed instructions and recipes go to this post.

Year One:

 I started with a very basic shape. It only took a couple of days from start to finish but I was so excited to make another, more complex house...

Year Two:

 So excited in fact that I couldn't wait until the next christmas so I made this haunted halloween house. This house was a ton of fun but after spending so much energy on it I was completely burnt out and didn't make a Christmas one that year! Which is the reason I have only made Christmas houses since.

This was my first attempt at "sugar glass" windows. I didn't get the outcome I wanted until just last year. Hopefully my instructions will help you make it work more easily.



 The pumpkins, tombstone, and noose are marzipan and the grass is coconut dyed with food coloring.











I places a flickering light inside the house to turn on at night. Spooky!















Year Three:

 This house was a monster! I think all of the houses photograph a little small but you really cannot tell how huge this one really was.  At about 40 inches it was taking up half of our dining table!

The windows are a little better but still not totally transparent.

It is lit with a string of white Christmas lights places inside.

Year 4:

This is my most recent house. It was the first time I "painted" the house with icing and I absolutely loved it!
The "glass" windows turned out perfectly so you are able to see the Christmas tree in the front window.

You may have noticed that I have a thing for pretzel fences, licorice nib bricks, and cereal roof shingles. What can I say, I know what I like. Unless I find something I think works better you will most likely see all of those things on my gingerbread house this year.

Those are the 4 house I have completed and I can't wait to get working on a 5th!

I hope I have gotten some of you excited to try making your own gingerbread house this year! I am happy to answer any questions.

-Chloe



********UPDATE!********


Christmas at The von Trapp's

For my 5th house I decided to replicate the home of the von Trapps in the movie The Sound of Music.  This was the first time I made a replica of a real house and it proved to be lots of fun getting all the details right.

Everything (except the interior lights) is edible.  The structure is gingerbread that has been "painted" with royal icing. The front door and surround are marzipan, the white trim is fondant, the roof tiles are made out of Bid Red gum, and the wreath and garland are made out of royal icing.

House for Five feature!

I want to send a huge THANK YOU over to Deme at House for Five for featuring our playroom makeover today! If you haven't already, pop on over and check out her fabulous blog. It is one of my favorites, you won't be disappointed!

Taking on the Laundry Room

I recently tried to spruce up our laundry room.  It is a place we see often and use constantly.  In addition to doing laundry, we also use the space for storage and as a mudroom.  Yes, this tiny space is pulling triple duty! Which is why I felt something had to be done to save my sanity.

Here is our laundry room when we first moved into our new house...

Before

Before

And here is our laundry room today....

After

After

One of my very first blog posts was on organizing our hall closet at our old house. Most of these bins (along with the junk inside them) were from that closet makeover.  Since I already had containers, organizing was easy.  

I made new labels for the bins, hung some vintage hooks on the wall that I already had,  and installed the new key hooks. 

 

 The other side of the room is the laundry space 

Since we don't own our house painting wasn't really an option but the walls desperately needed some color.  I found some cute contact paper for a good price and I think it gives the room just the look I was going for. 

 I used four galvanized buckets on the shelf.  One for Oxy clean, one for detergent, one for trash, and the last one for extra supplies I buy in bulk, such as dryer sheets and spray 'n wash. 

You may recognize the chalkboard labels from my playroom makeover.  When I bought them they came in a package of 12, and at the time I thought that was way too many, but they were cheap so I bought them anyway. Well I have used almost all the chalkboard labels now, I love them so much I may need to order more!

Above the dryer are these small buckets I found in the dollar section at Target. I think they are so cute. They keep clothes pins, mesh wash bags, and dryer sheets handy

Over the washer I hung three knobs that hold a measuring cup I use for bleach, Spray 'n Wash, and a jar of flowers because this space just needed some pink!

This pretty white metal basket is also from Target. It holds our bleach and fabric softener. 

I think my favorite part of the room is the quote I typed up and pinned to the basket. It helps me smile when doing laundry, which is a miracle in itself!

Probably the most helpful part of the room is this little "Guide to the Laundry Room". Seriously, I can't be the only one who is dumbfounded by the care symbols on clothes, right? Well, confusion be gone! I now know that a triangle means I can use bleach and that a circle means dry clean only!

Let's take one last look at the before and after....

Laundry Space "Before"

Laundry Space "After"

Storage Space/Mudroom "Before"

Storage Space/Mudroom "After"

Thanks for stopping by today!

-Chloe

Garden Twine Initial

My little guy has something new in his room that he absolutely loves! If you came to our house he would love to show it to you and tell you that "E is for Everett".

This was an easy project and I (as usual) made it all out of things I had on hand.

I started by cutting the letter out of cardboard with a razor blade. Then I just tightly wrapped the twine around. This is just simple garden twine used to tie up plants but I have used it several times when decorating our house.

In the picture you can see I began wrapping the letter vertically first but that was a mistake. I had to undo it and start over wrapping the twine horizontally, then wrap vertically.  When I got to the end of the letter I would just hot glue the last bit of twine to the back. 

The frame was an ugly color of oak so I painted it white, and the gingham fabric was left over from when I made my son's curtains.  I hot glued the E onto the fabric but still thought it needed a little something extra, so I added the red ribbon on top.  The ribbon is just for decoration, it is not actually holding the weight of the frame. 

Here it is finished hanging in his room!

 I feel like I say this all the time, but I really really love making things out of stuff I already have, and also making things up as I go along.  I don't know why, but it makes me feel so good and energized! It puts me in my own little world where time passes way too fast and I would never notice that the kids have dumped the giant carton of goldfish onto the couch and are now dancing on them (yes, that happened), or that it is 5:00pm and we are all still in our PJs (also happened).  I cant' be the only one, right? Does anyone else feel the same way?

-Chloe