Gingerbread Ornaments

Kid made Christmas Ornaments ~ Gingerbread Men

After our fun Gingerbread house making party (click on over for recipe), I had SO much gingerbread dough left over. We decided to try making ornaments out of some of the dough. The recipe that we used for the dough was not super sticky and allowed the kids to play with it almost like play dough.

Apple sauce and cinnamon ornaments are all over Pinterest, however they are super pricey to make. We decided to make Gingerbread ornaments instead, made from our left over gingerbread. So cheap and easy!

Roll out the gingerbread dough and cut out Christmas shapes with cookie cutters.

I love the kids extra touches of hats, buttons etc. They were really excited that they would be able to keep their creations unlike regular play dough.

Before you bake the little ornaments make sure that you use a tooth pick to make a hole at the top so you can hang them on your tree.

Gingerbread Ornaments

We baked ours at 350 for 20 mins.

Once they come out of the oven, let the ornaments cool completely. This will harden the gingerbread slightly, and make them more sturdy to hang on the tree.

We also painted ours with a 50/50 mixture of white glue and water. The glue mixture helps to seal the gingerbread ornaments. I can’t wait to hang these on my tree fro years to come!

I was curious if once the dough was baked if all the little added hands, buttons etc would stay attached. We did have to glue a few limbs back on, but for the most part the ornaments were pretty solid.

I love how these ornaments turned out. What a special tree! These would also be super cute on a present with a little ribbon. These ornaments are relatively inexpensive, especially if you are already making gingerbread. Just use all the left over scraps. These gingerbread ornaments are way less expensive than the apple sauce and cinnamon ornaments that are everywhere.

*UPDATE* after 2 years these little gingerbread ornaments are holding up great! I store them packed in tissue paper in a rubbermaid container along with all the rest of our ornaments. They are some of my favorite ornaments to hang each year!

Gingerbread House Decorating Party

We had another gingerbread house decorating party. I love Christmas time! Instead of making graham cracker houses, this time we made real gingerbread houses. This is my fist attempt at creating gingerbread in mass quantities. I was unsure how much gingerbread I needed to make, so I went a little overboard.

I love how it looks all stacked up. After all the houses were made I had 13 packets of gingerbread dough left over! Oops! The recipe that I used needed to be refrigerated over night. Each recipe make enough dough to make about 2 houses.

I used a template that I printed off and traced onto a cereal box. This made the tracing of each of the pieces much easier. I also made a few extra of each piece in case we had problems in the construction of the houses.

Some of the gingerbread pieces were a bit wonky. I traced the pattern out carefully, but I think that the when they were transferred to the baking sheet the gingerbread stretched and moved a bit. We deemed them the “made with love houses.” The original recipe uses a caramel syrup as the glue for the houses. We used royal icing as our glue, but I think next time we will try the caramel syrup. Our houses took a bit of time to set up and hold their form.

This little gingerbread house collapsed, and was reconstructed into this cute little skinny house. I love the base of candy at the bottom of the house.

We had a friendly competition after everyone was finished. We made up different categories, and everyone voted via secret ballet. Some of our categories included technical merit, best use of candy, best use of icing, and roof pattern. Thanks for an amazing day guys! Our family had so much fun! I think that chippy enjoyed it as well:)

Winter Chickens

This is our first winter with our chickens. They are almost old enough to start laying, and the kiddos can’t wait. Chuck has built a sweet, cozy coop for our girls, but surprisingly they prefer to play outside in the cold.

Their run is covered so most of the snow stays out of the actual run, but the girls don’t seem to mind the snow at all.

Annika love looking after the girls, but Chippy is her favorite. I love this photo!

The girls love these natural roosts. The kids have to go out every night to put the hens to bed. They are always cuddled up on this roost braving the cold. We find it intriguing that they prefer to be outside over in the heated coop.

Chippy is part of our home. Yes that is her in front of a Christmas tree in our living room. Kaleb did not want her to miss out on the gingerbread decorating party. Ha! I guess if your dog or cat can join in on family fun, why not the kids chickens right?

Christmas Ornaments

I was inspired by Courtney’s blog, A diamond in the stuff to something fun with my Christmas ornaments this year. She has an amazing blog filled with so many fun crafty projects. My favorite is her window ornament holder. I love old window’s, repurposing them and giving them new life. I wish I had the perfect window for this project, but I will have to keep hunting. I went for the next best thing, something that I have an abundance of…picture frames. These frames have been painted so many different colors, but right now I am loving them white and lightly distressed. I love how the CHristmas

I just used hot glue and a jute string to hang the Christmas ornaments inside the frame. Once Christmas is over, I will easily be able to remove the glue and use the frames again for pictures.

I love how they turned out! My favorite part is that I was able to use supplies that I had on hand so the entire project was free.

If you don’t want to miss out on any of the fun we are having at Housing A Forest, make sure to follow us on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

Christmas Garlands

As most of you know, my house is all decked out for Christmas. I’ve had a few questions about where I bought my garlands. Here is one quick and easy way to make your simple store bought greens that can be found anywhere (I’ve even seen them at the dollar store) and transform them into garlands with depth and texture.

Start by hanging the garland that you will be using as your base where you want it. I like my garlands to be lighted, so I wrap a string of lights in mine. Try your best to hide the ugly green wires, I use one the garland branches to wrap around the wire to secure everything. Notice the ugly cord that is hanging down, I’m still working on hiding that. I can’t say this enough…don’t forget to take the tags off your lights and cords(like the one that is hanging just above the cord).

Next find a garland that you love; one with a different texture from the base garland. These pretty garlands can be a bit expensive, but look for after Christmas sales or go to an outlet. I love that this one has pine cones, berries and a variegated green color.

Take the new garland apart but cutting the wire that holds everything together. Sounds scary, but I promise you it is not that bad! Once you have a pile of cut garland pieces the fun can begin.

Begin by wrapping the new garland pieces around the base garland and twist it together. Continue adding pieces until the entire garland is full. So pretty!

I love the new look. Simple, cheep and pretty!

If you don’t want to miss out on any of the fun we are having at Housing A Forest, make sure to follow us on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

Gingerbread Ornaments

Kid made Christmas Ornaments ~ Gingerbread Men

Gingerbread Ornaments

Gingerbread House Decorating Party

Winter Chickens

Christmas Ornaments

Christmas Garlands

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