Papertrey Holiday Gift

Last year at Christmas time, we were given a wonderful gift from one of our neighbor families. They gave us a prebaked and constructed gingerbread house along with baggies full of candies and other things to decorate the house. It was such a fun gift! We had lots of fun decorating the house as a family.

So, when Nichole presented the Papertrey Ink design team with the challenge to make a holiday gift along with the packaging, I immediately thought of making a gingerbread house and packaging goodies that could be used to decorate the house.

I know how fun it is to decorate a gingerbread house with your kids, but having lots of the work done for you (gathering supplies and making the house) is even better. I started out by baking and constructing the gingerbread house. Then, I decorated an egg box to hold all the goodies in little bags and a tin to hold some buttercream frosting.

I started out decorating my egg box by creating a scene for the top. I just love the new Home for the Holidays stamp set! It is meant to be used with Boards and Beams. You can create the cutest little holiday scenes. I stamped the house and the snowman. Then, I masked the snowman and stamped the fences. Then, I masked the fences and stamped the trees. I colored my scene. Then, I stamped the door and windows on another pieces of paper, colored them, cut them, and adhered them in place. I love this Christmas house and will definitely be using this set a lot. I stamped the Fresh Baked sentiment in the corner from the Holiday Treats stamp set. Then, I matted my image with pure poppy and silver shimmer cardstocks.

This was my very last step, but I'm going to share it here while I'm talking about the top of the treat box. I added liquid applique and glitter to my house and let it dry. Then, I tapped the excess off and have some pretty shimmery snow.

I painted my egg box with dark blue acrylic paint and the lid and interior of the egg box with light blue paint. After they were dry, I used white acrylic paint to random stamp one of the snowflakes from Pine's new Rustic Snowflakes stamp set all over the bottom of the box. You can't tell in the photo, but there are little silver dots in the centers of the snowflakes (stickles). When everything was dry, I added some pure poppy stitched ribbon and some silver tinsel ribbon around the lid and added a bow.

Tucked inside my holiday treat box are lots of little glassine bags filled with all kinds of goodies for decorating the gingerbread house. I used the small glassine bags. I filled each one with a different type of goodie and then punched some scalloped ovals in silver shimmer and pure poppy. I layered the ovals, folded them in half, punched a hole through bag and all and tied them with pure poppy satin ribbons.

One last thing that I wanted to include in my holiday gift was a tin filled with buttercream frosting for decorating the gingerbread house. (It worked okay, but was not quite sticky enough. Another great option would be to decorate a container of premade frosting.) I filled the 8 oz tin with frosting first so that could wipe off any frosting that happened to get on the outside. (Luckily none did, but it was a good precaution to take knowing how messy I can be when I bake.) then, I cut a piece of silver shimmer cardstock to fit around my tin, random stamped some snowflakes, and heat set just for a second before adhering it to my tin. (Most likely, you would not need to heat set unless you were putting the cardstock right onto the container. If it sat for a few minutes, the ink would not smear.) I stamped the sentiment for the top of the container (from Holiday Treats) in pure poppy ink, punched it out, and layered it with a pure poppy scalloped circle. Then, I tied some ribbon around the tin and added a little tag.

After I got all the photos I need of the gingerbread house and goodies, my kids got to decorate the houses. I actually had plenty of dough when I made it and made two house so they each got to decorate their own. I spread the frosting and they decorated. They had so much fun and were hyped up on sugar right before bed!


Tyler's gingerbread house turned out so cute. When I bought the white fudge covered pretzels, I was thinking they would work great for a fence, but he wanted them on the front of his house and I love how they look. He pushed a little too hard while decorating the roof, so there was some bulging going on. It slowly collapsed on the backside not long after these photos were taken last night, but he still had so much fun making it!


Madison was so proud of her gingerbread house. This is how a 2 year old decorates her gingerbread house: put a few pieces of candy on the house, take one off and eat it, put a couple more on, take one off and eat it . . . *smile*

I had so much fun with this project and so did my kids. Gingerbread houses are always lots of fun and would make a great gift for a family at Christmas time. I can't wait to see what the rest of the design team came up with for this challenge. Be sure to check out all their blogs for lots of fun ideas: Nichole, Lisa Johnson, Lauren Meader, Heather Nichols, Mish Wooderson, Melissa Phillips, Debbie Olsen, Geny Cassady, Becky Oehlers, and Dawn McVey.

Recipe

Stamps: Rustic Snowflakes, Home for the Holidays, Holiday Treats, Boards and Beams (Papertrey Ink)

Cardstock: white, pure poppy, silver shimmer (Papertrey Ink)

Ink: dark chocolate, pure poppy (Papertrey Ink), noir (Palette)

Accents: pure poppy stitched ribbon, pure poppy satin ribbon, silver tinsel ribbon (Papertrey Ink)

Packaging: egg box, 8 oz circle tin, small glassine bags (Papertrey Ink)

Tools: copic markers, liquid applique, glitter, white acrylic paint, sponge paint brush, tag trio die (Spellbinders), circle punch, scalloped circle punch, scalloped oval punches, crop-a-dile, silver stickles (Ranger)