Make your own Gingerbread House

Hello friends! A week ago we made a real gingerbread house at home, and now it is time for a more durable paper version in this Sizzix tutorial. The fun thing with making gingerbread houses is that you can go a crazy with rhinestones and pearls, and it is a great way to use up colours where you only have a few left. 

Tim Holtz Village Dwelling die is so versatile and can be turned into many different kinds of houses. I was planning to make a gingerbread house with it ever since I got the die. For other examples using the Village Dwelling die, check out my Winter Church and Autumn House tutorials. You could easily turn this house into a winter house, by using other colours. These houses also make a great holiday activity for children, as you will see at the end of this post. 

I started by adhering kraft-core cardstock to heavy weight paper. I used watercolour paper, but any heavy weight paper will do. Die cut most of the pieces for the house from this paper. The chimney, door and windows were die cut from black kraft-core cardstock. The windows, snow and icicles come from the coordinating Winter Village die. The snow parts were die cut from felt and the icicles from Frosted Film. The two narrow pillars were die cut from mat board.

Sand the pieces to create texture. I did not ink the edges since that would have made my icing go brown. I have made that mistake before.

The icicles were painted pink on the back.

I like to add windows and curtains to my houses, and mica sheets are my favourite window material. You could also colour a piece of acetate with alcohol ink. The curtains are lace trimmings. Glue with Glossy Accents.

Three hearts were punched from silver Deco Sheet och coloured with alcohol ink.

Assemble the house according to the instructions on the packaging. Glue the door and the window frames to the house. Glue the felt with a glue stick. I wanted the felt to look more like snow and tried smearing Distress Stickles Rock Candy over it, in a thin layer. It worked great. I also cut a square of felt and glued to the base for the house, applying Rock Candy to that also.

As icing around the windows and edges, I used white Enamel Accents, which gave me just the look I wanted.

The candy canes come from the Crazy Things set and were die cut with the coordinating die. Aren't they cute?

I attached the icicles to the roof. It is a better idea to do this before you do the icing, since the icing can cover up any glue that shows. There are two different icicle die cuts, so they don't mirror each other, which I think is really cool.

Three Gumdrops were coloured with alcohol ink and glued to the ground.

I also used a Tiny Vial and filled it with Rock Candy glitter. One drop of pink alcohol ink was added to the glitter. A tiny label finished the bottle.

The chimney needed some smoke and I used soft toy stuffing. Simply apply Glossy Accents inside the chimney and place the stuffing into the chimney. It is a little hard to see here, I should have photographed it against a dark background.

Decorate the house with pearls and rhinestones. You can use any or all colours. I adhered them with Glossy Accents, even though they are all self adhesive. Here you can also see the now glittery felt a little better.

The candy canes were placed here and there.

The Deco Sheet hearts look wonderfully shimmery. With alcohol ink you can customize Deco Sheets into any colour.

I removed a little bit of the paint from the icicles, to make them look uneven.

The pillars were painted with Mermaid Lagoon, and I added Enamel Accents to them. On the door, there is a handle, a pink heart and more icing.

From the top, the house looks like this.

On the sides of the houses, I added Small Talk Occasions stickers, and more embellishments.

The other side looks like this. You can add a lot more embellishments if you want to, it is a gingerbread house after all, and should be over the top.

The back is a little simpler, partly because I ran out of time since I had to catch the daylight to take these photos. I might add some more embellishments here later.

The glittery felt is hard to photograph. I liked the combination of rhinestones and pearls.

The icicles can be turned into any colour you'd like. I imagined them being pink sugar candy.

I added a little Glossy Accents to the windows and sprinkled with Rock Candy glitter. It looks like sugar crystals. The mica makes it look like the windows were made from burnt sugar.

I tore off pieces from some of the windows, so that it would look like they were broken, as if someone had taken a bite from them.

Like with my Winter Church, I didn't glue the house to the base, so that a battery-operated tea candle can be placed inside the house. The lovely shine can't quite be captured on a photo, but this gives you an idea.

Children will love to decorate their own gingerbread houses and when Anton had a friend over last weekend, I made them each a house, using the same base as above. I die cut and assembled the houses beforehand. They were given a whole lot of small die cuts from my scraps, sequins, stickers, tinsel etc. and glue. The two of them sat in deep concentration at the kitchen table for a long time decorating their houses and were very proud of the results.

Let's have a closer look at Anton's house. Children have such imagination, they will use the products in ways you might not have guessed. Anton used the snow for the roof as snow on the ground instead (giving me the idea to add felt as snow on the base of my house too). He also pushed open the door, so that you can walk inside. The roof was decorated in a symmetrical way and the tinsel glued on top. 

The houses have doormats made from burlap, and an inhabitant that I found in my stash. There is another Santa resting inside the house. 

The children did not want to glue the black door to the front door, but instead thought that their houses needed a back door. Pretty clever. Unlimited access to rhinestones was fun too.

If you have some time over this Christmas, decorating these little houses is a fun activity for children of different ages. Instead of making a gingerbread house, they could also make a house that looks like their own, of a house for a tiny doll. Just be sure to keep the houses and the supplies out of reach for smaller children, since there are many small parts.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that you will have time for some crafting this Christmas.

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

Tim Holtz Sizzix VILLAGE DWELLING	Sizzix Village Dwelling Bigz XL Die	Tim Holtz Sizzix VILLAGE WINTER	Sizzix Village Winter Bigz Die	Tim Holtz Sizzix CRAZY THINGS
Sizzix Framelits Die Set 33PK - Crazy Things	Tim Holtz Sizzix SMALL HEART Paper Punch	Sizzix Paper Punch - Heart, Small	Tim Holtz CRAZY THINGS	Ranger ENAMEL ACCENTS Dimensional Glaze
Simon Says Stamp Dye Ink SCHOOLHOUSE RED	Tim Holtz Alcohol Ink CRANBERRY	Tim Holtz Alcohol Ink RASPBERRY Adirondack	Tim Holtz Alcohol Ink POOL Adirondack	Tim Holtz Dry Glitter ROCK CANDY
Tim Holtz Distress Stickles ROCK CANDY	Tim Holtz Distress Paint TATTERED ROSE	Tim Holtz Distress Paint MERMAID LAGOON	Tim Holtz FROSTED FILM	Tim Holtz Idea-ology DECO SHEETS
Tim Holtz Core'dinations KRAFT CORE NOSTALGIC	Tim Holtz TEXTURED SURFACES	Sizzix Little Sizzles - 6" x 13" Mat Board Pack, 6 White Sheets	Tim Holtz TINY VIALS	Tim Holtz Idea-ology VIAL LABELS
Doodlebug BRIGHT GLITTER Glossy Sprinkles	TIm Holtz GUMDROPS	Tim Holtz SILVER TINSEL TWINE	Tim Holtz LACE Trimmings	Hero Arts 2mm 132 GEMSTONES MIXED Colors
DoCrafts AQUA CAPSULE Adhesive Gems	DoCrafts VERDE CAPSULE Adhesive Gems	Big Shot Machine	Sizzix BIG SHOT MACHINE Gray And White	Standard Magnetic Platform for Wafer-Thin Dies
Sizzix MAGNETIC PLATFORM	Sizzix CUTTING PAD XL Pair	Sizzix Accessory Cutting Pads, Extended	Cutting Pads, Standard, 1 Pair (Grape)	Sizzix GRAPE Standard Cutting Pads
Tim Holtz SANDING GRIP	Ranger Inkssentials GLOSSY ACCENTS	Ranger Inkssentials Non Stick CRAFT SHEET	Hero Arts SMALL BLOCK TRIO CLEAR ACRYLIC BLOCKS

InLinkz.com

Other supplies:
Mica: US ArtQuest
white felt