Pastel Paper Gingerbread House Tutorial

Hi and welcome! Today I have another Sizzix tutorial for you, for a pastel gingerbread house. I had such fun making this and it almost looks good enough to eat. Follow along to see how I got a shimmery glittery house without using any dry glitter.

When I posted my Halloween Manor House tutorial some days ago, I wrote that I would soon be back with another house, and this is the one. It has the same base as the Manor House, Sizzix Tim Holtz Village Dwelling die, with the addition of the Village Gingerbread die, which contains a lot of fun details. I also used: Mini Holiday Greens, Tree Line, Holiday Words Thin and Mixed Media Christmas.

I had such fun creating this pastel house and it makes me happy just to look at.

I wanted a texture of the house reminiscent of cookies, and die cut one of the three dies from the Mixed Media Christmas set. The pieces were cut and torn to fit onto the house. The Village Dwelling house parts were die cut from Tim Holtz patterned paper packaging. It has just the right weight and I like to re-purpose packaging. Glue the pieces down with Matte Collage Medium, and add a layer of medium on top too.

 When dry, paint the house with Distress Paint.

Apply Crazing Collage Medium to the house, using a palette knife. Make sure that you really get the medium into the recessed parts.

When the Crazing Medium is dry, fine cracks will appear. The cracks will be thicker where the medium was applied thicker - which in this case will be the recessed areas. Rub Vintage Photo Distress Crayon into the cracks and onto the houses. Wipe some of it off with a slightly moist paper towel. On the top piece here, I wiped some of the colour off, on the bottom piece you can see the original application.

Die cut details for the house using the Village Gingerbread die. I later changed my mind and used pink for the window shutters. Most of my shapes were die cut from color-core and kraft-core Distress cardstock, with the exception of the white parts. The candy cones were die cut from mat board and the rest of the white details from white Paper Leather.

Die cut roof tiles from white cardstock and smalles ones from pastel color-core cardstock. The smaller roof, chimney and door comes from the Village Dwelling die, and were die cut from the same papers.

The roof itself also comes from the Village Dwelling die, but the tiles are from the Village Gingerbread. Glue smaller tiles onto the larger ones and try to vary the colours. I worked one line at a time, gluing them down as I went along.

Continue gluing down tiles until you have covered the entire roof. Glue the top part in place.

Die cut branches and leaves with the Mini Holiday Greens set from the same papers as used before. The white ones are from Paper Leather. You can use ordinary white cardstock too.

 Die cut the Tree Line from white, blue and greenish papers.

 Die cut a sentiment using the Holiday Words Thin set and cut into a strip. Layer on silver Deco Sheet.

I wanted my house to shine, but without using glitter, since I wanted to do something different than on my previous gingerbread house, which had a lot of glitter. On a whim, I misted the roof with Pearl Mica Spray, and it turned out wonderfully. It looks just like pearlarized papers, instead of ordinary cardstock.

I decided to mist everything else too. The shine is wonderful. Remember to shake the bottle first.

 The lollipops were coated with a thick layer of Glossy Accents. Set aside to dry.

I always add windows to my houses, and normally use mica for that (check out the Halloween Manor House, and almost every other house that I made). For this house, I decided to use vellum instead, since I thought it would look nice with the candy theme. I also added lace windows.

Glue the shutters in place and then add lots of Glacier White Enamel Accents, as frosting. Add dots of Caribbean Enamel Accents to the small roof, and as a door handle. When the enamel accent was dry, I added some Icicle Stickles, mainly along the edges of the white Enamel Accent areas. Icicle Stickles has shine pastel coloured pieces inside, which fit well with my house.

The base, as well as the step piece (which I forgot to include here), were covered with Distress Grit-Paste. I used the same paste for the ground of my Halloween Manor House, but painted it gray. If you leave it white, it looks like snow or frosting. I love this stuff. When it was completely dry, I misted the Grit-Paste with the Mica Spray. This gave a wonderful subtle shine to it, which was impossible to capture on photo. Later, I also added some Icicle Stickles. 

 Assemble the house according to the directions on the die and glue the details in place.

I added Glacier White Enamel Accents and some Icicle Stickles along basically all the joints. It covers up any gaps or visible glue.

The house is not glued to the base, since I wanted to be able to add a battery-driven tea light inside.
I made a gingerbread house with the Village Dwelling die last year too, you can find that Gingerbread House tutorial here, if you want more inspiration. I wanted this house to look different which is why I went for a pastel look instead.

Here's a view of the house from the top. You could extend the roof tiles to the small roof too, but I liked them different.

 The candy cones were wrapped with red baker's twine, to look like polka.

I glued the wreath to the top of the roof, instead of to the door. The white dot was made with Enamel Accents.

For the lollipops, I die cut candy cones from mat board and cut the top part off.

 The blue dots added another fun touch.

 The sides of the house were decorated too, with branches and other embellishments.

Since Crazing Medium produces larger cracks where the medium is thicker, the cracks are much larger in the recessed areas, which you can clearly see here. Since I used a palette knife to apply the medium, most of it was scraped off from the higher areas, and thus there are tiny cracks there, sometimes not even visible. This is probably my favourite part of the house.

You can see the lace curtains through the vellum windows.

I used toy stuffing as smoke and added Stickles to it. The cute tiny hearts come from the window shutters.

The back of the house is the least decorated, since it will not be visible most of the time as it faces the woods.

This is the second side of the house.

Two lollipops were glued to the side of the house, with sticks die cut from mat board (the candy cone).

Apply some of the Enamel Accents and Stickles directly to the vellum windows, to give it even more the look of snow/frosting.

 I rounded the corners of the sentiment with my Crop-a-dile Corner Chomper. The silver Deco Sheet looks nice though the letters. Glue the circle in the 'o' in place.

I wish you could see the shimmery shine of the mica spray in real life. It might show a little on this photo.

I layered the three die cut tree lines and glued them to the back of the stand, to form a sugary forest behind the house. A friendlier forest than in the Hansel and Gretel story.

 The trees also got some Enamel Accents and Stickles. I love this Tree Line die.

 Some branches were glued to the base too.

 Here you can see the base without the house, to give you a clear idea of what it looks like.

Here you can see what the house looks like with a battery-driven tea light inside. It shines beautifully through the vellum windows.

These houses are also great projects for kiddies crafting and children will love to embellish their own gingerbread house. Last year Anton and his friend made their own gingerbread houses and loved it. I did all the die cutting first and assembled the house. They got a bunch of embellishments and had fun customizing their houses. You can read more about it and see their houses in my original Gingerbread House Tutorial.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Thank you so much for stopping by today!

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

Sizzix Bigz Die - Village Gingerbread	Tim Holtz Sizzix VILLAGE GINGERBREAD	Sizzix Village Dwelling Bigz XL Die	Tim Holtz Sizzix VILLAGE DWELLING	Tim Holtz Sizzix MIXED MEDIA CHRISTMAS Thinlits
Sizzix Thinlits Mixed Media Christmas	Sizzix Thinlits Die - Tree Line	Tim Holtz Sizzix TREE LINE	Tim Holtz Sizzix HOLIDAY GREENS MINI	Sizzix Thinlits - Holiday Greens, Mini
Sizzix Thinlits - Holiday Words: Thin	Tim Holtz Sizzix HOLIDAY WORDS THIN	Tim Holtz Core'dinations DISTRESS ColorCore 12 x 12	Tim Holtz Core'dinations KRAFT CORE NOSTALGIC	Tim Holtz Core'dinations KRAFT CORE CLASSIC 6 x 6
Core'Dinations PASTELS 4.25 x 5.5 Essentials Cardstock	Simon Says Stamp VELLUM	Tim Holtz Idea-ology DECO SHEETS	Ranger MIXED MEDIA CARDSTOCK	Sizzix PAPER LEATHER SHEETS WHITE 8.5x11
Sizzix Paper Leather Sheets - 8 1/2" x 11" White, 10 Pack	Bazzill BASICS WHITE Cardstock Pad 8.5 x 11	Sizzix Little Sizzles - 6" x 13" Mat Board Pack, 6 White Sheets	Ranger GLACIER WHITE Enamel Accents	Ranger CARIBBEAN COAST Enamel Accents
Ranger Stickles ICICLE	Ranger WENDY VECCHI Mica Sprays	Tim Holtz Distress Collage Medium MATTE	Tim Holtz DISTRESS GRIT PASTE	Tim Holtz Distress Collage Medium CRAZING
Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Crayons SET 3	Tim Holtz Distress Paint ANTIQUE LINEN	Tim Holtz Distress Paint FRAYED BURLAP	Tim Holtz PAPER STRING STRIPES	Tim Holtz LACE Trimmings
Big Shot Machine	Sizzix BIG SHOT MACHINE Gray And White	Sizzix Accessory - Cutting Pads, Standard, 1 Pair (Mint)	Sizzix MINT Standard Cutting Pads	Standard Magnetic Platform for Wafer-Thin Dies
Sizzix MAGNETIC PLATFORM	Sizzix Multipurpose Platform, Extended	Sizzix CUTTING PAD XL Pair	Sizzix Accessory Cutting Pads, Extended	Ranger Inkssentials Non Stick CRAFT SHEET
We R Memory Keepers Cropadile CORNER CHOMPER	Ranger Inkssentials GLOSSY ACCENTS	Ranger Inkssentials INK BLENDING TOOL	Ranger WONDER TAPE 1/4 Inch

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