Make Your Own Gingerbread House

Making your own gingerbread house is a very fun thing to do as a family and SO much better (tasting, fitting, looking) than any kit I've ever tried.  I got most of my instructions for building the house and the gingerbread/frosting recipe here.

Here's how we did it:

First we made the gingerbread and rolled it out on parchment paper.

I then cut out some shapes in card stock and we cut them out with a plastic knife.  You can get the patterns on the website or just cut your own like we did as long as they fit together with paper they'll fit together when they are cooked. Don't push down too hard on the card stock because it'll stick to the gingerbread.

 Then cut out the shapes with scissors and place them right on the cookie sheet.  It makes it SO easy and you don't have to pull off the gingerbread from the paper.  Once you cook it they come right off!

 With any extra gingerbread you can make some cookies- people or dogs as we did:)

 Once the gingerbread is cooked you then wait for it to cool and get a bunch of your favorite candies and you're ready to decorate!

 Peel the paper off the pieces and trim any extra edges.

 Make some royal icing (it takes a while, but is very strong) and start putting the house together- it's usually good to have two people for this job.

 We used a freezer bag with a hole in the edge to pipe the frosting and had fun putting candy on all of it!

 A fun holiday tradition and actually pretty easy... just a little time-consuming.

 Have fun and good luck!

Kid's Toy Car Mat- Tutorial

This is not a step-by-step picture tutorial since I didn't take pictures of the process, but still I hope I can tell you how I did this so you can make your own if you so desire.

Materials:

Canvas (as large as you want- mine is about 6' by 8')

Double-wide bias tape (I used blue, but any color will do)- 3 packages or 9 yds

Tacky Glue

Fabric Paint Markers (as many colors as you'd like)

Grey Acrylic Paint

Green Acrylic Paint

Paint brush

1 Sponge

Green Flower-pot Foam (just a square)

2 pencils

Black Sharpie (not too thick)

First you want to draw out your plan on a separate piece of paper. Draw the roads first- leave enough room for many houses and buildings- you can draw your city with straight or curvy streets, I did a combination of both. You can also add a train track and river.

You will then need to decide where each building/house is going to go. Decide what you'd like on your mat- some suggestions: you house, Grandparent's houses, hospital, park, gas station, school, church, ice cream store, fire station, parking lot, police station, zoo, airport, lake, swimming pool, soccer field, etc. Add places that your child will recognize so it is more personal. Be creative and have fun!

Once you've got your design then you'll want to start drawing (with pencil) on your mat. Push your two pencils into your green foam so that they are 1 1/2-2 inches apart. You'll use this to draw your roads and keep them even. Once your roads are drawn then you can start putting in your buildings. Draw your buildings- lightly- with pencil then color them in with your paint markers. You should also color trees, flowers, and bushes, but DO NOT color in grass yet- that will be at the end. 

Once your buildings, trees, bodies of water, flowers, bushes, etc. are all drawn then you can start painting the roads. It works best to use grey acrylic paint with a paint brush instead of a paint marker. The canvas might get bumps in it, but don't worry, the cars will drive just fine on it and the bumps will disappear eventually. I liked to outline my buildings with my black sharpie so they were more defined. I also used the sharpie to label the major buildings on the mat and outline the roads.

Once all your roads and buildings are drawn and colored then add all the finishing touches- stop signs, railroad crossing signs, a footpath, animals (cows, sheep, etc.). When your mat is all drawn as you would like then it is finally time to do the grass. Use the sponge and dab it into some green paint. Make sure you test it on paper before you put it on your mat so it isn't too thick. You then sponge all over the mat and put grass on all the empty spaces. I did some fields of yellowish grass since it is very brown and yellow by where we live. The rest I did just green or a combination of green and yellow. I also sponged yellow around the lake and pond to make it look like sand.

Let you mat dry overnight then it is time to put the binding on. Put the seam of your bias tape against the edge of your mat. Glue the bottom on first with your tacky glue while folding over the corners. Once the bottom is glued on then do the same thing with the top. Cut your extra bias tape in half and you have two ties to tie up your mat with after you roll it up to store it. I rolled up my mat then glued the middle of each strand to the back of the mat so that they would be there to tie each time I rolled the mat up and I wouldn't lose them.

And now you have a wonderful, personalized car mat that your kids will play with for years and years!