Christmas – Page 29 – Gracious Rain

December 18, 2008June 22, 2020

Gingerbread Man and More…In Felt

Jiffy 2-18-08

It was a frosty 17 degrees today. Even Jif is needing a blanket.

December 12, 2008 012

Gingerbread Man

This little guy was a last minute project for a Christmas party a few years back. A cookie cutter makes a great pattern. Trace it onto paper and cut it from light brown felt. The cheeks were cut with a single hole punch and the heart is just free hand. Sew the heart and cheeks and face on first. Then blanket stitch the back to the front and stuff with batting just before closing him up. It didn’t take too long–and hour and a half/two hours-ish. The hardest part was that the gold thread was really a pain to work with. It’s very tangley.

December 12, 2008 019

Christmas Tree Cookie

Cookie cutter works here too. Cut a smaller one for the colored “frosting.” Sew the bead “sprinkles” or french knot “decos” on the frosting before blanket stitching them together with embroidery thread. Sew cookie pieces together and stuff with batting just before closing.

Christmas Star Cookie

The directions are the same as for the Tree…except that it’s…a star.

December 17, 2008June 22, 2020

Clear Glass Ornaments Re-visited

Mary and Baby Jesus–on Velum

We have had so many suggestions of other ways to decorate or fill the glass ornaments that it has really inspired us. So, we’ve gathered pictures of some of the ideas and will show you how to do a couple others.

So brace yourself–

Marbleized Glass Ornaments

Rinse inside of ornament with a solution of 1 part water and 3 parts vinegar. Let dry.

Squeeze a quarter sized dollop of acrylic paint into ornament. Roll it around until paint begins to cover the inside.

Add a second color if you want to and roll it some more. Turn ornament upside-down in a paper cup or–onto a paper towel to drain excess paint. Allow to dry for a day or two.

The paint marbleizes as it dries. Now you can put the hanger back on.

December 17, 2008June 22, 2020

Three More Filled Glass Ornaments

#1 Sea of Galilee Glass Ornament

glass-ornaments-010

This one is filled with decorator sand and tiny shells…

glass-ornaments-009

…and topped with this sweet inscription on a small piece of parchment.

#2 Scented Glass Ornament

glass-ornaments-008

This one is filled with potpourri. As the room warms up the scent fills the air. Each year, refresh the fragrance with scented oil–anything from roses to evergreen trees.

#3 Popping Fresh Glass Ornament

glass-ornaments-006

This one is my personal favorite…made by Sue Brandon or Orem. She took off the hanger and put 6 or 7 popcorn kernals in the small sized ornament…and then…she put it in the MICROWAVE! Can you believe it? She said she waited until she heard 2 or 3 pops and took it out. But you don’t have to tell the secret—let everyone wonder how you got that popcorn in there!

December 17, 2008June 22, 2020

Covered Glass Ornaments

These made a wonderful–last minute cub scout project. All you need is Christmas tissue paper, a small paint brush and Elmer’s glue. Squeeze the glue into a milk cap and add a drop or two of water to make it thinner and “paintable.”

Tear or cut up tissue into small 1/2 to 1 inch pieces. Paint a small amount of glue onto the ornament and pick up a piece of tissue with the sticky brush and paste it on. Continue to paste until ornament is covered. Allow ornament to dry in a paper cup. You can spray with a shiny acrylic coat if you want. We just left ours plain.

December 16, 2008December 5, 2022

Gingerbread House Festival

With my dad being the official “Gingerbread Man” in these parts–we couldn’t stand to let the season go by without that cinnamon and cloves scent in the air. So the girls got together at daddy’s shop…

And made a busload of honeycake dough.

The official recipe is called Lebkuchen. It’s a very stiff dough, so daddy’s mixer came in pretty handy. My little Kitchen Aid would have been smoking with this stuff.

Each one of these dough balls will make one pan.

One pan will make one house.

Here they are after being baked and cut and stacked.

Each of us had our own idea of what the “perfect” candy was–so when we got together on Daddy’s birthday, to actually put the houses together we had a ton of candy. Just looking at all this stuff gave me a sugar rush. It must have been the vapor of sweetness in the air. :]

**The most important tip for having a successful gingerbread house experience is to decorate the front, back and sides of your house BEFORE you put the pieces together.

This will save you from having to work in tight, crazy places and also keep you from knocking your house down while trying to glue candy to an upright house–not cool.

Once you paste the house together, then you’re ready to frost the top. We use Royal Icing to glue it all together and Fluffy White for the roof and yard “snow.” April is really good with the icicles. Me…not so much.

So, here are the results of our Gingerbread fest.

April’s professional house

Jacob’s house–ready for snow!

december-12-2008-025 Lyndi’s Orange Tree House

december-12-2008-027 Lyndi’s stained glass star

presents-044

Rhen’s Angry House…don’t ask. You missed the Teddy Graham hanging from the rafters and the snowman with a rifle. It was not pretty. I should have known there was just too much laughter coming from his end of the table. Boys can be so odd.

december-12-2008-0211 My silly little house with pink malt balls. Ummmm…. Note: Cream Savers are not particularily good team players. They slid off my roof all night. They get a D in behavior and staying put.