I love looking back over the photos I’ve taken. There has been a lot of sewing, baking and crafting with the children this week, in between a blur of PTA meetings and wrapping presents for my daughter’s 3rd birthday. I made bite-sized gingerbread house biscuits one day as a special sweet treat. There has been the discovery of new sewing patters and decorations for the Christmas tree. We also attempted this lovely and delicious gingerbread tree. In non-gingerbread related news, we had a fun trip to the Science Museum to escape the torrential rain on Saturday and I finished the…
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I’m sure you’ve noticed my obsession with gingerbread house but it really comes to life at this time of year. In the last week we’ve made a gingerbread tree, gingerbread biscuits, the gingerbread man story stones and today I wanted to share our felt busy bag gingerbread house. The gingerbread house appears in the well-known fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel. Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister threatened by a witch living in the deep dark forest in a house constructed of gingerbread and sweets. The two children survive by outwitting her. Aspects of the story are a…
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My children love to hear the classic story of the gingerbread boy all year round so I thought it might be fun to look for some related activities. Here our 15 brilliant gingerbread activities for kids. 15 gingerbread activities for kids I love this idea of crafting a gingerbread house themed puffy paint shadow box from Teach Preschool. I’ve never made our own puffy paint but it sounds simple, and I think I might try adding some ground gingerbread for a full on sensory experience. My children love to use their hands so gingerbread playdough is a favourite activity. For…
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A couple of weeks ago I bought a lovely book called Winter Wonderland Stencils which contains 20 reuseable festive stencils. I had grand plans of using them on the windows to make our house look really festive. The only fail was that I’ve been unable to find any cans of fake snow. Instead I started Plan B – homemade gifts! The stencils are really fun with a great vintage vibe, perfect for making a wintry wonderland with sparkly snowflakes, a smiling Santa, snowy trees, reindeer and more (window space permitting!). Whoever designed the book has been clever as each stencil…
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You can probably guess from the title of my blog that I love gingerbread houses! This year we made a kit from John Lewis over a couple of days. The toddler was really excited about it as he loves his “gin-gin” men! First of all he helped daddy put the kit together, then we left it to dry overnight. The next day we got out all our sweetie supplies which included icing pens, liquorice wheels, Necco wafers for roof tiles and gumdrops for the fence. We got to work, the toddler mainly ate the sweets whilst I iced and strategically…
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Do you make your own Christmas cards or do you prefer shop-bought ones? There’s so much choice out there but I love sending personalised cards to family and friends. This year we chose a photo of the children playing (happily for once!) in the park and everyone seems to love it. I’m feeling so organised that I thought I would make a Christmas card for my husband. Christmas Card Craft Off My card combines my favourite things – gingerbread houses and washi tape bunting! I really enjoyed making it and I thought I’d show you how. You will need: red…
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Have you spotted many gingerbread houses around this year? Everywhere I look (or shop) there seems to be one but I’ve tried to be good and only bought ones I know we’ll have time to make. So far we’ve had fun trying the following pre-made kits: Create A Treat House Gingerbread Kit from John Lewis (£15) Create A Treat Village Gingerbread Kit from John Lewis (£15) Gingerbread house kit from Tiger We’ve also eaten a fair few gingerbread biscuits (all in the name of research): Make Your Own Gingerbread Decorating Kit from John Lewis (£4.50) Morrison’s Jolly Gingerbread…
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It’s been a while since I participated in Handmade Monday so I thought I would tell you about my latest pin cushion. I used a lovely pattern from Stitch at Home by Mandy Shaw, which is a great book full of inspiring patterns. I love cutwork (we have a great piece of art by Rob Ryan hanging in our bedroom) so it was obvious that I would make the adorable cutwork pin cushion. It’s a lovely little project for using up scraps and I have plenty of pieces of felt and vintage blankets! The pincushion only took an evening to…
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Not sure what to do with that lovingly created gingerbread house? Why not make it into a tasty gingerbread and butter pudding? My romantic Valentine-themed gingerbread house needed to make room for my Easter-themed gingerbread house but I didn’t want to throw it away. The gingerbread was quite thin so I thought it might make a delicious gingerbread and butter pudding. Here’s what I did. You need: a gingerbread house, deconstructed a couple of slices of bread, buttered 1/2 pint of skimmed milk 100ml double cream 2 eggs 1 spoonful of granulated sugar Method: deconstruct your gingerbread house, removing any…