Gingerbread House time...

My son is attending the World Scout Jamboree this  year. He is off to New York then The American homebase for Scouting. He is also off to Washington and Canada.  He had to go through a selection process and an interview to be selected for this. And I was so proud when he was one of the few scouts that were selected.

But boy did I gulp at the price of this thing. we have had nearly two years to raise £4000. Yup you read that correctly £4000.

We are nearly done though and my husband who is a scout leader and my son have worked so hard to make this happen. One of the things I have made over the last year to help raise money for this was this Gingerbread house.

It was made and then sent to my local Montessori school on their annual Christmas carol evening to be raffled off and the money made put towards this trip.

Here is what I came up with. ( sorry for the bad photos, they were taken on my iPhone before I got my new camera )

The original house looked like this...I bought it from The Works and the link is here.
Considering how cheap it was it was really well made. When I saw it I didn't see fairy house I saw a Gingerbread house and kept the thing for nearly a year until Christmas came round again.

I didn't have any small chocolate or sweet treats to put on the house. And I do like to keep my pre made parts on my creations down to a minimum as much as I can...so I spent on of my days on this using fimo to make all the biscuits, ice creams, cakes and candy canes. The hardest to make was the candy canes...turns out I'm not that great at rolling limo and keep the stripe look!

Santa and his elf are made from peg people. Some cotton wool for his beard was a very quick and easy thing to make!
The big sleigh was a christmas decoration from The Range. I did try to make my own...hmmmm the didn't turn out just right. And while shopping I came across the sleigh. It was only a few pounds and painted white it turned out to be perfect.

The snowman was also a peg doll. I just made a felt hat and limo carrot for his nose. Add a scarf and some snow and I was done!

The wooden fence round the edging was made with small lollipop sticks cut up and stuck together with hot glue. I wanted it to add a nice touch to the scene but also the fake snow that was added at the end needed a barrier to stop it from falling off.

The whole base of this was built on one of these from Hobbycraft.

As you can see from the photo below I also added some lollipop sticks around the edge of the base at the front as well to stop the snow from coming off.

All in all this took me over a week to make and I was really sad to see it go. But I know that the family who won it in the raffle would have loved it.

About me

Picture the set up....a freezing cold or boiling hot  ( depending on the time of year ) conservatory...a ton of boxes and drawers full of 'stuff' I have collected over the years. A table full of paint stains and glue marks. A tv with a dvd player...yes a dvd player. My son always rolls his eyes at that one and tells me to move into 21st century. Being 15 is hard when you mum is so uncool apparently!

I play terrible sci fi movies or bad horror films...and while not really watching them I make the  things that come into my brain.

Do I have a need for most of the things I make? Not really. I try and give them to people when I am done. I hand them out for raffles etc. The educational stuff I make mostly goes to my local Montessori school that I used to work at. So I try and make it with that in mind.

Mostly I just browse the internet and find interesting things to make and put my own spin on then.

It is fun...it keeps me busy....and I enjoy it. Is it always perfect??? good grief no. I make mistakes and slip up all the time....do I care? do I heck...Does it make me happy...well yes it does...so I carry on.