Gingerbread House for your Coffee Mug

I finally made these!!  I have been meaning to make these for years and I’m so glad I finally did.  Spotted on Not Martha years ago.  Megan’s blog is awesome!

A few tips I have for these are:

• Definitely don’t skimp on the refrigeration times
• Use the proper tool to cut out the shapes and make sure they are straight.  Helps when assembling them.  I did not use a little slicer, but a small knife and my cookies were not as smooth as they could have been.
• Roll the dough out thin.  I didn’t really pay attention to the thickness, but the thinner the better.
• I cut the gingerbread recipe in half and found that was plenty
• I also used a pre mix bag of royal icing to make things easier.  Just add water.
• Double count your cookie cut outs making sure you have the right number of roofs and walls to match up
• Keep adding icing as your clue if you find the cookies aren’t sticking.  Keep a damp cloth over royal icing so it doesn’t dry out.

These definitely were not perfect but a lof of fun to make and I expect my next batch to turn out a bit cleaner looking!   I am giving these away as little Christmas gifts.

Winter crafts from the web

I made a bunch of these tree pins and gave them to my girlfriends as little Christmas gifts.  So cute!  I bought all of the felt from Michaels.

Here is the step by step guide to making them, found on Purl Bee

Gingerbread house for your mug !  Haven’t made these yet but definitely hope to in the new year.

This one was found on Not Martha

Gingerbread fever !

This was my first time making gingerbread men and I think they turned out all right.  The recipe lied a little, telling me that if I left the dough in the fridge for an hour it would be all right.  Not the case, after an hour the dough was still very sticky and impossible to work with.  Leaving it over night made all the difference, and then the decorating took awhile.  It was fun though, and tasty !