gingerbread house decorating ideas themes
hello friends! this is smitha from the blog smiling colorsand today i am making these diy whimsical paper houses. i like to create things that are whimsical,colorful, pretty and make me smile and boy do these houses fit the bill. you can easily create an entire holiday papervillage with these, they are so addictive to make. i am using this die set called the gingerbreadhouse by tonic studios and first of all, can i just say how easy to open this packagingis.
they have this butterfly clip here that popsopen easily the first time you open your package. thats it. and then you can easily slide the dies outand put them back away into the same plastic sleeve when you are done. i just joined the tonic studio design teamand for the first time in my life i now have a compact die cut machine. i cannot believe how addictive and satisfyingdie cutting paper is! by the way, this is not a sponsored video,i just had to break open this gingerbread house die and decided to film the whole process.
the tangerine machine comes in the box witha set of cutting plates. a die cutting plate, a top plate, an embossingplate, a die embossing plate and a soft rubber plate too. the gingerbread die has many many intricatedies- there are 18 of them in total. there are so many options here that you canmix and match and create unique houses each time. to make one house, you will need to cut atwo of the fronts and also cut two of the side pieces. at the same time, you will need to cut twopieces of each of the decorative pieces you
want to add. what i like to do is cut a 8.5 by 11 inchpiece of card stock in half- i am using this light blue card stock as the base to makethe house, and the white card stock for all of my intricate details on top. place one half of blue and another half ofwhite onto your die cutting plate. arrange the side and front of the house ontothe blue card stock. onto the white card stock you add the diesfor the side and front designs. there are two options that you can chose from-the one on the orange house has a lot of scrolls in the design and i gave it a scalloped edgeand the pink one has less scrolls.
but they both have these cute window shuttersthat open and close. and there are two different designs for thefronts too. so onto the white card stock, add one intricatedesign for the front, the side, the roof and a roof eave- make sure you placing the cuttingdie around each piece as well. place the top plate and run the sandwich throughyour die cutting machine. and here is what we have cut, the white piecesare so beautiful! the roof piece is really delicate, so be carefulwhile removing it from the die. if the paper gets stuck in the die or if thereare papers that still linger just use a craft pick to pop the small pieces out.
now you need to go ahead and repeat the diecutting step so that we have two of each piece. and its time to assemble. fold along all the score lines first. i find that i don’t need both the bottompieces here and you can just cut one off. apply adhesive onto the folds and then slidethese two slots to join the two roof tops. and then line up the front to fit under theroof and along the sides. repeat the same with the back of the house. finally adhere the bottom pieces in place. and you have a little house!
if you want to use this as a favor box, youcan fill it with candy before closing the bottom. now it’s time to decorate! for the front you can actually die cut anotherpiece of card stock from another color of card stock to go beneath the white. i didn't use it, but its a fun option thati love. i like apply liquid adhesive to the back ofthe piece and i let it dry for a minute before placing it onto the house. i then place a clean paper towel and pressit down into place.
i do the same to the sides of the house aswell. you can actually adhere all of these intricatedesigns before assembling the house, but since i like using liquid adhesive, i prefer doingit after i have assembled the house. for the roof, you can and probably can andshould cut a solid piece to go under this delicate one- but i loved the whimsical lookof using just the delicate piece so i omitted that step. i run a line of adhesive on the top of theroof and have also added tiny dots of adhesive along the back of the piece. final step is to fold and adhere the roofeave.
it would be really pretty if you used a whiteglitter piece here to make it look like snow. i also made a chimney for the top of eachhouse, there is die included for it too. and that’s it. one whimsical paper house is ready! it is so detailed and pretty isn't it? the die set also comes with these 3 pieces,a holiday tree and two tiny gingerbread men. i didn't end up using these but they are reallycute too. these little paper houses are versatile- youcan make these to decorate your mantle, or maybe make them as tiny favor boxes.
they could be an ornament or place settings. i went ahead and created a small paper holidayvillage with these whimsical houses. i chose to make my houses colorful but simplewith just white details. those green trees you see in the background-i just shared a tutorial on how to make those and i will leave a link for it on my blog. make sure you stop by and check it out. if you liked this video, hit the like buttonand share it on social media. make sure you subscribe to my channel to seea new diy video each week! i also made another version of this housewith gold details- i simply love this one
and i share more pics of it again on my blogsmiling colors.com happy crafting my friends!