As my last two orders for gingerbread houses left to be devoured by their owners this Christmas, I would like to take this moment to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a safe holiday season.
I'm ready to take a well earned break, with a couple weeks off work and my holiday baking hobby finished I'm all set for a few sleep ins, catching up on some reading, preparing for my trip in January and making the most of the warm summer to get to the beach.
Take care everyone!
Browsing around linky parties I come across so many great ideas.
A little while back I stumbled across Eyes on the source's blog and a great tutorial for paper stars.
These looked easy to do but I just needed a reason to make them.
After much discussion my family decided to host Christmas dinner at home this year, and there was my reason, to decorate the outdoor room with stars.
I found a pack of scrap booking paper at Big W for $12, enough to make 50 stars, with a stop off to grab some more hot glue I was set.
On a quiet evening I sat down with my stack of paper and began to fold.
Now I know I said I was decorating for Christmas, but these stars are large and I don't have a great amount of space for storage. So these stars needed to be versatile. I choose a vintage inspired paper set, thinking it could be used for other events. The stars fit the Christmas theme but the prints could be used for Kitchen teas, Baby Showers etc. and if all else fails they could end up at work where anything goes.
I began by folding all the paper in one go. Corner to corner then side to side.
Opening it up and making cuts from the straight edges to just about half way to centre.
I then folded the cut edge up to the corner fold lines all the way round.
Repeat 47 more times to have a whole stack of stars just waiting to be glued and assembled - and sore fingers from all that crease making (you would think at some point I would of grabbed something to substitute a bone folder but NO!)
The following day after a good amount of sleep I heated up the glue gun and got ready to stick em.
Running a bead of glue along the edge of the newly folded points I overlapped the two and held for a few seconds until the glue bonded. Repeating again for all four points. On one of the points I would add a strip of curling ribbon to hang the star from later. Once two matching stars were made I placed dabs of glue and pressed those babies together to make a completed 3D star.
There were 24 stars hanging up on Christmas day, I had lots of comments from our guests and a request to use them at an upcoming 30th party. Although I will ensure they are kept to the edges of the room as I forgot we were having such tall visitors on Christmas day and we had to do a lot of weaving to avoid a poke in the head hee hee (I will blame the baubles for weighing down the stars though)
I will be linked up at these fab parties:
This past December I had gingerbread coming out of my ears.
It was suggested after last Christmas that I sell the gingerbread houses that I had been making over the past few years. I had been making them for family and friends as gifts or for them to give as gifts as requested. Never a lot, maybe 4 tops each year. So back in October I set myself a challenge, I would bake and sell 10 Gingerbread houses.
I had sleepless nights just thinking about it. How on earth would I find the time to bake and construct 10 houses? The doubts set in, maybe I wouldn't be able to sell that many? It would be ok if I only made the usual 4.
I started planning, with the concept of 10 houses. I did a little research to find out how much other houses were selling for at local markets and asked family and friends who knew about the idea of their thoughts.
I read a blog (forgive me I have forgotten which one) that had posts each day leading up to a craft market and getting prepared. I took the advise as it applied to my task. I even set up a budget, documenting all that I would spend on ingredients and materials.
And so came the day back in November that I made a facebook event open to a few family members and friends, to test the waters, see if there was any interest. As I sat in my car before work I 'invited' a few people. I had 4 orders from the family I had spoken to previously and 'advertised' that there were 6 houses left with a choice of 2 dates they could be ready on. On my lunch break that day I checked back into the event to find 2 comments. 5 houses had sold!!! I couldn't believe it, in my shock my co workers asked what was up and low and behold 2 more houses were ordered.
Hang on you say. If you can do maths at any level better than me you would know that 4 + 5 + 2 =11. Yep I had agreed to make more than I planned. I immediately placed my request for annual leave as all the new orders were wanted on or just after the one weekend.
7 houses to be ready between the 15th and 18th (depending on when I would see the buyers) and 4 ready for Christmas Eve. This was achievable.
and then I took another order for a close friend and decided to make 2 for gifts to give.
14 houses in total. Yep I did say I was giving myself a challenge.
The budget I started worked out well. It helped me plan how much I would need to purchase, and projected the little bit of profit for my time.
With the sneaky help of my Chef Toolbox Gingerbread house mould a-baking-i-did-go.
And so much baking I did!!!
14 houses in total came out of my kitchen this summer - oh yes it's summer here in Australia and I copped 34+ degree days on the days I baked.
I think I can now recite the recipe by heart, and well next year I may even make more.
I have linked up to:
