A Gingerbread House...minus the mess

A favorite yearly Christmas tradition that I shared with my daughter was making a gingerbread house. Her two brothers were older and I never had the courage to undertake a gingerbread house with them, but I did bring out the gingerbread, the frosting and all the trimmings for Carly until she turned 14 and decided she was too old to be making candy houses.  After making at least 10 gingerbread houses, a rational person would think I would have a ton of pictures to look back on that time...but you would be wrong!  I swear I took some, can even picture some of those frosting covered houses in my head, but I could not find one single picture of the actual houses themselves.  Bad mother.  I must have been too busy cleaning up after the sticky event to bring out the camera...at least that is the excuse I am going with.

Carly is 22 now, way beyond making a gingerbread house with me, but it wouldn't be Christmas without at least attempting a gingerbread house, so I got to work with my papers, embossing folders, die and stamps to create a mess-free gingerbread house.

                                                               The outside of the house.

                                                      Opening up the doors of the house.

The inside of the house with the sentiment.

This project is made with all Lil Inker Designs.  I laid out all of my Lil Inker dies and started picking and choosing any one that could even remotely be used to make my house.  Here's a list of the dies and stamps I used:

House Base: Stitched Mat Square and Stitched Mat Rectangles (the square is turned on its side to create the roof.
The icing on the roof:  Stitched Scallop Border Die
Bow on top of house:  Christmas Bits Die Set
Heart Window:  Of the Heart Die Set
Window Curtains:  Stitched Sentiment  Flag Die
Holly/Berry Trim: Holly Jolly Die Set
Christmas Trees: Holly Jolly Die Set
Stars on Christmas Trees:  Balloon Dies
Gingerbread Men:  Christmas Bits Die Set
Gumdrops on the inside of the card: Holly Jolly Die Set
Jolly Sentiment:  JollyWord Die
Stamped Sentiments:  Jolly and Joyful Sentiments; Instant Camera Christmas Stamp Set

I am entering my little house into 4, yes, FOUR different challenges...three of them new to me.  First, Craft a Scene where the challenge is to create a Winter scene with an option to make it a tri-fold card.  The second is Winter Wonderland Challenge  where the challenge is to use any kind of embossing.  The roof of my gingerbread house is embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder.  The third is for Christmas Card Challenges where all you have to do is make a Christmas card...how easy is that? The last is ColourQ#219 and a challenge that was a lucky surprise for me, all my gingerbread colors matched with this weeks challenge.

Thanks for taking a look at my house...I would love to see some pictures of any gingerbread houses you may have made with your kids, I am certain at least a few people managed to get some pictures!