Gingerbread houses 2012

As a family we had our gingerbread house day! We do this during Christmas vacation & this year we had the supplies as the treats in the Christmas stockings ;)

 Our village :)

 Above is mine: I made a barn and silo this year.

Above is my husband's.

Above is our 8.5yearold's "mansion" and our 6yearold's "castle."

 It's SO easy to just use old boxes and cartons- tape them together, then just stick on graham crackers via frosting!

Want to see the previous year's gingerbread houses? click here

Gifts I made

I made a lot of the gifts we gave this Christmas.

 I really like this wire & bead nest idea; had fun making a few (one for me too!)

These three above were all made a bit differently.

Here is the tutorial that helped me: (click here) 

And these bracelets were fun to make and to give as well. :) (which you fasten by putting the last button through the loop on the other end)

Here is a tutorial as well: (click here)

 I made two of these on old rough plank wood I had.
(I hand-made a tree & water design which I cut out of paper for a mask, and the letters are stickers I placed too. Then I painted over it all, then removed the tree and letters.)

detail (btw it is Psalm 1:3)

And last but one of my faves: my almost-3-year-old nephew loves his swords and tools and so I made some accessories that slip on a belt and hold swords and tools. Essentially a toolbelt. I used mesh and felt (with hot glue, gotta love that stuff).