Ever start one of those projects and silently cry “Why, oh why did we do this? If only we could go back in time 10 minutes ago when my kitchen was spotless and I’d just mopped…why???”
Then you remember “oh yeah, because my mom brought up gingerbread kits for my kids and started the mess while I was out shopping because she thought it would be fun.”
Every year we make these houses, trains, trees oh my! And EVERY year we vow to make the formation of the object and allow it to dry BEFORE letting the kids decorate.
And every year we forget to do that and end up with a house with a roof that slides off and a train that leans like the Tower of Pisa.
This year we had the added pleasure of a small, okay large, icing snafu which resulted in white icing all over, and I mean ALL OVER my kitchen. I think at one point I decided we were going to have to throw out my kitchen table and bring in the big sander for the floor. (Which isn’t all bad, I’ve been wanting to re-stain my wood floor a lighter color anyway.)
I didn’t take pictures of the floor, it was too hard to see through the camera lens with the gluey mixture of tears and self-hardening icing.
Oh, and I have to remember that it wasn’t all a total failure, we did have the trees, the beloved flat stacking trees that my 4 year old was able to do virtually unattended!
So I chalk this one up to the failed craft heaven, and next year I vow to do graham cracker houses instead…or not.
I teach preschool to 10 lovely children and I assemble 10 little graham cracker houses for them to decorate. I, too, have moved past icing and onto hot glue. I've done it for 2 years now and it is so much better. No one likes to eat that hard gingerbread anyway- it's the candy that they are after. The other thing I did this year for my own children is buying the Wilton house that comes all put together right out of the box. I don't want to ever have to put one of those "easy to assemble" houses together again!
We were planning to make our gingerbread train tonight but after seeing your mess…well I am just not so sure LOL. Cute pics 😉
We do the kits too and this year I actually remembered to glue the sides together first. HOWEVER, much to my surprise, when I went to pull the pieces out THE HOUSE WAS ALREADY PUT TOGETHER!! The same box I get every year from Costco but the entire thing (except the tree) was put together ready to be decorated. Brilliant!!
We only did it once, and everything turned out great. We decided it was a waste though, and haven't done them again. 🙁
Yikes! =( At least the tree came out great! and you got something to blog about.
Did the kids have fun? The trees look great :)I always prep the house the night before so it's hard as a rock. Although I only have 1 kiddo.
Aaah HOT GLUE! YES!
We had a gingerbread disaster last year so this year I used hot glue. Worked like a charm.
Awww, they're adorable! I use white chocolate melted in a fondue pot instead of royal icing. Once the chocolate solidifies, you could throw it against the wall and it wouldn't break.
ha, ha so sounds like a "fun" project my mom would start with the kiddos;-) We didn't do gingerbread houses this year though;-( Merry Christmas!