Gingerbread Villa

Inspired by an adorable milk carton birdhouse box recently created by my friend and fellow member of our local Cricut Club, Aileen H., I thought I would try a gingerbread house version to give out as favors at our Cricut Club Holiday Party. I was also inspired by a fabulous haunted house created by Michele of My Simple Crafts and this darling gingerbread house by Teri of big Ideas Fron A Little Girl. For mine, I used Design Studio to enlarge the milk carton cutfile I had used earlier this year to do my Easter milk carton boxes so the bottom would be 2-1/2 inches square.

The biggest challenge for me with these gingerbread houses was to figure out how to do the roofs. I knew I wanted to do it in a way such that the recipient could get to the goodies inside without destroying the whole house, but I couldn't remember how Aileen had done the roof on her birdhouse, and unfortunately, I had not yet seen the houses created by Michele and Teri.

My snowtopped roof was created by welding circles of various sizes to the edges of a rectangle, using the George cartridge and Design Studio. Scored and folded this 1/ 2 inch along the long edges and then in half. Notches were cut at the center point and mitered so that the angle of the roof would fit the top of the milk carton. The roof was then attached to the house by punching matching holes in the roof and milk carton and threading  ribbon through to hold it in place. I liked how the finished roof turned out, but truthfully, I knew it would be a pain to put back together once it had been opened.

Decorating the sides of the gingerbread house was fun. Welded circles to one edge of a rectangle in Design Studio for the snow border, welded a circle and a square for the door. Gingerbread boy is from the Paper Dolls Dress Up cartridge, frame for sign from George, peppermint candy from Simply Charmed, and trees and candycanes are old 2x2 Quickutz dies. I really liked Teri's idea of adding a sentiment to the back, but since I didn't have a stamp, mine had to be computer generated using LD Charming Bold and 2 Peas Flea Market fonts.

When I was finally ready to fill my gingerbread houses with candy, I stopped short of gluing the bottoms closed as orignally planned, thinking how difficult it would be to re-assemble once the roof had been taken off. Decided to try a slotted bottom closure by cutting off a square piece from each of the bottom flaps. Happy to say this worked perfectly, providing a really easy way to get to the treats without having to worry about any re-assembling afterwards. Wouldn't recommend using this type of closure if the contents of the box were too heavy, but for candies and treats, this works like a charm!