Turning A Friend's Home Into A Giant Gingerbread House, Part 2

Our last-minute gingerbread house project got a little out of hand; now I want to make ALL the cute giant sweets!

We're nearly done, though, so let me show you some fun DIYs:

1) Giant Wrapped Candies:

These are cheap and easy to make, but pack a HUGE punch. I love them so much.

Everything you need is at Dollar Tree: foil wrapping paper (1 roll = 2 candies), small zip ties, and these plastic containers:

Put the lids aside, you won't need them.



Wrap your container lengthwise with the foil...


...then gather up each end and zip-tie them tightly for that wrapped candy look.

I also wrapped two Dollar Tree plastic punch bowls:

The foil won't reach all the way around, but that's ok; just tape it inside the bowl in back:

Then gather the ends and zip-tie.

 Each candy only costs about $2 each, so like I said, HUGE bang for your buck with this one.

Plus so fun! Dangerously so. I want to make moooore.

I used more zip-ties to hang our big candies in this tree:

The branches are rather bendy, but still, turned out pretty cute! These would also look great on exterior walls, trimming a doorway, in a giant garland, or even dangling down from taller trees.

Next!

2) Giant Gingerbread Man Cookie:

This sweetie is made with our trusty favorite, pink insulation foam. I found a cookie I liked online to project and trace, but really this is a simple enough shape that you could freehand it.

John cut out the cookie by hand with a craft blade, then routed the edges to round them. While the router is faster, you can easily sand pink foam to round the edges that way.

Turning A Friend's Home Into A Giant Gingerbread House, Part 1

This never made it to the blog last year - think I had too many other festive things going on - but last November we surprised our friend Ken by decorating the outside of his house for Christmas. We conspired with his wife Sue, then designed, purchased, and installed a full yard makeover on Ken's birthday:

We had a snowflake projector, motion lights, and color-changing trim on the eaves and pathway. (Sue likes colored lights and Ken likes white, so we got these remote-controlled sets that do both!)

Ken & Sue love Christmas, and have lots of decor inside, but neither are physically able to decorate outside. The most they've ever had was a wreath on the door, so this was really a treat for both of them.

I made simple swags for the exterior lights by turning a Dollar Tree dollar tree (snerk) upside down, adding two plastic bells, and a mesh bow. Again, all from Dollar Tree:

Unfortunately the garage lights were the type that hang down, so the swags didn't work. After a little brainstorming we zip-tied them back-to-back and hung the swags from the porch light instead.

Which turned out pretty cute! Then Sue supplied the banners and door wreath.

To give the yard a focal point we made a light tree around this real tree:

We used zip ties around the trunk to hold the lights up, then plastic yard stakes to anchor them to the ground.

The deer is my favorite, because I it gave a serious glow-up.

Here's the Before: