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Gingerbread Tablescape with The Cricut Maker

Gingerbread Tablescape with The Cricut Maker
This gingerbread tablescape post is brought to you by Cricut. Affiliate links included. All thoughts, feelings, ideas and designs are my own.

Setting the Christmas tables is a fun part of decorating for the season. This year we are gearing up to have another gingerbread decorating party at our house, so we’re setting a pretty tablescape for the event. This gingerbread tablescape will work perfect for any time of the season, whether it’s for a party, Christmas dinner or you can make it just to look at!

This DIY Christmas decoration is so beautiful–battery operated flickering candles are tucked into each little house and it gives the gingerbread tablescape a wonderful glow of a little village in the evening.

I might have sat in the front room a bit to stare at it when I set it up I loved it so much. With a cup of hot cocoa and some Christmas music softly playing in the background…heaven! Which is the opposite of what it will be like when there are 20 or so children all angling for frosting, candy and gingerbread. Still enjoyable, but lots of chaos!

The Cricut Maker and it’s many tools make this tablescape pretty easy to put together. Easy, but yes, time consuming because there are a few parts to assemble. But the cutting out and scoring is all done for you, and that eliminates a ton of work! Again, part of the reason I love the Cricut Maker is that it only takes one machine to make all the projects I have planned in a really wild range of materials. The adaptive use system means you can switch out the tool that does the cutting to match the demands of the project. For the little houses, I used Cricut kraft board (buy it here) that was cut with a fine tip blade (comes with the Cricut Maker) and scored with the Cricut double wheel scorer (buy it here). Up next, I’m making a giant chipboard gingerbread house that I’m going to use the knife blade to cut–tutorial soon. The Cricut Maker is so versatile it inspires great crafting!

how to make mini gingerbread houses for a gingerbread tablescape

Sadly, my Cricut Maker has not learned to bake yet, so we’re going to let it do what it does best and let it cut out little paper gingerbread houses for us.

The Cricut store is having the BEST PRICES ever right now, so definitely go there to stock up on supplies for this project!

 

gingerbread tablescape materials:

Other items:

Step 1: Cut the gingerbread tablescape files

There are several pieces that will need to be cut to assemble the gingerbread houses. To make it easier to see which houses you are cutting, I have broken this into a few project files. After you click “make it” you can select how many copies of each house you would like. There are 14 on my 7  foot table, if that gives you an indication of how many you will need for your particular length table.

Why kraft board? There are less expensive options than kraft board, but I chose it for this project because of the way it easily scores and folds without cracking while still having a good bit of structure. Your materials do make a difference in your final product! Try to use the best you can get/afford.

TIP: While cutting the craft board pieces, you’re going to have to pay attention to your machine because you’ll be required to change the tools. It was something that slipped my mind when I started cutting; I admit to getting a little frustrated when it wouldn’t cut out the houses, but my Maker was politely asking me to put in the scoring tool before it did so. But you’ll probably be more attentive than I am and not run into that problem.

Step 2: Add vinyl to gingerbread houses

To make it easy to decorate the little houses, I’ve designed some basic gingerbread decorations that stick right onto the houses to make them festive. You’ll want to add the vinyl while the pieces are still flat as it makes it easier to do. 

Before you add the vinyl, do be sure you are adding it to the correct side. (Yes, I did make this mistake!) You should have a piece with a window and a door and a piece with two windows. When you line them up side by side, the window piece with the notch should line up next to the piece with the door. 

Use a piece of transfer tape to lift the white vinyl off the carrier sheet. Place the transfer tape over the area you want the decoration to  lightly rub the vinyl to get it to stick to the Kraft board. 

TIP: Avoid rubbing the transfer tape too hard into the paper. It may catch and peel up the paper as well when you peel off the transfer tape. Gently rub, and only on the vinyl bits!

step 3: put vellum in the windows

This is my favorite part of these little houses. Take the squares of vellum and glue them over the windows on the reverse side of the pieces. They’ll be on the inside when we’re done, so no worries about messy glue there.

The battery operated tea light will show through the windows without seeing the inside of the boxes with the vellum. 

The mini houses with the sloped roofs go together the exact same way as the other two files, the only difference is that you will only have to glue one tab shut on the boxes. This is because they were small enough to fit on the cutting mat in one piece, and the other houses were not.

Step 4: fold and glue the gingerbread tablescape houses 

Start by folding the gingerbread house pieces along their score lines then lay them back flat on the table.

Glue the tab of the window piece to the back of the door piece. 

Fold the house into the box shape and glue the second tab in place to make the base of the house. If you’re doing the curved roof house, there’s only one tab to glue.

Bend down the icicles on the roof, then fold the roof in half.

For the curved roof house, you’ll want to put a slight bend into the roof before affixing it to the base.

Add a little bit of hot glue to the top of the base along the edges.

Carefully place the roof on the base and hold in place until hot glue sets.

Step 5: Make some bows.

The tiny tiny bit of color that bows bring to the houses is perfection. You don’t need a lot of color in the case of these houses! The bow making here is pretty easy. You fold in the two edges of the long funny looking shape to the center and glue them down with a glue stick.

Pinch this part together for a minute so it sets. Take the rectangular shape and wrap it around the middle of the bow and glue it together in the back. Hot glue the bow to the gingerbread house. A glue dot would work here as well!

 

Setting up the gingerbread tablescape

Your local hardware store that sells live Christmas trees (I went to Lowe’s) should have some greenery branches to buy. I got two really large bundles for $2. Cut the branches into smaller pieces then lay them down the center of the table. I used a runner under the branches. Top with a few pinecone picks and your finished gingerbread houses with tea lights. The hard part here is assembling the houses, but even that is not too bad!

Each place setting has a station ready to start gingerbread house decorating. Dishes ready to be filled, a place mat, and a place card to show where each person needs to sit. I’ll show you how to make these place cards soon!

These gingerbread houses are also perfect for a small grouping on a side table or shelf–you don’t need to keep them as a centerpiece. And they are recyclable at the end of the season, so no need to find space to store them for next year.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

 

Paula Biggs

Owner at Frog Prince Paperie
Paula Biggs is a party planner, DIY crafter, and owner of Frog Prince Paperie, where you can find hundreds of party, craft and lifestyle ideas.

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Monday 17th of December 2018

[…] do it! You won’t be sorry. The flickering lights in the windows across the table were beautiful. You can find the project tutorial for that here. Cricut made, of […]

Sandra Garth

Thursday 6th of December 2018

I can see why this project is time-consuming, but it is so worth the effort. Will you pack them away for use next year or do you have to make them again? Beautiful work Paula, Merry Christmas!!