I love gingerbread houses around Christmas- but all the time and energy needed for baking, assembling, mixing icing of all colors, just seemed like a lot of work and a little overwhelming for 2020. Enter the faux gingerbread house: This tiny wooden masterpiece is super fun to decorate, and you can carefully pack it away for next Christmas.
We found our little wooden houses at Target in the dollar spot, but if you're handy you could absolutely DIY those as well.
Step one was to paint the little houses a nice flat brown.
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My kids helped a lot with this step- they also painted the table, chair, and floor so take more precaution than I did. We used Folkart multi-surface paint from Walmart. It dried very quickly but needed about 3 coats. For the "frosting" I used Puff Paint- but as it dried the "puff" kind of flattened out. I still like them, but if I were to do them again I would use Fast'N Final lightweight spackling from the dollar tree (in the automotive section) with a little white paint mixed in and a disposable piping bag with different sized icing tips.
I really like how they turned out-you could even spray them with protective enamel paint to make sure they really last.
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If you mess up your design (or someone throws a stuffed animal on top of a wet house) you can easily wipe it off with a damp paper towel and start over- bonus it kind of gives it that snowy/dusty effect. These came 4 in a pack for $5- so that makes this DIY Christmas Craft really affordable. If you decide to make these cute little houses this year be sure to tag us in your photo so we can see!
