Every year, a big Christmas Circus comes to our town, and pitches its tents by the river that flows through the city.

While I will probably never visit it for several reasons (one of them being my boyfriend's strong dislike…  well, downright abhorrence of clowns ), I still like to see the tents and wagons with all the colorful decorations and blinking lights, which fit the holiday season so beautifully.
So when I saw that the circus had returned again, inspiration struck, and I decided to make a circus-themed gingerbread house.

And now that you know the backstory:


Come one, come all and see my vintage gingerbread circus wagon!



The body of the wagon, the base of the roof and the wheels are made of gingerbread, and the roof is tiled with very thin, round wafers that I cut in half.
I also built a piece of pavement for the wagon to stand on – it consists of generic Oreos that I cut in half and glued down with icing.


As you can see in this picture, I also put lighting into the wagon, by cutting a hole both in the “ground” as well as the base of the wagon, and then threading a short string of Christmas lights through the holes.
You can also see the little coach box, which I think is my favorite detail 


Except for the small purple details (icing), all the colored decorations are made of marzipan. I tinted the marzipan with food coloring, then rolled it out and cut it to the desired shape. Everything is held together by white icing, and the “snow” consists of coconut flakes.

I made the "Circus"-writing by first piping icing onto a piece of Saran-wrap, letting it dry completely and then gluing it onto the wagon with icing. All the other white decorations are also made of white icing.


Here's another view of the door. I painted it with melted chocolate, so it would stand out more from the plain gingerbread.
The window panes are made of leaves of gelatin.


And finally two more images, just because I like them...






So, that's it - C&C are very welcome.

Thanks for letting me share, I hope you enjoyed it!

When I saw the entries for this challenge last year, I knew I had to take part once the chance would come around again, but when the time had come it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to build.

I live in Germany, and grew up close to the French border, which meant rather frequent trips to the French region of Alsace when I was a kid, and this is where the inspiration for my entry came from. Many beautiful timber-framed houses can be found all over Germany, but the smaller houses I saw in old Alsatian villages always struck me as especially quaint and welcoming.
And with their often humble size and not-quite-straight walls they seemed to lend themselves to being build out of gingerbread  

But now, on to the pictures:


My timber-framed gingerbread house


From a different angle


Except for the base (cardboard) and the lighting (a chain of Christmas lights pushed through a hole in the base) everything is edible.
The snow is made of royal icing and coconut flakes, all the walls and the base of the roof are made of gingerbread and the window panes are made of gelatine leaves with details that were painted on with melted chocolate.

I imprinted the outlines of the timbers into the dough before baking, then I painted the timbers with melted chocolate.

Now for some more detailed views...


The roof, tiled with cookies.
The chimney is made of gingerbread, again painted with melted chocolate and decorated with icing.


The well, made of round nougat cookies I cut in half.


Here you can see the door with the Christmas wreath (made of colored icing) and the hazlenut cobblestone path...


This image shows probably my favorite detail - a stack of firewood made of pretzel sticks.


...Aaaand finally, just another shot I liked because it makes my little gingerbread house look so tall and almost real  
 



So, that's it - C&C are very welcome.
Thanks for letting me share, I hope you enjoyed it!

*edited for spelling*

Hello fellow craftsters,

my BF and I have been looking at Mitch O'Connell homepage the other day, and he instantly fell in love with MoC's poster for the B-Fest 2006 (you can see it here: http://www.mitchoconnell.com/bfest2008web.jpg ). Since I don't think I can get my hands on an original, especially here in Germany, I decided to do the next best thing and recreate it for him by embroidering it.

Since I never tried my hands at any kind of embroidery except cross stitching, I decided to stick with simple stitches, and did the whole thing using either backstitch or threaded backstitch, and also decided to add some color by crayon tinting rather than trying to fill large areas with thread.

I spent so much time looking at the thing that by now I can't tell whether I like it or not anymore. I never crafted anything for my BF before since we have only been dating for a few months now, and to add to my usual insecurities when it comes to giving something I made he is a talented graphic artist and design student with a very clear sense of style.
So before I decide whether I really will give it to him as a "just-because"-gift it would be great to hear the opinion of some of you, who have not spent hours and hours staring at Miss Glenda and all the little faults I bestowed upon her... you like? or not so much?

Also, I would like to put her in a frame, but have no clue how to a) get her to be less wrinkly (she's oh-so-wrinkly in real life) and b) mount her the embroidery   , so any advise you may have for me would be greatly appreciated!

Well, now, finally, after all the wordiness, here goes:



Mitch O'Connell's Miss Glenda


I'd love to hear what you think,


Baerbel











 

Hello Fellow Crafters,

about a year ago I made a bracelet from cherry pits, but only yesterday did I have the idea to use my beloved dremel for more than just drilling the holes for stringing them.
So, now I present you my first attempts at more intricate "carved" (well, rather drilled) cherry pit jewelry.


Initial pendant (on the necklace) and flower pendant (blurry in the foreground)




More initial beads, the skip-a-heart-bead (heh - sorry for the bad pun, couldn't resist), a star bead, and a rather randomly patterned bead.




Randomly arranged bracelet (drilled pits, painted pits and glass beads)



As with the origami earrings I posted earlier, I am planning on maybe selling these, as soon as my technique has improved some more. Do you think people would buy these at a craft fair or something of the likes?

...sorry for the not-so-great pictures, my camera is holding some sort of grudge against me....



I would love to hear your thoughts,


Baerbel

Hello everyone,

I have become really fascinated with modular origami lately, and have been experimenting with how small I can go with the paper before the inevitable frustration becomes unbearable for impatient me.
While the pieces I used for these earrings are not the smallest ones I made, they are still some of the more interesting looking ones and the ones that I thought lend themselves most to jewelry making.

I know this has been done by others many times before, but this is my first time trying myself at jewelry making, and I am quite happy with how they turned out.


Red/White Pair (made of Sonobe modules)




Violet Pair:




Blue/White Pair (made of Sonobe modules)




(sorry for the crappy pictures - my camera has been acting up for a while now...    )




I am thinking about selling them - do you think people might buy these/stuff similar to these?

I'd love to hear your thoughts,


Baerbel

I have been wanting to try stenciling with freezer paper for a while now, but since I live in Germany and freezer paper is nowhere to be found here I had to wait until I found an online quilting store that sells it.
But, without much further ado, here is the result of my first attempt (this is also my first post ever on craftster, so I hope I actually figured out how to post these links etc.)




close up of front:




close up of the back (the tiny letters almost drove me mad...):




Your comments are welcome!