Craft ideas and tutorials among other things.
For the last few years I have put together a very simple Gingerbread House Decorating party for my son and my nieces. This year I decided to go all out with for this annual party and invite a couple more friends. We had an absolute blast decorating the gingerbread houses – it was such a special time for both kids and parents alike.
It all began with the invitations being hand delivered by these giant gingerbread men.
In case you missed any or have only just joined us here, we thought we would make our 12 Days of Christmas Ideas for 2015 easier to find by re-posting the links here.
Plus here’s a few bonus ideas from previous years that we featured in our live demonstration.
Thanks for stopping by, we hope you find this helpful and enjoy these Christmas ideas.
© 2015 As You Wish Events Ltd. Want to use this article in your E-newsletter, blog, or website? You can as long as you include this complete statement: Auckland, New Zealand – Event Planner & Designer Nadine Crozier publishes the ‘As You Wish Events’ blog filled with secrets, tips and how-tos for planning your fabulous event. Get your exclusive inspiration, tips and tricks at http://www.asyouwish.co.nz. As You Wish Events is an event planning and design company based in Auckland, serving the Auckland region and certain areas of Northland.
Here’s a quick an easy gift idea. It works great as a small thank you gift or can be teamed up with a few other items to create a gift that is more substantial.
All you need for this individual serve is …
Put it together in this order and you are all done. Ready to give it away.
© 2015 As You Wish Events Ltd. Want to use this article in your E-newsletter, blog, or website? You can as long as you include this complete statement: Auckland, New Zealand – Event Planner & Designer Nadine Crozier publishes the ‘As You Wish Events’ blog filled with secrets, tips and how-tos for planning your fabulous event. Get your exclusive inspiration, tips and tricks at http://www.asyouwish.co.nz. As You Wish Events is an event planning and design company based in Auckland, serving the Auckland region and certain areas of Northland.
I’m really excited to have some of my favourite people join me for our 12 Days of Christmas this year. Today we have Susan Wong joining us – you’re just going to love her idea!
It’s that time of year when schools are wrapping up and we’re all winding down for Christmas. Or are you winding up? In any case, here’s a great gift idea for teachers – or colleagues and friends – when you need a Christmas gift before Christmas.
The Oh What Fun Tag Project Kit from Stampin’ Up! comes with supplies to make 30 gift tags – three of each design. I’ve been making them in lots of ten and boxing them up ready for my daughter’s kindy teachers. Everyone loves a little handmade something right? (Bonus – no extra calories!) And what a cool way to make them think of us when they’re busy wrapping gifts and extending Christmas cheer to their own family and friends.
With the vellum paper on the front, I’ve designed the packaging to become a luminaire so the teachers have something left just for them when they’ve used all the tags. Include a faux tealight candle and it’s a simple affair. What’s more, the 4×4” box is really quick and easy to make using our Stampin’ Up! Gift Box Punch Board.
Check out my blog for more details on how to make these boxes and a full shopping list for making your own set of tags.
Merry Christmas!
Susan Wong
Stampin’ Up! Artisan Design Team & Demonstrator
If you want to see more of Susan’s work check out her blog here ‘Stamping with Susan’ or here on facebook
© 2015 As You Wish Events Ltd. Want to use this article in your E-newsletter, blog, or website? You can as long as you include this complete statement: Auckland, New Zealand – Event Planner & Designer Nadine Crozier publishes the ‘As You Wish Events’ blog filled with secrets, tips and how-tos for planning your fabulous event. Get your exclusive inspiration, tips and tricks at http://www.asyouwish.co.nz. As You Wish Events is an event planning and design company based in Auckland, serving the Auckland region and certain areas of Northland.
I really do enjoy the build up to Christmas, and for the last few years as part of the build up we have included the decorating of gingerbread houses. It really is a fun activity for the whole family. Over the last few years we have kept it all rather low-key, but this year the plan is to go all out. However you decide to approach it, here’s a few hints we have learned along the way that will hopefully help you with yours.
While you can actually buy complete kits for making a Gingerbread house these days, if you’d rather approach it from scratch here’s a list of things you’ll need:
Most recipes for gingerbread men will work for making gingerbread houses.
You’ll either need to create your on pattern or you can buy actual cutters from most supermarkets. I find that the cutters you can buy make rather large houses. This is fine if 3-4 people are all working on one house, but if you opt to have one house each like we do, well let’s just say, that’s a lot of gingerbread! I decided to design my own pattern and so far it seems that each year the design has got a little smaller. When you are doing one house each, you want to find the right balance between enough space to decorate creatively without having too much space that the kids loose interest before they are done.
Another thing you need to do when baking the house walls, is double check you have all the pieces – one year I came to the assembling of the houses only to find I was one piece short – arrgh!
Can you spot the roof piece that is made of cardboard?
This is something that I have struggled with a little. They say that royal icing is best. This is made with egg whites or an egg white powder that can be purchased at cake decorating stores. It is quite a fast drying icing that sets real hard – two things you are after when you are trying to get the walls to hold together. I have also had some success with just mixing icing sugar and water, but you do have to get the consistency just right – usually quite thick.
I have also taken to using sewing pins (having sterilised them in boiling water first) to hold the pieces in place while they dry.
As you can see this was one of our failed attempts – but it still tasted great!
The most obvious thing here is the need for lollies. Smaller lollies are best but you can also cut larger lollies down to the size you want. A pair of sterilised scissors works best for cutting jellies and marshmallows, but you’ll need a knife and chopping board for harder lollies like candy canes. Our favourite lollies for decorating are M&Ms, mini jellybeans, marshmallows, candy canes and chocolate drops/buttons.
While lollies seem like the most obvious choice you can use lots of other things too. For example you can use cake sprinkles like 100s & 1000s, pretzels, small chocolate biscuits, dried fruit, nuts and even some breakfast cereals work well too.
Love the pretzel fence.
Don’t forget about the plate you’re building it on. It does need to be fairly sturdy as the houses do have a bit of weight to them. We tried paper plates one year – not the best idea. Another option are cake boards – you can find these at most dollar stores these days. Size-wise, it’s a good idea for them to have a reasonable space available around the house so you can create gardens etc. too.
I find when decorating gingerbread houses with kids it’s a good idea to have aprons of some description for them to wear. Also do whatever you can to limit their need to get out of their chairs and walk around – this definitely contains the mess. Lastly I make sure they each have either a drink of water or milk – my theory it that it helps to dilute the amount of sugar they eat during the process.
If you have any further questions about creating your own gingerbread house, I’m happy to try and answer them. Just use the comments section below. Happy creating,
© 2015 As You Wish Events Ltd. Want to use this article in your E-newsletter, blog, or website? You can as long as you include this complete statement: Auckland, New Zealand – Event Planner & Designer Nadine Crozier publishes the ‘As You Wish Events’ blog filled with secrets, tips and how-tos for planning your fabulous event. Get your exclusive inspiration, tips and tricks at http://www.asyouwish.co.nz. As You Wish Events is an event planning and design company based in Auckland, serving the Auckland region and certain areas of Northland.
Cake-pops, cookie-pops, sweet-pops and savoury-pops. There are just so many pop options out there. You can include them in your party menu or give them as a gift. Tasty and versatile – that’s my kind of thing! So today’s Christmas idea is a collection of our five favourite pops.
You may recognise this photo from one of our recent articles. While looking at this photo I thought how easy would it be to make these simple cake-pops into Christmas themed ones. All you’d have to do is swap the straws/sticks and the little bows for Christmas coloured ones.
Marshmallow Pops
As seen on: The Pioneer Woman
Oreo cookie pops
As seen on: Makoodle
Candy Cane Heart pops
As seen on: One Little Project
And for those who prefer a savoury option – Mini Cheese Ball Bites
As seen on: Five Heart Home
© 2015 As You Wish Events Ltd. Want to use this article in your E-newsletter, blog, or website? You can as long as you include this complete statement: Auckland, New Zealand – Event Planner & Designer Nadine Crozier publishes the ‘As You Wish Events’ blog filled with secrets, tips and how-tos for planning your fabulous event. Get your exclusive inspiration, tips and tricks at http://www.asyouwish.co.nz. As You Wish Events is an event planning and design company based in Auckland, serving the Auckland region and certain areas of Northland.
Homemade Christmas crackers have come a long way since I made them as a child out of crape paper and toilet rolls. I am super excited to share today’s idea with you as it is my first ever video tutorial! This idea also comes with 2 free downloads – the Christmas Cracker template and our Cracker Jokes.
Tip: When printing out your template, print onto paper that is slightly thicker than your ordinary photocopy paper (120gsm – 160gsm). You can also print directly onto scrapbook paper if you cut it to a size that will fit your printer.
© 2015 As You Wish Events Ltd. Want to use this article in your E-newsletter, blog, or website? You can as long as you include this complete statement: Auckland, New Zealand – Event Planner & Designer Nadine Crozier publishes the ‘As You Wish Events’ blog filled with secrets, tips and how-tos for planning your fabulous event. Get your exclusive inspiration, tips and tricks at http://www.asyouwish.co.nz. As You Wish Events is an event planning and design company based in Auckland, serving the Auckland region and certain areas of Northland.
Pinterest is a great source of inspiration. I recently saw this idea and thought I just had to give it a go. Its so simple, yet so stunning. The technique used is called decoupage. You’ve quite possibly heard of it before – but if not this is the art of decorating objects with paper cut-outs. You can pretty much use any kind of paper and apply it to any type of surface, as long as the surface is smooth.
This is such an easy project. It makes for a nice additional to your Christmas décor or even a nice gift. So why not have a go and don’t forget to send us pictures – we just love seeing the creativity of others.
© 2015 As You Wish Events Ltd. Want to use this article in your E-newsletter, blog, or website? You can as long as you include this complete statement: Auckland, New Zealand – Event Planner & Designer Nadine Crozier publishes the ‘As You Wish Events’ blog filled with secrets, tips and how-tos for planning your fabulous event. Get your exclusive inspiration, tips and tricks at http://www.asyouwish.co.nz. As You Wish Events is an event planning and design company based in Auckland, serving the Auckland region and certain areas of Northland.
If you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time you will most likely know how much I love shiny things. Yes, I’m quite the magpie. While on a recent search for wedding stationery I came in contact with Margriet, from Pinc Ltd. This great local business, having started out specialising in pocketfold envelopes, had recently branched into foil printing and the minute I saw the samples I fell in love.
Having had the pleasure of seeing their foil product range grow over the last few months, I was thrilled to have Margriet join us in an interview for our 12 Days of Christmas Ideas – after all what time of year goes better with shiny and foil than Christmas, right!
A few years ago Margriet started manufacturing pocketfolds and sleeves for wedding invitations and gift vouchers. This range quickly grew to accommodate various other small items, embellishments like starfish, charms, printed ribbon and more. Earlier this year they were presented with a wonderful opportunity to start foil printing, which they took on with much excitement. The business is now based in Red Beach on the beautiful Hibiscus Coast here in Auckland.
We started the foil printing earlier this year, like you I am drawn to shiny, sparkly things and as soon as the idea of foiling was presented to us I was so excited! We have printed such a range – business cards, wedding invitations, Christmas cards, packaging… and more recently we have acquired a large format foiler that can do up to A3 size. We’ve been having a lot of fun with that machine, making décor prints and various wall art pieces. Doing one off little frames as art pieces too. We currently have gold and silver foil for the A3 prints, and we’ve actually just today ordered some samples from a local supplier to see if their coloured foils work on that machine. So many options! Very exciting!
At this stage we have a facebook album with prints for sale – click here. You can message us via that or our contact details are on the page too. We have also attended a few local markets which has been a lot of fun.
Absolutely! We’d love to add to the range so message us your ideas, we’ve very happy to do custom designs.
Wow, this is exciting stuff. These would truly make beautiful gifts or lovely additions to your Christmas décor. Make sure you get in touch with Margriet and her team at Pinc Ltd. You can do this by visiting their website www.foilprinting.co.nz or keep in touch with them by following them here on Facebook.
© 2015 As You Wish Events Ltd. Want to use this article in your E-newsletter, blog, or website? You can as long as you include this complete statement: Auckland, New Zealand – Event Planner & Designer Nadine Crozier publishes the ‘As You Wish Events’ blog filled with secrets, tips and how-tos for planning your fabulous event. Get your exclusive inspiration, tips and tricks at http://www.asyouwish.co.nz. As You Wish Events is an event planning and design company based in Auckland, serving the Auckland region and certain areas of Northland.
Growing up I remember going to visit my Aunty and Uncle who had these amazingly detailed little ceramic houses displayed on the shelves in their living room. I would spend ages staring at them imagining what it would be like to play in them had I too been of a miniature size. It was like a window into another world. A world where my imagination would take over and everything seemed magical. It is this same sense of magic and imagination that has drawn me to include this as one of our Christmas Ideas for 2015.
So whether you call them terrariums, snow globes, aqua jars or something else completely, I hope this collection will inspire you for your own creations.
As seen on: Shopterrain.com
As seen on: 1800 Flowers
As seen on: Cute Cottage Overload
As seen on: ‘My Name is Yeh’ Blog
As seen on: HGTV Gardens
As seen on: Pink Pistachio
© 2015 As You Wish Events Ltd. Want to use this article in your E-newsletter, blog, or website? You can as long as you include this complete statement: Auckland, New Zealand – Event Planner & Designer Nadine Crozier publishes the ‘As You Wish Events’ blog filled with secrets, tips and how-tos for planning your fabulous event. Get your exclusive inspiration, tips and tricks at http://www.asyouwish.co.nz. As You Wish Events is an event planning and design company based in Auckland, serving the Auckland region and certain areas of Northland.
