Christmas in July

I’ve been seeing a lot of Christmas in July stuff, so I thought I’d go along. Originally I had wanted to make a gingerbread dollhouse, but since I don’t have anything to do with it once it’s done, it seemed like a waste. Then at cake decorating class, I saw that Joanne’s was having a sale on small birdhouses - $1 each. Perfect!

I bought a small birdhouse, some white squiggly fabric trim, wooden circles, a paint kit, and some beads. The total cost was under $10. First I painted the whole birdhouse brown, for gingerbread. Then I lined the bottom and roof with the trim for icing. I painted the stick where the bird sits white, and used a red sharpie to draw swirled stripes like a candy cane.



I painted the wooden circles white and used the red sharpie to make them into peppermints. I glued them to the roof, which was easier than I thought it’d be – the trim was thick enough to stop them from sliding off while the glue dried.




And after all of the shingles had been added, here’s how it looked:



My mom suggested I make it into an ornament for the tree. I like the idea, but I’m not sure how I’m going to do it yet. I’ve still got the beads I bought for this project – they’re called “berry beads” and they look like gumdrops, but I couldn’t find a place on the birdhouse where they looked good. Tomorrow I’m going to play around some more with making a hanger and using the beads. Here’s what they look like:



When I get it figured out, I’ll post more pictures. I just wanted to make sure I got this up before August 1st – otherwise, the whole “Christmas in July” thing doesn’t really work. Any suggestions?