How to Make a Gingerbread House Advent

Paint the advent calendar with the white chalky paint to prime (optional). Make sure that you leave the doors open as the paint dries.

Mix together the Raw Sienna, brown and white acrylic paints to make a gingerbread colour. You will need to make a lot of this and it is best to make the paint a shade lighter than the one you want as it dries darker. Test this out then paint the gingerbread house. You will need to do a couple of coats. Remember to leave the doors open to dry.

Use a white pencil to draw your gingerbread house design onto the advent calendar. Try to put your door and windows on the calendar so that the door frames intersect them in the middle.

Paint on your window and doors. This may take a couple of coats. Use Mod Podge to varnish them.

You can then use the Tulip and outliner paints to decorate your features. The outliner is better for fine lines and the tulip paint works well for shapes and snow. You can put lots of dots together to look like icing on a cake. You must make sure that you do not paint across the gaps around the doors otherwise the doors will glue shut.

Add other designs to your advent calendar. This was done by painting the heart in red Tulip paint and then when it was dry, putting the crosshatching on. Once dry add the patterns and dots.

Draw on the ivy stems. Use a white pencil first and then ink over using a green Sharpie.

Draw a tiny ivy leaf on a sheet of funky foam and cut this out. Stick to the end of a pencil and then use this and green acrylic paint to stamp ivy leaves along the stems. Do a second layer of ivy leaves in a lighter green that you have mixed with white paint.

To make sweets use white and red dimensional paints and a cocktail stick. Paint a circle of white then put a red dot into the middle. Use a cocktail stick to swirl these together. Or you can do small stripes of each colour. Practise first and see what you can do.

Apply the bostik glue to one side of the roof and stick on your felt. You can trim it afterwards. Do the same with the chimney.

Use a stencil brush and green paint to create the wreath. Do a second layer very faintly with a slightly lighter green. The berries and the wreath were done with the red Tulip paint.

Paint the numbers on using gold paint and a very small brush. 13. Use Fimo to make sweets and the door posts. Twist thin strips together to make the candy canes. Swirl strips around and put them side by side to make the sweets.