I love Gingerbread and making Gingerbread Houses for the holidays. But this year I wanted to add to the tradition and make something that will last multiple seasons: Clay  Gingerbread House inspired Luminary.

Here is the step by step on how we made these Gingerbread inspired luminaries.

Supplies:

• Oven hard clay – we used natural brown for that Gingerbread look
• Starch
• Hot glue
• Puffy paint
• Beads
• Glitter – white and light blue
• Beads – I used glass red, green and gold beads
• Tea-light candle or batter powered small LED light
• Cookie cutter or pattern (click here to get the cookie cutter I used from our Etsy shop)

First thing double check you got the right clay! I did not do this step the first time around, and boy was I upset when I cut out perfectly 5 Gingerbread house forth of pieces.

Now that we established you have the right supplies, cut out the four sides of the house with the cookie cutter. To keep it simple the front and back of the house are the Dutch facade with the stair step roofs.

For the sides, I chose not to have the stair step roof. I simply cut that part off with a knife. Also, I wanted some windows closed, so I did not push my cookie cutter all of the way through. Instead I used a sharp knife to finish cutting out the parts I wanted removed.

For the roof, I just cut a rectangle, the long side matched the width of each side and the short side took in to account the thickness of the walls. So the short side of the rectangle was about 1/4″ shorter.

Next bake the house per the instructions on the clay box. Let completely cool.

Using puffy paint and your beads for accents, decorate the sides of the house as you wish.

I used the longer gold beads as to make “candles” in the windows. Now let completely dry.

Assemble the house by first pre-heating the hot glue. I started with attaching the long edge of the roof, to one of the front/back sides. These will be my inside walls, with the flat top sides being glued to the outer edge. Continue to assemble the house with hot glue until all sides are secured.

As a final touch, I used white puffy paint to cover up any hot glue that might have pushed out and along all of the seams and the roof top. Sprinkle some glitter as you go to add some shimmer for a fresh snow effect. Let completely dry.  Now, we can leave it at that and add a tea-light candle or battery powered LED lights for a final touch.

 

That’s it! My son and his big cousin each decorated a wall for the house we made for Nana and Pops.  Great DIY gift to add to their Christmas Village.