Archive for February 13th, 2008

I have had that song in my head all day, since we made our little Love Shacks.

We used graham crackers, royal icing, and lots of candies.

(To make royal icing without the hassle of raw eggs, try meringue powder. I used Wilton, which I bought at Michael’s craft store in the cake decorating aisle.)

You can cut triangles to close the front and back of the roofs, but I was not feeling well, so I took the shortcut way. No one seemed to mind that our roofs were open.

With out further fanfare, here are our houses.

That is Big E’s in the front. He is the artist in that family. That roof is just beautiful. He did that with no help at all.

Here is The D’s. It is hard to believe that just a couple of years ago, this boy had no interest in anything creative.

That’s mine on the left and Little E’s on the right. I did the front for him. He got tired and wanted to go watch Cyber Chase on PBS. (Yes, he’s only 4. He is our budding math genius.)

A few pointers to share… make the icing about toothpaste consistency and they should set up pretty quickly. Little kids do not have much patience when it comes to waiting to decorate candy houses. Fortunately for me, mine did not have to wait.

If you want to make white, pink, and red (or dark pink), make one big batch of white icing. Take 1/3 out and put it in your icing bag. Add a small amount of red coloring to make pink. Take out 1/2 of that and put it in another icing bag. Finally, add more red to achieve desired shade and put the remaining icing in a third bag.

I have been away from the computer lately because I have a terrible cold that is kicking my butt. I have not had an illness this bad in at least two years. I am slowly recovering, but I am still sick.

I will have pictures up later of the little Valentine’s Day graham cracker mock-gingerbread houses we made today.

I’m sick, but not too sick for Valentine’s Day crafts.

Besides, I have had the supplies for these since Christmas! (They were supposed to be Christmas houses, but we never got around to making them. Add conversation hearts and red icing colorant and voila – Valentine’s houses!)