Gingerbread Party!

Nate loves nothing more than candy, so he was very excited when we decided to have a Gingerbread House Decorating Party.  In the theme of not spending lots of extra money this season I tried to decorate and craft with things that I already had.  For decorations I bought glittered foam trees from target ($1), red polka dot wrapping paper from walmart ($.97), a bag of mini marshmallows ($1.25).  And that's about all I spent on decorations.  We got big plates and napkins at target for a decent price.  We spent a little money through oriental trading to get gingerbread dessert plates, a craft, and stickers, but I did my research and got free shipping.  So the most money was spent on treats, candy, and building supplies.

Because we can't live on candy alone I made soft gingerbread cookies, cake pops, a fruit plate, and salsa with chips.  Here's a couple of pictures. 

 I washed out 4 vegetable cans and covered them with red polka dot wrapping paper then I filled them with mini marshmallows.  They were used to hold the cake pops and candy canes.  I taped the glitter trees to wood skewers and stuck them into the marshmallows as a decoration. 

I also used the wrapping paper to make a little table runner to make the boring white plastic table cloth looking a little more lively.  The best thing is that when we were done making houses, we just rolled up the table cloth with all of the dropped candy and tossed it.  I re-purposed my Merry Christmas banner as a decoration.  Luckily at a gingerbread party the bright candy adds cheer.  I used 12 ramekins to display the candy.  Overall it was really fun to put it all together for this guy.