Delightful December day 7! Gingerbread House Fun!

The Christmas Season has always meant gingerbread houses! I love the simplicity of this project and how much family time it seems to bring about. As my children get older, I try to make this 1 activity last a few days, with multiple related activities! LOL! We start by coloring a gingerbread house page. It always starts as a 'map' of what their houses will look like, but of course never really seems to work out! Hahaha!

I like to serve the candies in kid sized cups and portions, this way little mouths don't get too full of candy during the project! If more is needed, no big deal to grab more! We use marshmallow fluff and frosting. They both make a glue like bond when they harden. The Fluff is more soft and snow-like and the frosting hardens like a rock.

A Milk carton base is a MUST, little kids LOVE to load on the candy and the weight is just too much on the graham cracker house alone. This also give the children something sturdy to push down on as they SHOVE the candy into the sides of the house! We learned this trick 3 years ago at a school decorating event!!

My daughter loved making small houses for the gingerbread pets! She had a lot of fun using the fluff and then decorating them, but her fun was stopped short when her little brother began to slowly sneak 1 candy at a time away from her houses!

I'm wondering at what point our Gingerbread House, became a candy mountain?! There are no doors, windows or even a chimney! They all seemed have just went crazy with the frosting and candy!!

Our next project is making gingerbread men cookies to line up around the house in 'snow'! First we will color our own gingerbread men and see what we would ideally want our cookies to look like.

As I began to clean up the leftovers, I noticed that both boys had of course made graham cracker, frosting and candy sandwiches! They were unlucky that I noticed, but lucky enough to have already eaten 1 each! All in all, we are having fun times together creating memories that will last many years to come, even if the candy doesn't last long at all!

ENTER TO WIN THIS!!!!

Our friends at THE TOY BOX YEARS are giving away this awesome art pack!!

Blogging Tips and Tricks

My Diary Brooch by MichellesCharmWorld 7.00

It's nearly impossible to keep up with a blog right? Thinking of topics, finding photos, hoping for comments all that good stuff! I have so much that goes around in my head daily, but when it comes time to sit here and actually start blogging, I can never get it straight! I figured that there are probably other people out there like me that just need a little nudge in the right direction! These tips are for you!

Cute Can Be Dangerous Knife Earrings by MichellesCharmWorld 7.00

Topics are always the place to start, since without a topic there is no blog! Sometimes coming up with a good topic is like cutting down a tree with a knife, impossible! Just keep a notebook with you for when those ideas do pop up! Decide what kind of a blog you want to have, more personal or business like. I want to try and keep mine related to business as much as possible, but I will totally be all about personal stuff when good things happen! If you are going to promote your blog as a business tool though, keep an eye on the language and selection of topics, you may not want your customer base to know too much about you! I use the SAVE NOW draft feature a lot. When I'm up late and I get loads of ideas, I start NEW POSTS and just give it a title and tags and then in the body I put a few bullet points, so I know what to build on when I'm ready to finish that topic. Then when I'm stuck for ideas I head there and finish one up! There are some days when you just don't feel like typing anything at all, I'm a big fan of the wordless posts! (I've seen Wordless Wednesday, Things to Think About Thursdays, Word Free Friday) These are just posts of photos with or without captions. I usually try and do a Sunday post like this and call it: The Weekend In Photos. It's an easy way to not neglect your blog and give yourself a break. Just don't overuse that one, it's never good to not get any context out of a blog. Another good way to use up some posts is to do features on fellow sellers or reviews of recent purchases! People love to know all about what you like and buy if they are already following your blog!

Say Cheese Camera Necklace by MichellesCharmWorld 13.00

On to the photos! These are HUGE! Even if you only have a one word post, use PHOTOS! Readers love having something to look at! Most importantly be sure your photos link back to something! If someone clicks on something from your shop, have it take them to that listing. If it's a photo of your kids in a playhouse, have the click take them to that playhouse for sale. Remember links are good! If you feel your photos are too plain, add some fun borders or a little text in them. If you don't have any photos to get your post across, promote other sellers by using their photos and have them link back to their listings! Featuring people is good! This is your chance to feature items from your shop, to show everyone a little bit of what you do! Keep the photos as relevant as possible though to keep your post flowing.

Typewriter Necklace by MichellesCharmWorld 10.00

Link Links Links! Links are the most important! The more places you link to, the more people will find you. There are a lot of programs out there that are telling web owners who is linking to their sites and from where. It will get you traffic!! If your readers are falling in love with whatever you are talking about, you need to let them know where to find it!

The road to a friend's house is never long

Time! We never have time anymore. There is always something going on and believe me, I know all about being busy! I'm a mom to 3 kiddies (3,2,1) and they keep me busy non stop. Assign yourself a time to blog EVERY DAY! Even if you are only able to churn out 2 sentences (add 2 photos above and below the sentences and you have a post!!), do it! I blog every morning as soon as I get up. I wake up early enough to check my computer goings on and what not. It's quiet time before the kids get up and while husband is in the shower. I make it a point to blog at this point. Life does get in the way, but sometimes a pretty photo and a quote from somewhere will be great and just may make someones day. There is ALWAYS time for something. It's easy to say you will blog tomorrow, but then that becomes the next day and that becomes the next. It's a vicious cycle. There are so many blogs out there that I admire and love to read, the ones that keep me coming back for more all the time. I love those blogs! I want to be those blogs! I aim to help and really hope that this helps you all become great bloggers!!

MOST IMPORTANTLY Don't forget your Etsy Mini or a collage of your goodies and a LINK to get people to your shops!!! I go to so many blogs and CANNOT for the life of me figure out how to get to where they sell! Get going!

+++++++++HAVE A SECOND?+++++++++

Copy This link: http://www.Lollishops.com/Node/5709

Then Go here: http://lollishops.blogspot.com/2008/12/lollishops-gingerbread-contest-lets.html

and it will take you to a contest i've entered! To vote for me just click on POST A COMMENT and paste the link you copied before there! Thank you for your time!:

http://www.lollishops.com/node/5709 <----my gingerbread house