These delicious, decorative bread houses have always been a staple of the holiday season for as long as people can remember. The tradition of making decorated gingerbread houses started in Germany in the early 1800's. According to certain researchers, the first gingerbread houses were the result of the well-known Grimm's fairy tale Hansel and Gretel.
Especially for this day, the creative people at Dream little bigger have come up with brilliant DIY ideas on how to turn your cat's favorite hideaway into an amazing cardboard gingerbread cat house with a craft knife & some paint.
2 large cardboard moving boxes (ours are 18? x 18? x 24?)
1 small cardboard moving box (ours is 12? x 12? x 12?)
craft knife + extra blades
cut resistant gloves
self-healing cutting mat
large, clear ruler
Free printable PDF cut plans
White chalky paint
Colorful craft acrylic paints - Lily Pad (green), Pink Dahlia, Purple Yam, Love Bird (red), Pollen (yellow), Marmalade (orange).
Various paintbrushes
Glue
The project will require two new moving boxes at Walmart, specifically, 2 of their sized large (18? x 18? x 24?) and 1 box with little to no markings that measured 12? x 12? x 12?. Because there are markings on the outside with a perfectly unblemished inside for the bigger boxes, it's a good idea to turn those inside out so we don't have to paint them a base color. Cardboard is awfully close to cooked gingerbread cookies, right? Each box has a little flap that is glued onto the other side of the box to make it a continuous shape. You need to keep that flap intact as much as possible to put your box back together with the wrong side facing out.
Using your favorite gingerbread house decorations as inspiration, paint your white icing and colored candies onto the cardboard however you please and give plenty of time to dry. Once dry glue your boxes back into box shapes with something super strong. We used Gorilla glue and those boxes are NOT coming apart any time soon.
About in the center of this piece slice a thin line running your craft knife only through the topmost part of the cardboard.
Up above you can see the corner reinforcements I made for the dormer from inside of the cat house.
Pop your dormer into the cut hole for it (you'll want your roof on top of it already). Apply hot glue around the edges and opening, holding the dormer in place as you do, like a caulk in between where the two boxes meet. There will need to be some overlap where the dormer actually sits about an inch inside of the 2nd story box. Using corner brace pieces made out of scrap, attach the dormer inside of the 2nd story wherever possible using the cat entry on the back to get inside and secure things.
If your cat is small to more average-sized cat, it should do fine
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