Gingerbread Class Party

 On Wednesday, I hosted a gingerbread house making party for my daughter's 5th grade class. I decided to use graham crackers for the base of the house since I really didn't want to make 32 mini real houses and our budget did not allow for store bought pre-made ones. To speed up the construction process and be budget friendly, I hot glued the crackers together. We instructed the kids NOT to eat the graham crackers, just the candy :)

 I had a candy assortment in plastic cups from Smart n Final dressed up with cupcake liners.

 I bought gingerbread boxes from Oriental Trading for the kids to bring home their creations in. I made 4 batches of Royal icing and placed in individual bags for the kids to put the candy on with.

 After they decorated their houses, we had a hot chocolate bar for them to enjoy. I had different flavored syrups, peppermint, caramel and coconut, for them to add to the hot chocolate along with whipped cream and 4 different kinds of marshmallows.
For the banner, I once again used my Cricut to cut out the gingerbread men and lettering. I used white paint pen to add the details.

 I used the free printables from TomKat Studios to dress up the syrup and marshmallows and they can be found on the HGTV blog.

 The little gingerbread men suckers are from Oriental Trading as well. I just added the red ribbon.

 I decorated the cups with pink paint put on with a round sponge, orange felt noses and black ink pen. They were quick and simple to make and made a big impact.

 One mom brought a box of Starbucks coffee and I was happy to make my own peppermint mocha.

After the refreshments, we played a game of pin the nose on the snowman and wrote on the white board. Everyone had a great time and the kids and parents were very appreciative.

Merry Christmas!