Cardboard Gingerbread House Christmas Mantel

I don’t want a lot for Christmas. There is just one thing I need…to do something with all of our cardboard recycling. So, I hummed myself a little Mariah Carey tune and decked out our dining room fireplace with a cardboard gingerbread house Christmas mantel.

My Amazon boxes have never looked better.

I’m not joking about those Amazon boxes, I used cardboard boxes and cereal boxes to make the gingerbread houses on my Christmas mantel.

I cut out house shapes and then used a white paint pen to decorate the houses. A white colored pencil would have worked too.

It was as easy and as tedious as that. It was the perfect activity to do while watching a movie because I can’t just watch a movie. I need something for my hands to do while I sit there.

And apparently, I sat there for a while because I made so many cardboard gingerbread houses that I had enough to decorate the Christmas planter on the bottom right of the fireplace too.

Planter is a generous term. It’s a chicken feeder or part of one.

We don’t have chickens.

We do have a cardboard tip for you though.

If you do this craft, keep in mind that cereal box cardboard is a different color than that of a regular corrugated cardboard box. This color difference may or may not matter to you. You’ll have to look closely at the pictures to see if it mattered to me.

While you’re looking closely with your eagle eye, you may also notice there is greenery on my cardboard gingerbread house Christmas mantel.

Me! The person who has said multiple times that she’s not a garland person.

I guess I am this year.

It was a practical decision. I needed something to cover the base of the cardboard gingerbread houses and fake snow was not it.

Plus, that green garland (all five of them – that fireplace is bigger than it seems) really pops against the white wall.

I hung the garland asymmetrically because my kids need to be able to open that closet door to the right of the fireplace and kick their shoes inside the closet.

Why they can’t remove their shoes less violently, I don’t understand.

The important part of this story is I did a good job of training them where their shoes go. The “how they get there” part is still a work in progress.

Maybe that will be our New Year’s Resolution.

But first we need to get through December! It’s a busy time.

What do you think of my cardboard gingerbread house Christmas mantel? Did I at least make cardboard look festive? Do your kids put their shoes away nicely?

Let me know. Please leave a comment on this blog post, email us here, or reach out via Instagram or Facebook. I love hearing from you. It really does make my day.

Happy holiday crafting!

P.S. This year I discovered the joy of battery-powered fairy lights. That’s what’s illuminating the mantel garland. We don’t have an outlet above this fireplace and a cord dragging on the ground really would have turned me into The Grinch.

We use rechargeable batteries, so I’m not worried about the cost of replacing the batteries to keep my garland lit. The garland has been up for a week and I just pulled out the batteries to charge them. I’ve had the lights on for 12 hours a day and there was one night when I forgot to turn them off. Oops.

Thanks for hanging out with me today. Here are some other blog posts that might spark your creativity!

Christmas In Our Music Room

The Cutest Painted Wood Tree Ornaments

Pink and Navy Christmas Tree With Handmade Ornaments

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