How to upcycle cardboard to make cute little gingerbread houses

You’re all set with Christmas gifts and have a pile of empty cardboard boxes to prove it? Good for you. And I’m not being sarcastic, by the way. Why would I when you can make beautiful tea lights from the boxes and transform your living room into a snowy winter village?

What you need

To make gingerbread houses, it’s best to use cardboard that’s not too stiff and easy to fold. Alternatively, you can use sturdy greeting cards. The delicate windows are best cut out with a cutter, whereby a protractor triangle or ruler is helpful to get those straight lines right. The flaps can be glued together with a glue stick and the decorations are best drawn on with a white or coloured Sharpie. LED tea lights will light up the gingerbread house from the inside and last longer than real tea lights on top of eliminating the fire hazard.

Markers

Quantity discount

CHF5.85 per piece for 3 units

Edding 8055

White, 2 mm, 1 x

41

Mats

CHF8.15

Donau Self-healing cutting mat A3

450 x 300 x 3 mm

272

Ruler

Quantity discount

CHF6.80 per piece for 3 units

M+r Geometric triangle

300 mm

51

Quantity discount

Markers

CHF5.85 per piece for 3 units

Edding 8055

White, 2 mm, 1 x

41

Mats

CHF8.15

Donau Self-healing cutting mat A3

450 x 300 x 3 mm

272

Quantity discount

Ruler

CHF6.80 per piece for 3 units

M+r Geometric triangle

300 mm

51

Copy the template and off you go

I created two templates for my winter village. I’ve gone for a house and a tower. Simply trace the two models onto the cardboard and adjust the size to your liking or print them out directly onto A3 paper.

If you’re creating your own design, be sure to include tabs you’ll need to glue together. If you print out my template for tracing, you can later cut out the cardboard along the solid lines using a cutter and transfer it to the cardboard with a felt-tip pen.

Once you’ve drawn the house onto the cardboard, cut it out with the cutter by guiding it precisely along the solid line using a protractor or ruler. Make sure you don’t confuse the solid with the broken lines. Then cut a slit into the bottom to insert and remove the LED tea lights.

Decorating

Before folding and glueing the cardboard together, decorate the outside of your model house. Doing it last is much harder. With details including a roof, white window frames, painted-on hearts or rhinestones, you can transform the template into a magical gingerbread house. To prevent the tea lights from being visible through the windows, try covering them with baking paper. This will only make the light from the LED tea light shine through, which looks like a cosy flickering open fire from the outside.

Scoring, folding, glueing

To make folding easier, you can also gently «score» the dotted fold lines with the cutter. However, only apply light pressure to avoid cutting through the cardboard. Next, it’s time to fold the flaps and glue them to the appropriate place on the little house. Finally, use the LED tea light and let yourself be enchanted by the winter spirit.