Beverage Carton Gingerbread House and Play Scene

Re-imagine a milk carton into this small world play scene!  These inexpensive, paper props are a great to incorporate Christmas into your child’s play and of course we love using recyclables for another purpose.  

Materials

• Printables:  (We have a version for juice type cartons: Juice Carton ginger bread and the slightly taller milk cartons too: Milk Carton ginger bread
  
• Beverage carton
• Scissors
• Glue
• Additional items to decorate (beads, rick rack, gems, buttons- use whatever you have on hand or our printable comes with paper candies too)

We always find these items useful too: 

Directions

• Wash your beverage carton throughly with soap and water and rinse it well, allowing it to dry overnight.

• Print your beverage carton gingerbread house on thick paper such as cardstock and cut it out.

• Fold along the dotted lines.

• Glue the two pieces on the carton where the roof of the the gingerbread house lines up with the peaks of the milk carton near the top.

• Cut out the characters, props and stands. For the characters with the tab on the bottom, fold it and then that will make the base where it will stand. For the items with a stand, make a cut along the dotted lines on the characters and the stands and insert them into one another.  You could make paper items of your own to add.  For the 2D gingerbread house we added some heavy vintage beads so to get it to be more study we simply glued a small box on the back which worked like a charm!

• Set up your scene and add any things that you might like to enhance it (small toy figurines for kids etc.)

EXTENSION 

• If you want to add a door for your characters to go into your gingerbread house, take a baby wipe lid and place it on the door of your house, see our example on our Milk Carton Haunted House: http://make-it-your-own.com/milk-carton-haunted-house-scene/

• Open the lid and trace around the inside.

• Paint your lid with acrylic paint if you like.

• Have an adult cut out the traced portion.

• Glue the lid down with a sturdy/ child-safe glue.

• Allow to dry.

• Voila!  A door to open your gingerbread house up!

If you like this idea, we also have:

A Beverage Carton Paper Farm: http://make-it-your-own.com/paper-farm/

A Beverage Carton Haunted House: http://make-it-your-own.com/milk-carton-haunted-house-scene/

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Purpose

• Recognizing some of the symbols associated with various holidays and celebrations.
• Reusing recyclables.
• Encouraging play which incorporates communication, imagination

Safety Notes

• We suggest that you use a tray and a smock to protect your clothing and surfaces.
• Use scissors with care and direct, adult supervision.
• Be sure to throughly WASH your beverage carton prior to use!
• Beads can be a choking hazard, therefore be sure to keep them out of the reach of children ages 0-3 years of age or those that tend to put things into their mouths.