Deck the Halls with Trash & Rubbish

I was sitting waiting for Boy 3 to get his haircut, flipping through a Family Fun magazine and read an article about having a gingerbread party. While I have zero interest in throwing such a party, one of their ideas was to decorate with gingerbread people made out of brown paper bags.

Brilliant!

Whenever I go to the grocery store & forget my bags (it happens FAR more than it should, lately) I use paper. Then we use those bags to line the bathroom trash cans and whatnot. But we still have more bags than I know what to do with. So I decided to use the template here and make a gingerbread Advent calendar!

It's so easy, it really doesn't require a tute, but:

• Print the template, cut it out.
• Trace it on your brown paper bags (try not to have any printing on the front or back). I got about 8-9 gingies per bag. You'll need 25 gingies when you're done.
• Cut out your gingerbread peeps. (Ginger bread peeps! Easter idea...)
• Decorate the front as elaborately or plainly as you'd like (I jotted faces & buttons with Sharpie. You could go all out)
• Create or steal 25 good deeds/activities/crafts and write or glue them on the back of each gingerbread person. Boy 1 had a list of things he brought from youth group like, "Buy a package of heavy warm socks & donate them to a homeless shelter" or "Write a letter to a friend you haven't seen in a while and thank them for being in your life". We copied those & glued them to each cookie man.
• Hang a string/yarn/rope/etc. in a visible place.
• Clothespin (or tie up, or whatever) the guys across the string
• Flip one each morning leading up to Christmas, and then do the activity sometime during the day.

Fronts

Backs

That's it.

The important thing is NOT to buy ANYTHING. You can make this out of printer paper, magazines, used gift wrap, anything. This is about crafting, thinking about others, and wasting less.