A few belated photos of the doings:
Cookies drying on the racks:
Ready to make up some baskets. Lots of different types of cookies, and the little tissue-wrapped bundles in the middle are mini-loaves of various kinds.
A basket, with loaves beneath and cookies above, naked and then wrapped. This particular one went to my daughter's best friends/bridesmaids, hence the David's Tea gift card. The Christmas tree cookie covered in Skittles that you'll see in behind was decorated for us by a neighbour's little guy.
Multiple views of the village. My plans for the surface itself were much more detailed, but ran afoul of time constraints. The decorating itself is not at all up to professional standards (again, time constraints...final touches went on in the last hour before everyone arrived for Christmas dinner), but this year was primarily a "proof of concept" as I learned how to work with the materials. Lots of lessons to keep in mind for next year....
It's better when illuminated, though the camera in my elderly Nexus 4 struggles in low light conditions. Just FYI, strings of LED mini Christmas lights make it look like there's a party going on inside. The little battery-operated faux tealights have a gentle flicker that nicely simulates a fire on the hearth inside the cottage.
The little cottages were made with a cookie-cutter template from the dollar store. Two cuts equals one cottage. For the little church I just cut out a template from corrugated cardboard and ran with it. FYI, a microplane zester works marvels when it comes to straightening and squaring the pieces, or beveling them for a neater fit.
