Home sweet home (Picture: James Dadzitis / SWNS)
Think you’re a Christmas lover? Think again – because you probably can’t match this.
Carmen Croxall, 34, spent two weeks decorating the front of her rented home in Exeter, Devon, in order to turn it into a giant gingerbread house.
In the last 18 months, she’s decorated the property over and over and says her latest design is ‘next level’.
Her windows now have biscuit frames, candy canes and gingerbread men.
Carmen has a natural eye for this, and she runs a props business called Prop Factory.
Around 70% of the house is made from recycled materials – the fake brickwork is made from water-resistant MDF and the chocolates are old milk cartons covered in cellophane.
Not stopping there, her lollipop sticks are made from wooden dowel offcuts and an old drainage pipe and the pink icing is fabric leftover from a previous project and ball pit balls.
Feeling festive (Picture: James Dadzitis / SWNS)
She said: ‘I love decorating my house!
‘It all started in 2020 – I had an events company and had dressed events for eight years but, after nine months of not doing it, I had a huge void.
‘At the same time, we changed our business and started selling products.
‘I’d just sold my house and was due to move out too, so those three things led to my first crazy transformation.
‘My new landlord said I could decorate so I did my whole house for Halloween and last Christmas, I did a pink kitsch theme with a festive Tyrannosaurus Rex outside.’
Carmen works in props (Picture: James Dadzitis / SWNS)
She used lots of recycled materials (Picture: James Dadzitis / SWNS)
Looks good enough to eat (Picture: James Dadzitis / SWNS)
She spent ‘countless hours’ on the house over a period of two weeks – even with the help of friends, family and colleagues.
Overall, the cost of the project came to hundreds of pounds – £300 was spent on velcro, £90 on wadding, and £40 on sheets of MDF.
The rest she got from work or recycled materials already in her home.
She says: ‘The brick mortar is the fabric I used last year on my Halloween ceiling, cut into strips and sewn into twisted tubes, and the snow is made from wadding.
‘I put colourful cellophane over old milk cartons for the Quality Street chocolates but had to add clear cellophane over the top as the colourful sheets leaked in the rain.
So far it’s withstanding the rain (Picture: James Dadzitis / SWNS)
‘It’s all stuck on with very heavy duty velcro – each brick has enough velcro to hold up 28kg.
‘I tested this theory for a few months prior to doing this and found it worked if the brick work behind them didn’t get wet.
‘I had to cover the whole house so water couldn’t get to the real bricks, and I also used an air compressed staple gun to make a lattice between bricks.’
Now complete, she’s already thinking about her next project – but she does love how it all looks for now.
Do you have a story to share?
Get in touch by emailing [email protected].
MORE : Manager turns her office cubicle into a giant gingerbread house
MORE : Spare a thought for the tireless care home workers this festive period
Her windows now have biscuit frames, candy canes and gingerbread men.
