Learn to Make Your Own Tea

Armed with more candy than you've even seen in person before, we created five gorgeous gingerbread houses: Candy Cane, Emerald City, Stripes + Lights, Color Blocked Craziness and Gold Rush.

How to make the best gingerbread house ever...

First thing’s first: get yourself a gingerbread house and mix up a batch of royal icing.

Then, it’s time for CANDY. Seriously.

Talk about a sugar rush.

Now, let’s start tricking out these houses!

Check out these creative gingerbread house ideas!

CANDY CANE Gingerbread House

Grab a Dylan’s Candy Bar Signature Holiday Paint Can ($30; Alt: Down Under Delight Paint Can, $17), as well as gumdrops, peppermints and candy canes.

You’re going to need a LOT of royal icing to stick on all the little candies! Make sure you’ve got two piping bags per house, just in case. We created a scalloped roof complete with red polka dots. Candy canes flank the door, welcoming you in, and we’re particularly in love with the sour gummy hedges in the front.

Add your finishing touches.

Voila!

So obsessed with this roof.

EMERALD CITY GingerBread House

For this house, you'll need a Mini Bin Filled with Mini Gumballs ($16; Alt: Sour Gumballs Bulk Bag, $6) and then you can pull out all of the green goodies.

The roof of your gingerbread house is definitely the best canvas for creativity. We created polka dot and squiggly stripes on this green roof. And sour gummy shutters? Yes please.

How fun are those fish at the top of the door? Sort of remind us of Eureeka’s castle.

STRIPES + LIGHTS GingerBread House

Dylan’s Candy Bar Wizard of Oz “Over the Rainbow” Paint Can ($16; Alt: Dylan's Candy Bar Rainbow Sour Belts Paint Can, $17) to create our striped roof.

Cut up gummy stripes to be the same length as your roof. Use royal icing to attach. Create icing windows and adorn with rainbow shutters.

Then use royal icing to create a string for your “lights” to hang on.

We couldn’t resist creating a few Christmasy hedges in the front of the house, complete with bright pink lights on top.

It almost looks too good to eat.

These gingerbread house designs are creative and so simple!

COLOR BLOCKED Gingerbread House

Just pick out some Dylan’s Candy Bar Tackle Box ($24; Alt: Dylan's Candy Bar Classic Christmas Tackle Box, $28), Dylan’s Candy Bar Everything Under the Sun Paint Can($17) and Dylan’s Candy Bar Whirly Pops ($3.75 each) to make this house.

We started with a criss-cross roof and embellished with floral candies.

Then, it’s time to add color everywhere you possibly can.

One fish, two fish, blue fish, blue fish!

GOLD RUSH Gingerbread House

Finally, we’re bringing the gold rush back with this minimalist design. The gingerbread dudes from Dylan’s Signature Holiday Paint Can ($17; Alt: Dylan's Candy Bar Candy Land Mix Bulk Bag, $9) are what really take this sleek look to the next level.

First cover the roof with icing, then add in gold stars. Use white chocolate-covered pretzels on the front of the house, and make sure to make dripping icicles out of your icing.

To finish it off, add snow piles around the house to give it a truly wintery vibe.

Done and done. And complete with a gummy gingerbread dude welcoming you in. Go ahead and pop a kiss off the top — we won’t tell.

And there you have it. Five ways to decorate the best gingerbread house ever.

What You'll Need

• 2 skeins of super chunky yarn
• Scissors

Instructions

1. Hold both ends of the yarn in your hand and measure out seven “elbow” lengths of yarn. At the seventh “elbow” mark, make a slip knot and place it around your right arm just below your elbow.

2. Create a loop with the tail and hold the top of the loop with your right hand.

3. Put your left arm through the loop and grab the working yarn.

4. Put the new loop on your right arm. Tighten by pulling the working yarn. Cast on 24 stitches.

5. To start the next row of stitches, you will hold the working yarn in your right hand, pull off your last stitch, and insert your left hand through the new loop.

6. Keep repeating for all 22 stitches until your knitting is on your left arm.

7. To create the next row you will hold the working yarn with your left hand, pull the last loop off of your arm, and insert your right arm through the new loop. You will want to create 8 rows. The knitting should end on your left arm.

8. To bind off your scarf you will need to knit two stitches on your right arm. Then pull the first stitch over the second stitch. Knit one more stitch from the left, and then pull the first stitch on the right over the second stitch on the left. For the last stitch, pull the loop off your arm, snip the end, and pull through so you end up with a second tail.

9. Time to stitch the scarf together into a circle. Meet the two ends together and, using your two tails, weave the sides together as if you were lacing a shoe. Secure by tying a knot where the ends meet.

Arm Knitting isn’t the easiest thing. Believe me, you can get really tangled up in the strings, especially when you’re working with multiple skeins. We suggest sticking to two skeins when you’re starting your arm knitting adventures. Once again, I suggest you scroll back up and go through the images multiple times. The stitches will seem awkward at first, but with practice it will “click” and you’ll be creating rows of stitches in no time at all!

To begin your knitting adventure you are going to want to hold both ends of the skeins in one hand and measure out seven “elbow” lengths of yarn.

At the seventh “elbow” length mark you will want to create a basic slip knot. To do this you create a loop by crossing the two strands over one another. Grab and pull the back strand through the loop. This will give you a loop with a knot! Slide it onto your right arm.

Time to complete your first stitch! The first row of stitches are referred to as “Casting on.” To cast these stitches onto your arm you’re going to make a loop with the tail end of your yarn and hold it in your right hand.

Weave your left hand through the loop and grab the working yarn.

Pull the working yarn through the loop.

Slide the new loop onto your right arm.

To tighten your stitches, pull the tail and working ends of the yarn. You want the stitches to be tight on your arm, but not so tight they can’t move.

You will need to cast on between 22-24 stitches. I’m not going to lie, I watched many tutorials over and over before I was comfortable creating stitches. I scrolled back through the tutorial every time I was casting on a new stitch. When you’re ready, move onto the left arm!

We will now only be using the working yarn (yarn attached to the skeins). We’ll work with the tail again later.

Hold the working yarn with your right hand and slip the last stitch over your hand while pulling the working yarn through. This will create a loop.

The first stitch of the second row! Slip it onto your left arm.

You will want to pull the end of the working yarn to tighten these stitches.

Second row of stitches done! They should all be on your left arm and your right arm should be free.

Now move back to your right arm. Hold the working yarn with your left hand and slip the last stitch over your hand and slip the knew loop onto your right arm. Scroll back through the tutorial to master the stitches of arm knitting!

You will want to create eight rows of stitches. They will end up on your left arm.

Time to “cast off.” It was nice having a warm cozy piece becoming one with my arm but I wasn’t ready for the commitment forever. To start casting off, you will need to create two stitches onto your right arm.

Grab the first stitch on your right arm and pull it over the second stitch and off of your hand.

You will now just have one stitch remaining on your right hand. Next you will need to create a new stitch on your right hand (by pulling the working yarn through the stitch on your left hand). Repeat the process above. Slip the first stitch on your right arm over the second stitch, leaving one stitch behind. You will follow this pattern until you have reached the end of your 24 stitches.

Can you believe it? You’re all done! For your last stitch you’re going to snip the working yarn and pull it all the way through to create a knot. When snipping the yarn, leave a two-foot-long tail.

Can you believe you made that with just your arm?! We can’t! Now I know we’ve said we're hooked on crafts, but arm knitting is in a whole other ballpark. We are OBSESSED!

Using the long tail you cut from the working yarn, you will tie the two ends of the scarf together to make a cowl scarf! Weave them through the rows of stitches as if you are lacing a shoe lace. There is no science to this, just weave them together. Tie the end in a knot with the tail end of the yarn from the beginning steps. Luckily this yarn is very fluffy and forgiving. It is impossible to see mistakes.

So fuzzy and warm. This is definitely a winter staple.

Try making more scarves with different types of yarn. We still used two skeins but this yarn was less fuzzy and created a less dense scarf.

Like we said, this is a winter MUST!

Have you ever tried arm knitting, or are you still trying to figure out how to knit a scarf? Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for more DIYs!

Patrick & Brittany Mahomes celebrated Taylor Swift (and the Eras Tour) with themed outfits.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rosé🥀 (@bosstravis43)

Patrick and Brittany Mahomes showed up to Taylor's birthday wearing two of the best outfits of the night (which you can see on Brittany's Instagram): Britt was dressed as Fearless-era Taylor with a silver dress, jacket, and long curls, while Patrick was dressed in a suit just like Travis wore when he showed up onstage during "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart" in June 2024!

"My people🫶🏼," Brittany captioned the post, adding the heart hands Taylor has become known for. In addition to Britt's on-theme outfit, Taylor wore a black dress with red lipstick, Lyndsay Bell donned a Lover-approved pink sparkly outfit, and Ashley Avignone added some Reputation into the mix by wearing a plush snake around her neck, Voldemort style.

Ross Travis also posted photos from the event (including his incredible pink suit embroidered with ballerinas, heart sunglasses, and feather boa), showing off an epic dance floor. I want to belt "You Belong With Me" with Taylor and Travis!

But an epic party wasn't the only way Taylor Swift spent her 35th birthday.

And Taylor Swift's surprise birthday party wasn't the only event on her calendar last week. On December 12, the singer spent time with patients at the Children's Mercy Kansas City Hospital, petting dogs, making TikToks, and signing Eras Tour books. It was such a sweet and memorable way to kick off her birthday!

One of my favorite things about this visit is that not only is Taylor writing each kid a personalized message on their Eras Tour book, but she gets down to their eye level and stops writing to look at them when they're talking. Just like her lyrics make us feel seen when we hear them, Taylor goes out of her way to make every single kid feel known and important, and it just makes us love her even more.

When one child said, "I like Travis now," Taylor immediately replies with, "Yes, me too. That's an absolute yes on that one." We'd have to agree, Taylor ;).