Log Loaves and Fireplaces

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For this year's baked goods gifts for fam and friends I was inspired by the above image from Farm Journal 1965.  Little cardboard fireplaces filled with baked nibbles and a bonus decoration on the mantle.  The originals have an oven door kinda flap to stash the goods behind, but I thought it would be more clever if the baked good was exposed and yule log looking.  I could not find brick printed paper in town and the effort it would have taken to make my own would have been a dullard thing to do for something that is going to go in the recycle can on Dec. 26.

So thinking outside the box and of course on the cheap, I happened to find a roll of wrapping paper that was double sided, with red and black buffalo check ( it's brick-ish to me!) on one side and a red/black wood grain on the opposite side.  Perfect!  The paper is made by Hallmark and I found it at Walsmart for about 2.50 for the roll.  I was able to get perfect sized boxes for free from the grocery store while they were restocking the Lean Cuisines.  I cut the icicles from a long strip of white paper and hot glued it on.  The andirons are just black paper.  I also included in the back of the fireplace a copy of the recipe for the loaf.  I made a couple from Pillsbury Bake Offs from 1949 and 1951, but those are gonna have to be posts for another time.
I thought it would be fun if the stockings hanging from the mantle were also the gift tag.  I free hand cut them from scrapbook paper and added a letter sticker to the front.  All of the mantle decorations were different.  I made them from little bits and bobs I bought from thrift stores.
 I made 6 of these but here are the two I was able to get photographed before folks took off with them.





The last K and L are two precious boston terriers that belong to D and L.  I stashed a little sack of doggy treats in the fireplace back for them!



This one doesn't have it's loaf in it because it hadn't happened yet.



For the topper on this mantle I decided to glue it all to a rectangle of cardboard wrapped in paper so it could be plucked off and used in the future as a bit of a Christmas decor centerpiece.

If I had thought of it sooner it would have been fun to place an electric/battery powered flame light shining behind the loaf logs!

I told everyone we gave one of these to not to feel they have to keep the whole contraption.  It's all cardboard and paper and I did that on purpose so it could be easily recyclable.  I found out that my mom and grandmother carefully unwrapped their loaves to save the paper so they can set up their fireplaces next year!