Hallmark's Jingle All The Way

Several weeks ago in our quest for fun holiday apps for the iPad, John and I came across an offering by Hallmark called Jingle All The Way. John immediately opened the app, read the book, played the games, and fell in love with Jingle.



As soon as the tv version hit the air we DVRed it and have watched it at least half a dozen times since. Hallmark really hit it out of the ballpark with this one!

Of course, it had to be made into a lunch.

I've had quite a few comments about how I get things so detailed and true-to-character. Well, here's how.

I start by finding and printing an image for whatever story/movie/whatever I want to make:



I cut out the most important parts (in this case we're focusing on the faces & the cardinal), and trace the outlines using food gel. I have been using mostly AmeriColor gel but just got some great jars of gel made by LorAnn Oils and used those for the majority of this lunch.



After the image is traced, transfer it on to the bread by flipping it onto the slice and pressing down.

(John almost NEVER has white bread but since Jingle is a white pup I decided to go a little crazy.)

After the transfer, fill in whatever details you want or that may have not transferred completely. For Jingle I used some watered down grey on a paintbrush for his fur detail and the red collar. (Watering down the gel not only stretches it out, but also makes it easier to dry and therefore less likely to get all over your little ones hands/face/everything!)

Since I already had the white bread out for Jingle I decided to also use it for Andrew's face:

I then cut the face part out of the picture and went to the normal whole wheat for his hair.

After detailing Andrew's earmuffs I placed all of the painted bread into the microwave for about 10 seconds on level 3. Heating the bread helps make the gel set and makes it a lot less messy for me.

I cut all of the individual pieces out of the bread and pieced them together on the slice of wheat that would be the bottom of the mini sandwiches.

I then cut each shape out using normal scissors (a lot easier than trying to do it with any kind of knife), cutting Andrew's head as a whole.

It's a Strawberry Cream Cheese sandwich day, so I smeared the bottom slices with the cream cheese and placed the tops, well, on top.

John really wanted me to include the cardinal that helped Jingle, so I grabbed a pack of AirHeads and molded the cardinal out of a cherry one using the picture I printed as a reference. (AirHeads are amazingly handy and versatile on top of being inexpensive! John also loves getting the little bit of candy since he really doesn't get any at home except of very rare occasions.)

Placed all together with some baby carrots that will probably go uneaten (a Mom's got to try, right?), here's the lunch:

(The 23 for the countdown ended up being drawn onto the bell on Jingle's collar -- also made out of a little piece of AirHead.)