Gingerbread House Christmas Stamps

Connecticut's Litchfield County Times reprints an article from Passport Magazine about the lady whose fanciful gingerbread houses grace a set of U.S. postage stamps for this Christmas season.

According to the piece, "Theresa Layman of Warren has made innumerable miniature houses in her career, both permanent structures meant for year-round display and the more perishable gingerbread houses that abound during the holiday season. This year her ephemeral gingerbread houses have achieved a certain immortality as they were chosen to appear as one of the U.S. Postal Service’s holiday stamp series."

Layman is quoted as saying, “The whole process took two years and I could not tell a soul. They are sticklers about that—they don’t want it to be public knowledge what a series will look like.”

Sally Anderson-Bruce, who took the photos that are used on the stamps, is also quoted.

“After she made her first house, the U.S.P.S. art director’s reaction was, ‘We’re almost there, but not quite.’ I sat down with her and we sketched houses and discussed colors. She said, ‘That’s all wrong,’ and I said, ‘You have to trust me on this—I’m a photographer thinking in stamp scale.’ We even altered the color of the gingerbread dough, so it was not so dark and dense.”

To read the entire article, click here.