Gingerbread house photos

I will add to this page as time permits. The houses created are as varied as the people who create them. 

This is my mom's house. She was 82 years old when she decorated this in 2009.  Her design was not complicated and she used pre-made cake decorations that I gave to her.  The house was quite nice.  People who are a bit timid do well when they have pre-made decors.  Everything is edible--one of my rules.  And I am a stickler about that one. It is too risky to set out something non-edible for decorating an edible item.  Children do a lot of eating at these parties. :-)

This house has pastel marshmallow braids (purchased). Smarties are the siding, Sugar Pops cereal is on the roof, and the front door has a gumdrop-citrus slice over it. The door is made by taking either taffy, or fruit flavored Tootsie Rolls and working them in your hands to soften them. They become like Play-dough, then, and can be molded or shaped. Be sure to give them lots of support by using royal frosting to glue them to the house or another structure.  The small gumdrop tree was purchased just as it appears here.

Here, peppermint sticks make up the siding, front doors are red Twizzlers cut to size, the roof is Honey Grahams cereal, the chimney is stacked licorice buttermints.  Roof is trimmed in autumn color M&Ms.  White fondant was molded into three balls, stacked and decorated for a sweet snowman.  He has a chocolate bell resting on a flattened disk of tootsie roll for a hat, snipped red licorice strings for a scarf, and eyes and nose made out of cookie sprinkles.  The rock path is made out candy rocks--chocolate with a candy coating.  And the stack of firewood is Tootsie Rolls.On the next one, the same technique was used for the snowman. Mom and daughter working side by side <smile> you see that a lot--great ideas spread like wildfire around tables!

 

These two houses were planned in advance. Their creators have been doing this for nearly ten years, and watch candy all year long for special finds. The spiral candy tree on the left is one such find. The color themes don't stray very far from a classic red and green. 

This is the front view of our friend, Laura's, house.  While she utilizes pre-made designs well, she also forms some of her decorations.

We all agreed that Kristi set the high-bar to reach for pretzel log cabins. The pretzels are used as siding over gingerbread, and the fence was also built out of pretzel sticks.  The possibilities are nearly endless, and the creative challenge answered well when confronted with small houses to decorate :-)

Anna is a veteran gingerbread house decorator.  Her trees are sugar-cones, dipped in melted green chocolate candy disks. She decorated them with frosting and candy bits.

Will add more to this in the near future.