A Quarter of a Century of Gingerbread Houses

December 2, 2010 at 6:57 pm (Food, General Crafting, Holidays)

2010 is the 25th year making Gingerbread Houses in my family. We’ve been making houses of different shapes, sizes and types since I was 3, in 1985. (Post to follow with pictures from the past 25 years!).
This year I decided to branch out on my own and attempt making my own “house”. I drew up plans, constructed a three-dimensional mock up to make my pattern pieces from, and finally made up my own pattern pieces.
My mom and I then spent an entire Sunday baking, cutting, molding, and baking some more to get allll the pieces we needed for 2 houses…and my special “house”!

Gather all of your ingredients!
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Follow the recipe carefully

Mix Mix Mix

Start cutting out all of the house pieces

Carefully cut out the window panes…one by one…

And finally, after everything is done baking, let the pieces sit out for a few days to dry out and get hard.

And on to the fun part! Assembling and decorating the house!

After the house is assembled, time to decorate!
Here’s a preview of some of the accessories for my piece:

What could it be?
A tiki hut?

You got it!!

All of the flowers, garland and other foliage was hand molded by me using colored gingerbread:

The back of the hut sports the shoreline, cooler, date and more tiki’s

The ginger-tender has a coke for you!

Mini beach scene with a candy towel, gingerbread boom box and umbrella!

The back of the hut has a little candy cooler full of soda and ice

Bar stools, tiki totem pole and guitar

The front of the hut is complete with a hibscus garland and some pretzel pilings

My family also made a house (of the more traditional sense). Here’s theres!

The bow window:

The back

The side

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And last—our two houses together!

And really last—a cool “Christmas-y” shot of my hut: