Ginger Bread House Decorating Ideas

What child does not dream of decorating a gingerbread house? When thinking of decorating ideas for your child's dream gingerbread house, remember to keep the fun in the project. When choosing ingredients, think outside of the box. Don't be afraid to add an element of fantasy when creating a gingerbread house. All kinds of cookies, candy, gum and baking ingredients encourage creativity and make an unforgettable experience when designing a gingerbread house.

Style

If you have a lot of experience constructing gingerbread houses, consider changing the style from the basic to a more complicated design. Try mimicking your home design, whether it is colonial style or an apartment building. Some people have designed gingerbread houses with an open back like a doll house, going as far as using candy embellishments to create furnishings. Purchase marzipan or gum paste from a cake decorating shop, and use it like clay to shape furnishings for your gingerbread house. If each of your children prefers to create her own house, make a gingerbread house village with a collection of small houses.

Decor

Wafer cookies make colorful shutters for a gingerbread house. You can use a chocolate-covered rectangular cookie to make a door. Pretzels make nice fences to surround the gingerbread home. If you have a lot of patience, use pretzels attached to the house with frosting to mimic brick. For traditional gingerbread house décor, use starburst mints and colorful candy drops to accent the house. Candy canes make good supports for a porch, and they are often used for the base of lanterns. Thin mints, sticks of gun, and miniature candy bars make easy shutters or roof shingles for a gingerbread house.

Landscaping

Don't neglect the landscaping when designing a gingerbread house. Pipe green frosting onto inverted ice cream cones to make trees. Top them with coconut colored green with food coloring to give the trees added texture. Press oyster crackers into frosting to create a cobblestone walkway leading to the door on the house. Powdered sugar, edible glitter, and coconut make realistic snow for landscaping around a gingerbread house. Use green food coloring to make the coconut look like grass. Sprinkle colored sprinkles to make an interesting ground cover. Clump rice crisps combined with butter, marshmallows and green food coloring to create realistic looking shrubbery. Roll-shaped chocolate candies stacked up appear to be a pile of logs. Melt blue mints on parchment paper to create an ice skating pond.

References

• Gingerbread House Heaven: Fabulous Gingerbread House Decorating Ideas
• Ultimate Gingerbread: Gingerbread House- Landscaping