gingerbread houses 2014

As a follow up post to my Gingerbread House Plans for this year... here are the results.

I don't have pictures of everyone's houses but I am including a video of a few that I am not real sure how my camera or me did it.  But it is kinda of funny and you get to hear me sing a tid bit of a Beatles song.  How embarrassing is that?  Hey.. if you can't laugh at yourself... who can you laugh at?

And this one is mine.  Looks like my log cabin plan turned out OK huh?

My secret weapon of a using a sifter and powdered sugar to top it all off was a hit!

This video sounds a bit like Santa's workshop.  I hear Shaun talking about me, saying my name in the background a couple of times :)

And HERE is my post about the plans for this year's house.

gingerbread house ideas

I know many of you are just dying to know of my plans for my gingerbread house this year.  Well... I am not hiding my thoughts this time or at least not all of them.  My house plans are usually top secret.  This year I am going to try my best to make my house a log cabin.  Keeping it simple on the actual decorations and concentrating more on the look of the actual house.  I am going to try and tone down the gaudy and tone up the structure.  We will see what happens.  

I have turned to library books on the subject and pictures on pinterest for ideas.  I have bought my building supplies and hopefully the icing will be extra sticky!  I also want to color some green for my trees made on sugar cones and plan to make a final dusting with powdered sugar when everything is in place.  I'm pretty excited!

Want to see more??

2013 Gingerbread House Plans

2012 Gingerbread House Plans

2013 Results

Gingerbread House Making 101

Pretty pictures from years past

More pretty pictures from 2008

Gingerbread House Trees

This year, while preparing for my gingerbread house, I remembered once using ice cream cones for trees.  Since my theme this year was featured around chocolate, I decided to use chocolate candy melts and roll my cone "trees" in the chocolate. I then used snowflake sprinkles while the chocolate was still melty enough for them to stick. 

It then hit me (btw this was Thanksgiving morning while I was making three pies and two batches of sweet potatoes... so I had nothing else to do but make trees) why not make a few more using white chocolate melts and other kinds and colors of sprinkles.  So my cousin helped me make a few more for other gingerbread house decorators to use with their houses.

These were so easy and so much fun!  And any gingerbread house is gonna need some trees!

Gingerbread Houses

Wow y'all... I would like to say first off that this is my 500th post! 

Dang I've had a lot to say over the last four years! 

 

Anywho... we had just the best time decorating our gingerbread houses this year!  There were fourteen houses decorated in all and I hate to say that I don't know what I was thinking that day because I did not get a picture of every one's houses.  Poo.  I was looking back through pictures and thought "wait... where's Kristen's... and Jessica's?"  Oh well.  We had so much fun and had tons of construction supplies to decorate with.  Here are some pics of the process and results.

 

AND... Chocolate Explosion results!  This house smells amazing.



2013 Gingerbread House Plans

Each year my family gets together to decorate gingerbread houses.  My Mom and Dad are the construction crew and the grandchildren, myself, a couple of sisters and aunts are the decorators.

A couple of years ago, we decided that this would be our Thanksgiving afternoon craft.  You know, when the boys are all passed out from the huge meal and there's only football on TV. 

 

We all bring candy supplies and have a grand ole time.  Some of us... me mainly.... feel better if they have a plan in mind before the decorating begins.  This year I came up with two themes for myself .  I decided to go with Chocolate Explosion!  I am so excited!  I have Coco Puffs, mini Snickers, mini Reeses, a chocolate Santa.  Here are my inspiration pages and pictures. 

 

 

 

I love all the inspiration that can be found in books and online.  Crazy ideas!  Mine seems to always end up sloppy but it's all so much fun.  I will print out  my inspiration page to carry along with me so I don't get sidetracked.  Here's my inspiration and house plans from last year.



Gingerbread Houses - The Making

My Mother and Father have quite the construction business going on this time of year!  I decided this year to show a few "behind the scenes" pictures of my Mom putting the cut out gingerbread houses together.  For starters, at this point, my Father long ago cut out wooden circle disks for the houses to rest on and has traced and cut out all of the pieces of foam core board for the walls and roofs of the little houses.  Maybe next year I will catch him in the act for pictures of that process!

Mom decided to use foam core board because she is a genius.  We used to put together graham crackers with thick royal icing as glue which led to much messier houses than we have now.  But if that is all you've got to work with, by all means, get to it!

First Mom wraps each wooden platform with aluminum foil so we can safely use them again and again.  Then she uses a glue gun to put the houses together.  First the walls, then the roof and finally she glues each one down on the aluminum foil.  Her next step will be to cover up the glued edges with icing on each house!  Wow!  That Mother of mine!  This year she made sixteen houses for us!  It seems each year we have more family wanting to join in on the fun and that's A-OK with us!  Nice work Mom!  Love you!

 This is their pattern for two different size houses.  Top secret stuff!

 

 

The disks before foil.

 

Those hands have spanked my bottom and hugged my neck a bunch y'all!

Taped down for security purposes.

 

 

Each house has six pieces... obviously.

 

 

 

So now you see we ain't kiddin around when it comes to this particular tradition.  And my house plans for this year ain't kiddin around either.  Stay Tuned!