Gingerbread House Party, Blueprints and Recipes

by Kimberly Lainson

Whether pre-bought from a local bakery or made fresh in your oven, Gingerbread Houses give your children and teenagers the opportunity to transform your home with wonderful aromas and festive decorations that are oh so good enough to eat. they love being creative and enjoy it all the more when they can eat their art supplies. From the very simple designs for those busy moms and dads to challenging art project for those artists among us, weve got it all. Weve also included some gingerbread recipes for holiday gifts, Hanukkah and potlucks Let the decorating begin!!!

Not an architect or contractor?

You dont have to be to make gingerbread houses. Use orange juice and milk cartons and decorate with plain graham crackers, frosting and candies. Shoe boxes and other sturdy boxes are perfect as the structure and by adding a cardboard angled roof and voila, instant house ready to be cemented with a basic white frosting and gingerbread siding.Too busy to bake? Ask your local bakery to make you gingerbread "sheets" for walls, roofs and doors. If you feel challenged by this adventure, a local craft stores and mail order catalogues have gingerbread house molds that make it easy to create your building. Dont forget the fabulous Rice Krispies treat recipe, these easily mold to shapes. Put holiday ginger potpourri in your teakettle on a low burner on your stove and it will fill the house with the aromas of the season.Too busy but want to bake? Use a gingerbread mix from your grocery store.

Childrens Party?

Sure, why not. Make it simple by taking the no-bake alternative and using graham crackers, prepared store-bought frostings, mini candy decorations and milk cartons. Create a one-sided gingerbread house invitations from brown construction paper and trim with buttons, scraps of material, lace trim and write the party details on the back. Prepare a work area by laying down plastic tablecovers and give each child a large white Styrofoam plate as their personal palette. Allow 1 to 1-1/2 hours for decorating and be sure to encourage the children with ideas (see below). Everyone wins an award, such as "most beautiful", "most frosting used", "most holiday decorations", "cleverest", etc. The children will take their artwork home with them, so for refreshments, present each guest with a gingerbread boy or gingerbread girl with their name in frosting on it or pancakes in the shape of gingerbread boys and girls. Remember to have lots of hot chocolate and whipped cream! While the children are eating their treats, read them the Gingerbread Boy story.

Foundation

Cover your work area with a plastic tablecover or waxed paper for easy clean up. If your house will have an outside (lawn, gardens, etc.), use a large heavy-duty piece of cardboard covered in aluminum foil. For smaller versions, use large Styrofoam white plates. Be sure to use basic white frosting to "cement" your house, trees, lampposts, etc. to the base.

Blueprints

A one-room house, Victorian house, chapel, country store, log cabin and a barn building plans at Party Works . Offer suggestions to the children that a gingerbread house can also be Santas Workshop, a reindeer barn, Mrs. Clauss kitchen, toy shop or even a replica of your own home. If you live in the big city, then why not make an apartment building using a tall milk container and adding lots of windows.

Building Supplies

• Bread sticks (logs, rafters and beams)
• shredded wheat cereal (thatched roofs)
• wafer cookies (roofing tiles)
• mini chocolate candy bars (doors, shutters and shingles)
• Candy Kisses (church bell and roof decorations)
• lollipops (road sings)
• jelly beans (fireplace stones)
• fruit leathers (window shades)
• ice cream cones (trees)
• candy canes with gumdrops (lamp posts)

Set-up time: Allow gingerbread structures/frosting to dry overnight so they will be stable.

Landscaping

• Flower cake decorations (garden)
• gumdrops (bushes)
• brown sugar (walkways and flowerbeds)
• pretzel sticks (fence posts)
• nuts (stones)
• rock candy (rocks)

Christmas Decorations

• Life Savers (wreaths)
• Red Hots and M&M candies (Christmas tree balls)
• white frosting (snow)
• powdered sugar (frost)
• melted hard candies (stained glass windows)
• colored sprinkles (Christmas lights)
• Fruit Loop cereal (Christmas railings)
• marshmallows (snowmen) 

People and Animals

Animal Crackers (add scarf decorations), Graham Cracker Teddy Bears (decorate in Santa suits), buy ready made from your bakery and for homemade, use cookie cutters or trace stencils onto cardstock and use for pattern on the cookie dough. Using a little blob of frosting, the people and animals will stand up on the base or to the sides of the house.

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Kimberly Lainson may be contacted at http://www.thepartyworks.com/ kimberly@plix.com. Click here to view more of their articles.

Mary Ann & Kimberly, a mother and daughter team have created their sites http://www.thepartyworks.com and http://www.cakeworkscentral.com to provide a treasure trove of free kids birthday parties, baby showers and cake decorating ideas. Article reprinted with permission through http://www.ideamarketers.com/