Teeny Tiny "Gingerbread" Houses

Oh, the weather outside was frightful... but our tiny gingie houses are delightful!

We got a lot of snow yesterday. Official estimates are close to two feet for our area. This is more snow than we've gotten TOTAL for the rest of The Son's life, he's kind of excited to say the least...

Needless to say, we were snowed in yesterday. Fortunately all snow-related disasters were averted because I managed to hit the grocery store the day before to stock up on bread, milk, eggs and snacks. We wouldn't want to be one of those tragic families you hear about who die in their homes stranded without any food to see them through the long 24-hours of snowstorm. Just terrible those stories, huh? ;)

Anyway, I also stocked up on supplies to create some super-cute gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. The Husband, The Son and I had a lot of fun and it truly kept us busy for the day. The FIL and his wife are also visiting and I am happy to say that my Step-MIL helped The Son with his house which made it easier for The Husband and I to work on ours. I highly recommend this activity, we all got into it.

I hit the bulk bins at the store first, it's easy to buy a couple tootsie rolls or starburst candies when you use the bulk bins, and the cost is definitely better so unless you need an entire bag of tootsie rolls, hit the bulk bins. These cute little trees and "wreaths" were fun.


I made my own "royal icing" to use as our glue, it's a very simple recipe. I used four cups of confectioners sugar, 3 egg whites (you can use pasteurized egg whites if you're worried about salmonella, I'm not, plus we didn't really eat any) and 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar. Throw it all in your mixer and stir it all up. It mixes for about 7 minutes and makes a nice thick icing.


We then cut the graham crackers with a serrated knife. You need two full graham crackers cut with a point at the top, two half sheets to make the walls and two additional half sheets to make the roof. I cracked the first one I attempted, don't press too hard on the opposite side when you cut.

Smiling for Momma...

The Husband took his work very seriously.


Here's our mini-neighborhood...

The Husband designed a church, The roof is covered in whole wheat linguinie pasta which I must say, was a really nice food to use for decorating, I used it too as you will soon see... The cross on the steeple as well is made from linguine.


His stained glass window on the back of his church, is made from gumdrops


Here's The Son's house, his theme was clearly, "How Much Stuff can I Stick on my House before Momma and Daddy tell me I'm Wasting Candy?"


Don't you you just love the back? I think the "Andes Mint" randomly stuck to the roof really pops.

Yeah. The Son's house is kind of like your neighbor who puts out a few too many holiday inflatables and then adds even more to them each year...


Here's my house, I made the fence around it with the aforementioned pasta, and gumdrops

The snowman is one of my favorite parts, I used two different sized gumdrops and then a tootsie roll that I cut as his hat. I must admit that I drew the eyes and mouth on with a sharpie marker. Melted dark chocolate dipped in a toothpick works really well if you need everything to be edible, but the sharpie is easier.


Here's the back, you can get a good glimpse of the fence here...


I used coconut to make the snow all around after the houses were place in their locations and again, those long linguine noodles came in handy to push it around into all the little crevices and corners.

The FIL took a couple shots of us with our neighborhood, Ziggy decided that he had to be in this first one which made The Son act a little silly himself,

One more try... Merry Christmas!


As I mentioned before, this project was LOTS of fun, we will definitely be making this a holiday tradition. The Husband and I also made a real gingerbread house and it came out very cute as well, I'll feature that one later this week. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and if you live on the East Coast, enjoy the SNOW if you got any! (I'm off to the Y now, a couple feet of snow can't stop me from working out!)