what gets the party started? DIY gingerbread house

Hello!

I hosted?áa party last night, and I would love to share it with you. We enjoyed a relaxing evening with friends on the weekend before the holidays. And, what else brings friends and the winter holidays together like building a real gingerbread house?

Before the party I fashioned a house-shaped structure wrapped with tinfoil.?áJust then Natasha arrived, and she placed my homemade gingerbread onto the structure with icing. Strangely enough, we used a butter-cream icing. This is unconventional, but I had no egg whites to make royal icing. None of the guests noticed, so I think this was o.k.

Here are the initial stages of the gingerbread house. ?áSupplies required: various candies of your choosing, old cards, icing, scissors, glue gun, markers, and another friend to make delicious fancy drinks.

No doubt, there was imagination and creativity involved in the initial stages. As more people arrived bearing their additional decorations for the house, however, the project really took off!

Plenty of detail was added, and then subtracted. A wise suggestion early in the proceedings was to not do any ‘landscaping’ with icing until the final decisions for the house were made.

Et l’oeuvre finale!

Jelly beans really added colour and character to everything. Also, there was no reason to not include little liqueur candies. Some of what you see here includes a candy cane stream whose brandy bean bridge is lined with red jelly bean lamp-posts. ?áNearby are carolling cowboys for good company! In the foreground are liqueur candies topped with Natasha’s choco-almo date balls. They reminded everyone of grannies with flapper-style hats!

party planning committee members: Tammy Schmidt, host; Natasha Henderson, official photographer; Marmelade, Iggy, Billi and Rosebud, members at large.