Gingerbread construction update

While I've been dinking around with a simple garage for months, the girls decided to show me how they can construct complete houses in a matter of days. Gingerbread seems to be their preferred building material, although I'm sure you'll recognize other goodies in the pictures below.


This is where the projects began: carefully measured, cut, and baked pieces of gingerbread.

Careful construction involved lots of frosting and strategically located sewing pins. This is Gretel's Carpenter Gothic House that had us all wondering if Gretel had done something foolish by choosing such a difficult design.

Here's Lily's Adirondack Cabin in the assembly phase using food cans as supports while the walls dried in place. No, there was no Crushed Pineapple involved in the construction, only the can.

A closeup view of a window in Lily's cabin. It's constructed of transparent butterscotch candy with colored frosting defining the window panes.

The finished product includes a porch, and a river rock chimney.

Here's a better shot of the roof shingles (which were a little bit frustrating in their own way).

A view of the rear of the building.

This is how the building would look if you were 3 inches tall.

Closeup of the chimney.

Gretel's Carpenter Gothic finished a day later and includes landscaping of sorts.

This is how one might view Gretel's house if one were 3 inches tall.

Getting all the roof pieces to come together was challenging, but the girls pulled it off without dad's help.

One view of the rear of the house.

Another view of the rear. Plenty of new materials were used in this year's construction; how many food items can you identify? Hint: Gretel's house used 5 different materials, while Lily's used 6.