Friday, December 07, 2007

Not too shabby

I've had a great time this week working on my little gingerbread house. I wanted to make the house a different shape than the regular kit house so with some judicious use of a bread knife I was able to alter the pitch of the roof to make it look a little more "cottage in the woods." On Monday, a trip to a local big box yielded a nice 16"x24" shelf to cover in aluminum foil for the base and I was able to finally get started on it.

The "icing" in the kit got me this far...
Beginnings
There is a styrofoam base inside the little house and it is very well glued with icing so hopefully it won't fall apart!

I worked on it for several hours after work on Tuesday, in fact, I was up till midnight playing with it... I had fun! I made my first royal icing (with a little help from Black Jack)...
Mixer in motion

and I put a bit too much powdered sugar in it so it was rather stiff, but it worked well enough to get quite alot done. Here is the house, about half way done...
Half-way there

Wednesday was a bit of a wash... I was exhausted after a messed up 3 hour Dr's office visit (they changed the appt time and then the Dr. was an hour behind, what a mess). Anyway, I proclaimed a "pitiful" night for myself and just snuggled under a blankie and watched TV and read a bit. Whenever Glenn or I are feeling under the weather or overwhelmed, we proclaim a pitiful night for ourselves and the one who is not pitiful babies the pitiful one. There is a caveat; however, only one of us is allowed to be pitiful on any given night!

So, Thursday, fortified by a heavy-duty antibiotic and steroids to clear up the leavings of my cold, I pretty much finished up the gingerbread house. Glenn was the photographer and caught a good action photo as I wielded the pastry bag.
Hard at work

and the very last teeny tiny bit comes out on the top of the chimney!
That last little bit

I may do a bit more on it, but basically this is the final product. Here's the front view...
Front view

and the back view...
Back view

and the side view...
Side view

It's a bit rough around the edges, but all in all not too bad for my first one! I learned alot, I must say, and will probably be doing a few more of these in the coming years. Next, I'm going to put my new found royal icing skilz to work on some Christmas cookies!

14 comments:

Sequana said...

Is it for sale or rent? I LOVE to live there!

What a gorgeous job you did.

Charlene ♥ NC said...

now that looks really good enough to eat! Love your background - is it one of yours?

Susan said...

It's an adorable little house! Love your new background, too. =)

verobirdie said...

Lovely! I don't think I'd be able to do that...

Suzi said...

That's just gorgeous!

How will you ever eat it?

Debra Dixon said...

Great little house! Now go stitch up some Hansel and Gretel dolls to go with it! *wink*

Christine said...

Wow, what a great job! I used to love to make the kids' birthday cakes too, but now they're all grown up fancy characters etc. aren't cool anymore, LOL. I think I'd like to try a gingerbread house next year, so I'll start looking for some little accessories at the post-Christmas sales I think. Thanks for your pictures, very inspiring.
Hooroo,
Christine in sunny and humid Sydney Australia.
http://missmuffettwo.blogspot.com/

Rian said...

Delightful! I have always wanted to do a gingerbread house. Okay, next year for sure. (I say this every year...)

Glad you're feeling better. If you had the same cold I did, it was a nasty one, refused to go away.

Vivian said...

Well done for yor first!
A few hints:
- use royal icing > must hold its shape
- upright pieces can be iced and decorated flat. That way, the candy is hardened in place and doesn't want to slide off. Once dry you 'cement' together with icing or 'hard crack' sugar syrup.
Final decorations can be put on when the house is dry.
I've done these with kids for years. The boys want to rush and it usually ends in a load of icing and candy. The girls tend to work carefully with excellent results. That said, the best house I ever saw was a boy who was a refugee from Vietenam. He had never seen them previously ... it was a work of art!

Unknown said...

Sweet!

Threadspider said...

I want to hide away in your little house! It's so gorgeous Marti! And I love your pitiful night idea. Hope you are feeling much better now.

Rissa said...

Very cool!

Lisa Walton said...

Thanks so much for sharing your little house. It is a masterpiece - It will be really hard to eat it I think.

Mary-Frances said...

I've made gingerbread houses for a few years and really enjoy making them.

However, WHAT do you do with them when Christmas is over? :-) I've mostly given them away, but YIKES! It's a real question...esp if you do one every year.