Gingerbread House Party
Over the weekend we hosted the girls in Lilly’s class for a gingerbread house decorating party, and it was SO sweet! I pre-built and piped each gingerbread house a few days in advance so the girls’ only worry was decorating their house. Instead of going with a traditional gingerbread house, as a first-time gingerbread house party hoster, I took the queen of gingerbread houses, Pizzazzerie’s, advice (see her Gingerbread House Guide here) and built the houses out of 4×4 boxes and then cut honey graham crackers and hot glued them over top. I let them dry overnight then made a royal icing in my stand mixer and used a cake decorating piping gun to pipe each house to make them look pretty and hide any hot glue/graham cracker imperfections. This whole idea was found on Pizzazzerie’s Gingerbread House Guide. I followed her guide step by step and even used her Royal Icing Recipe.
Before building the gingerbread houses, I was pretty scared they wouldn’t turn out, but so pleasantly surprised at how cute they turned out for my first attempt! They are lightweight, sturdy, and adorable. My biggest piece of advice is to start your houses several days in advance. I spent one evening hot gluing the boxes and graham crackers together. A second evening was spent piping just the bottom of the houses while the houses sat upside down in a bowl. Once the bottoms were dry, I finished with a day of piping the rest of the houses and adding a bow to the top.
When making the royal icing, I highly recommend at least tripling the recipe. You will go through a lot of icing when piping. I also suggest getting a few of the piping guns. The majority of the time spent piping/icing is just filling the piping guns because it takes quite a while for the icing to go down into the tube of the piping gun.
Gingerbread House Building Essentials:
Now onto the fun part. I connected with the sweetest business in our town, The Pop-Up Collective, that now has the cutest place for small parties. Brit, owner of The Pop-Up Collective, is such a talent. She can whip up a balloon arch better than anyone I know and is so talented at backdrops/party walls. She has such an eye for party layouts, decor, and created the most beautiful space for our party. She also travels for weddings, bridal showers, parties- you name it. I have linked her business here for you to check out. Her website gives major party idea inspo! She does everything from flower walls to decor rentals and even luxury picnics!
I also enlisted the help of another good friend, Danielle of Lollipops N Gumdrops to make the adorable personalized gingerbread girl aprons that we gave each girl upon her arrival to the party! We’ve used Danielle for everything from family Disney t-shirts to birthday parties. She’s amazing and so creative. I always send her inspiration and she comes up with something even better.
For party details, I bought the majority of the paper products and decor from My Mind’s Eye. I also made treat bags for each of the girls with a few really cute products from Ulta that I will link below.
Gingerbread House Party Decorations:
When the girls arrived we handed them their personalized aprons and let the pick candy that we put in the cutest baking cups. I had little frosting tubes that were easier for the girls to manage than the piping guns. Depending on your age group, you could also pipe the house for them as they arrive.
Gingerbread House Decorating Candy:
- Gumdrops
- Edible icing designs (we had candy canes, Christmas lights, trees, Santa, reindeer
- Gummies (Target has tons in holiday shapes)
- Jellybeans
- Sprinkles
- Candy canes (just be aware that they do bleed eventually)
- Marshmallows
The icing dries rather quickly but I would provide a sturdy plate or a box for your guests to take their houses home in!
Our first Gingerbread Party was a success thanks to amazing women-owned businesses:
Lilly is already asking if we can host another gingerbread house party next year. The girls had so much fun and I highly recommend pre-building your gingerbread houses like I did for maximum fun and sugar rushes!
xoxo,
Kalyn
