Gingerbread House - Part 4

It's coming together and I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel on this project.  Yesterday I started with working on my trees.  I started with sugar ice cream cones for the base, which I trimmed in various heights.  Then I tinted some of my royal icing green and proceeded to try and create a life-like tree.  It took about 3 hours to do all the trees.....much longer than I thought it would.  Today after the trees had dried over-night I sprinkled some powdered sugar on one to get a feel for how they would look with "snow", all in all I'm happy with how they turned out.

I did take one of the trees and while it was still wet I added mini M&M candies to it.  I took a yellow Starburst candy and flatten it out a bit and cut a star shape for the top of the tree.  I had to hold it there a while so it could dry enough to stay.  I then took more Starburst candies and shaped "presents" out of them to be placed at the tree.  I am really happy with how the gift bags came out.

About 10:00pm last night I started thinking about the two walls with the windows and what I might do to make them look interesting.  My sweetie suggested making a stone look, and I thought that was a great idea, so I took Tootsie Rolls and cut them into small pieces and made stones. I got about 1/2 a wall done and decided I was too tired....so I stopped for the evening. This morning I finished making my stone walls and I knew I'd need a grout of sorts.  I saved the sugar cones pieces that I has trimmed off and I put them into my mini-chopper and ground them finely.  I then added royal icing to them to make a sort of grout.  I started out with a #4 tip, but switched to a # 5 and still, some pieces of the sugar cone got stuck, but I did manage to grout both walls.  I also ended using this technique to the porch steps as well.  This whole process took about 1 1/2 hours.  I think it turned out GREAT!  

Pretty cool,don't you think?

So next on my list was the roof.  The roof is made of fondant.  I rolled it out fairly thin and then cut tiny little circles.  I now have a small callous on my thumb from cutting so many little circles, but I did a little happy dance when the roof was completed.  It turned out exactly as I had imagined it should look.  I can't tell you how happy I am....sometimes you visualize how you want something to look and it doesn't come out that way, but I think I nailed this roof!  It took me 3 hours to cut all the circles and apply them to the roof.

My work this weekend is complete.  I'm in the process of making a pretzel fence and I want to make a walk-way and there are a few other little surprises that will be great if I can get them to work.  Coming up on a long weekend so I'm hoping to complete the house this next weekend so it's ready for display on December 1, 2010.  Wish me luck.

Thanks for following me here and if you have any suggestions or can offer any advice, like how come my windows are leaking?  Let me hear from you.

Bakingmomof4