348. Make a gingerbread house

Mom and I attempted to use one of those gingerbread house kits once and we wanted to throw it out the window. I don't think we ever were able to finish it. It was bad but that didn't stop me from putting make a gingerbread house on the bucket list. 

When I put make a gingerbread house on the bucket list, I really wanted to make homemade gingerbread and assemble the pieces into a house and decorate. Then I realized there were many flaws with this plan. 1. I would have to make gingerbread 2. I would have to cut out uniform pieces that resembled a house 3. I would have to put it together with some sort of frosting concoction and have it not collapse. I realized this might just be a pipe dream.  

Then Kimberly-Little Chute Library came to my rescue. They were having a program where you could make holiday houses out of graham crackers... gingerbread.. graham crackers... close enough. And these weren't the kind you stuck graham crackers to milk cartons with frosting. You actually had to build them. They supplied all the necessary materials and it was free. Sign me up.

Honestly gingerbread might have been easier. Graham crackers are fragile. They are rectangular or square. If you want a decent size house, you have to stack graham crackers. To make angles, you had to score graham crackers. At least with gingerbread all the building is done before it's baked. Graham Crackers you are the mercy of the graham cracker. 

Scoring graham crackers in theory sounded easy. Take a scissor and run it across the cracker. It should break off nice and neat. I might have done it wrong since mine broke. I did manage to get corners on four crackers scored at angle. Some just required a bit of "glue" to hold it together. 

Somehow I didn't build my frame correctly or something because instead of peaking like a roof should, mine had a gap. Instead of being a nice house, it ended up looking like a gingerbread barn. Okay. Barn it is. I can work with that. 

Once I got my house together, it was time to decorate. As I was putting on the sprinkles for the red roof, it collapsed. A little more frosting and it was back together. I also added the sprinkles to the roof before I put it together. Smart thinking on my part.

I used licorice to make the barn door and window. Let me tell you Red Vines don't cut very well but the scraps were tasty. I thought Skittles would make cute windows... Yeah not so much... too tiny. Lifesavers worked better. Add a path of sour patch kids and a few trees and the barn was done.

I happy with the way it turned out and I hope the library does it again next year. I will definitely take part and maybe try just a one story house. Hopefully they have gumdrops year. And maybe one year I will attempt a gingerbread house out of gingerbread.