4th Annual Gingerbread House Decorating Party

Sorry I have been absent for a few days. We just moved and it has been hectic with all the packing, moving and cleaning both houses. I almost have our rent house put together so I'm now trying to get caught up on some things here on the blog.

I just finished the invite for our annual gingerbread party! I bought the whole digi kit, Gingerbread Lane, from A-Manda Creation and created my own invite. I love her kits and they are very reasonably priced. Be sure to check out her site if you love to digi-scrap! Sadly since our rent house is half the size of our house we came from there isn't room for a big party this year so it will just be family. Have lots to do to get ready!

I was not compensated by A-Manda Creation for this post. I just wanted to share link love to a new site I found!

3rd Annual Gingerbread House Decorating Party!

Our 3rd Annual Gingerbread House Decorating Party was a huge success! Lots of fun was had by all and it was a packed house! Enjoy the photos.


Candy, candy, candy! Wow, we had quite the assortment this year with all the people that came. Thanks to ACandyStore.com we had a nice supply of candy to decorate our gingerbread houses. You can say we weren't lacking in the spiced gum drops, shocktarts, and jujy fruits department! Gotta love all that Christmas candy!

Treats! I always have to make cupcakes, it's a tradition at any party I throw. True, there is plenty of sugar with all the candy, but you've got to have cake too!

 Complete with gingerbread cupcake wrappers.

 9 houses this year! One house per family.

Everyone has their candy and we are starting to decorate! Ethan was more interested in eating the candy than decorating. My husband has been working all weekend and I was rushing to get everything done and put together by myself. Ethan woke up from his afternoon nap right before the party and I was so busy I forgot to give him a snack. He was starving so that is why he was more interested in eating than decorating. We only decorated for a few minutes and then I put aside a bowl of candy for us to finish decorating our house later when he was more interested. Plus it gave me a chance to mingle and take photos of everyone else. Next year he will definitely be old enough to decorate it himself.

There was a couple of little ones that just didn't understand what all the excitement was all about. I'm sure next year will be a different story!

A big guy waiting outside wishing he could be apart of the action.

The houses are finished! I didn't get a photo of everyone and their finished houses :-(

Goofy boys.......

Ok, lets try this again......alright....not any better!

Oh yes, and our picture is still yet to come!

Be sure to check out my previous posts about my gingerbread house parties as well!

I was given complimentary candy from ACandyStore.com for my party. No other compensation was received.

Getting Ready for the 3rd Annual Party!

I can't believe this is our 3rd year doing this! Time flies. There is a possibility we'll have a few more people than usual this year so it will be a packed house. I wouldn't want it any other way though. The party is scheduled for Sunday, December 5th. I'm really looking forward to it :-)

 A couple weeks ago I purchased another cast iron gingerbread mold. This was much needed. It takes 1 hour to bake 1 gingerbread house since I have to bake the mold twice for 1 house so this extra mold will cut my baking time in half. I got the Paula Dean mold this time. It is approximately the same size as my John Wright mold, but just slightly different.

Last week I ordered the invites from PurpleTrail. I had a credit to use and they had the perfect gingerbread ready made postcard design. I just added all the text and a few more embellishments to the postcards. Turned out super cute and I loved how easy it was to use the PurpleTrail website!

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This year I'm getting some candy from A Candy Store for the party. I had the opportunity to work with them on creating Ethan's candy buffet for his second birthday back in August. They have a great selection of holiday candy as well as candy that is perfect for gingerbread houses. I am very grateful to be getting a selection of candy to help out decorating all of the houses. You can never have too much candy to decorate gingerbread houses!

Like always I'll be blogging all about the party afterwards!

This post contains affiliate links. I also received the products mentioned free of charge. The thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own and are not swayed by any monetary or product compensation.

2009 Gingerbread Party

Our Second Annual Gingerbread House Decorating Party was Saturday. A couple of my friends were not able to make it, but it actually turned out to be the right amount of people for the tables and chairs we had anyway. I think we lacked a larger variety of candy this year and I don't know why. Maybe some brought more candy last year?

Anyway, on to the pictures! You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge. My husband was in charge of taking pictures while I helped Ethan make his house.

Goodies! I forgot to take a picture after I filled the punch bowl :-( It was red punch (gingerale & cranberry/cherry juice with a cherry koolaid ice ring) and was very tasty!

I totally messed up the cupcakes! I made them from scratch. I was out of red Wilton gel coloring so I needed to pick up a new one for my cupcakes. I usually buy the red no-taste coloring, but I saw the "Christmas Red" and thought it was really pretty. BIG MISTAKE! I only colored a small bowl of frosting red. First of all, it took almost 1/2 a bottle of coloring to even get it to this shade. I just wanted a little red coloring to swirl into the frosting. By the time I reached the end of frosting my cupcakes, there wasn't much red and it was blending into the bag with the white. The cupcakes were starting to look like white and hot pink! It was going all over my hands too and they are still stained pink. Anyway, I didn't eat a cupcake until that night after everyone was gone and the frosting was SO BITTER! I couldn't even eat it! I'm really embarrassed I messed up my cupcakes. I have no clue why they would even make a coloring that tastes bitter.

Look at but don't eat!

Dark Chocolate Gingerbread men and women pops

The houses are waiting for the guests. Since I only have one template, I spent over 7 hours of baking time making all of these! This doesn't include the time I spent mixing, rolling out and cooling the template between each bake either.

 

 

 

 

 

Completed Houses!

 

 

 

 

Our House. 

Ethan didn't really want to help decorate, he just wanted to eat candy :-) I didn't put a lot of candy on our house, just a little on the front. I'm sure next year Ethan will want to cover the entire house!