More Gingerbread House Decorating Party Tips!

Are you thinking of hosting a gingerbread house decorating party? I must say that, with the help of all my friends, I have this tradition almost down to a science. I was keeping a mental note of what we were finding out this time around, and maybe someone can benefit from said findings? And be sure to check out last year's tips on how to have a sweet party!

I'm not even sure how many years we have done this, I'm thinking five or six? We continue to learn, of course, as our children get older and we add more little ones into the mix. We just had our annual party last weekend, and we had a record amount of kiddies decorating. I think we had sixteen houses. We even had two little guys, one two years old and the other nearly two, decorating their own tiny custom houses. It was magic!

Tip number one: use hot glue!
Last year we decided to use graham crackers to make the houses, which worked fine, once we figured out the best way to make them. This year we used hot glue to stick the houses together, instead of icing, because no one really eats the house part anyway! This worked much better, they dried faster and stronger. We did pipe around the joints with icing, just to seal things up and make them look better. This also helps disguise any wonky-ness you may have!

Tip number two: let your husbands do some building (it is really good for some laughs!)
As a few of us sat making the houses, while other ladies were busy with other jobs, we kept saying again and again that we thought our husbands would enjoy the task of building. So, we put them to work! Seeing our fellas wielding glue guns was pretty cute. The guys had a blast, and the ladies had time for other things.

Tip number three: pay attention to what sizes of crackers you have
One thing we discovered early on, was that some brands of crackers were different sizes. That meant we had to be sure that the pieces of each house had the same brand. Also, one brand had crackers that weren't in sheets, they were in squares, which is almost a deal breaker. The good thing is that, when you are using the glue, it is very easy to just glue pieces like that together to make a sheet. When you are setting up to build, just put like brands together.

Tip number four: Use thicker icing for sticking candy
I remembered last year thinking that I needed to make the icing a little on the thick side. Why? Because heat from little hands quickly warms up the bags of icing and makes the icing a little on the runny side. Of course, if you are using ready made icing, you could put the icing bags in the fridge, just for a bit, until ready to use. This would keep them from becoming runny as quick. No one wants their candy sliding off the house!

Tip number five: big tootsie rolls make great chimneys!
A big element of this party is the candy. Our faves are gumdrops, sticks of gum, and those gummi rings make great wreaths. Someone brought sno caps, which I really enjoyed eating. One thing we found this time around was that big tootsie rolls make great chimneys. I had some (okay tons!) of Halloween candy leftover, and there were lots of those in my stash.

Tip number six: corral the candy with cupcake liners!
As we were watching our darling children stick candy to their houses, one of my mommy friends observed that we needed cupcake liners for each kid to house their candy. Some of the round candy was rolling away onto the floor. So, I grabbed some out of the cabinet, and problem solved! Seriously, what would I do without the wisdom of other moms?

This Christmas season, I have really tried to slow down, and do less. But this party is one thing I just can't seem to skip. When the kids start decorating, and everyone is having fun, I always look at my husband and smile. I LOVE hosting this event! I know these parties will be something we will always remember.

Maggie's Tea Party

My little Maggie is a lover of beauty. She can find beauty in most anything, and gushes over the simplest things, saying "that's so pretty" or "that's so nice". So for her birthday party, the emphasis was on beauty. She wanted a dress-up party, so I set out a stack of fancy hats and a box of dress-ups.
On the menu was raspberry tea, lemonade, and an assortment of treats, including popcorn and pretzels. I made lemon bars, and this recipe was fantastic. So, so good. For the birthday cake, I made cake cones and used twinkie filling for the icing.

I made paper pom-poms; fun, easy, and they were so pretty.

Everything turned out lovely, and Maggie was pleased.

Superhero Birthday Party

There is no shortage of superhero party ideas out there, but I thought I'd share our fun little celebration we had for Jack. Our kids love to play superheroes. It's a good party theme for our little circle of friends, because it works for boys and girls. I told the moms that my kids would be dressing up, so they could plan for their little ones. I also had some extra stuff in case someone came unprepared.

We kind of went with a "Superhero Training Camp" thing. Our first activity was "What is your Superhero Name?". My husband made these name tags, and he wrote everyone's name tag for them. This was a hoot! We all had to call the kids by their names all evening. One of my favorites was "Metal Man". Metal Man's costume was made out of foil.

Then we had an obstacle course. The object was to get past the bad guy and save the baby in the play house. The bad guy was played by one of the dads, who was wearing a scary mask and waving a weapon. Again, more hilarity.

Next was a relay race. My husband explained to the kids that as a superhero, you would have to be able to change out of your normal clothes into your superhero clothes quickly. We lined the kids up in two lines and each line had a pile of clothes. The kids had to race to put on a coat, hat, and tie and race around a tree and back. So fun!

I had a final game of "Rid the City of the Kryptonite". I spray-painted a few rocks fluorescent yellow, and the plan was to hide them around the yard and have the kids look for them. We didn't get to this one, but I think it would have been a hit.

We feasted on wings, nachos, pepperoni rolls, grapes, carrots, and this favorite of Jack's. My mom made her beautiful cupcakes, and my husband and I made the toppers for them. I also passed out store-bought superhero popsicles instead of ice cream.

This was really a good time. I don't know what I'll do when all of my kids outgrow these parties; I really enjoy having them!

Tips for Hosting a Gingerbread House Decorating Party

For the past few years we've gathered up a handful of friends for a party that's become a very anticipated event. We love our annual gingerbread house decorating party! I thought I'd share some tips for you so you might be inspired to have a little sweet fun for your family and friends.
We keep the guest list small so that we can have the party right here in our home, nice and cozy! Sunday afternoons work really well for us, after everyone's nap.

The Houses
The first year, I had no idea what I was doing, but I was really excited and had big plans. My husband made a template out of cardstock for me, two house shaped pieces, two roof pieces, and two wall pieces. I made six houses from homemade dough. They were beautiful, and the whole house smelled amazing. Would I do this again? Only if I had to make one or two. I can't even tell you how much dough I made. I think I started with a triple recipe and when that didn't make enough houses, I just kept making triple recipes until I got enough houses. It was crazy; I'm talking whole bottles of molasses and jars of cinnamon.
The following year, I just bought the kits. The next couple of years, I found them for two dollars a pop after Christmas. This year, we are making graham cracker houses. The kits are nothing to write home about; they don't taste great (especially if you get them cheap and wait a year to use them, gross), and sometimes they have sort of a cheesy design. So I figured we might as well go the cheaper route. Everyone's bringing a box of graham crackers, and we're planning to get a few of us together early to put them together so they can dry in time to decorate.
Cut squares of cardboard and cover with foil to build the houses on. If you're using a kit, they usually include icing.

The Food
Anyone that knows me knows that parties include food. Every year I've made a couple pots of chili, some bread or salad, and it's self serve. One year I did white chicken chili, and this year I might add a veggie version. Someone usually brings some cheese or tortilla chips, and it's a hit with everyone. For dessert it's always cookies, set out with some adorable napkins. No need for plates or forks!

The Decorating
Every one brings a bag of candy to share. Our favorites are gumdrops and big red gum (for shutters). I make a bunch of icing to stick candy on with. You can buy plastic decorating bags (sometimes the kits include them), or you can just use little ziploc baggies and snip the ends. Put a decorator bag out for each child. I try to have the table ready before guests arrive with bowls for candy. A plastic tablecloth makes clean-up easy, and I usually put a runner of brown paper down the center, because it looks pretty. For the candy, I try to use lots of different sizes of bowls. I love the look of vintage stuff for this; muffin tins work well too. The mini ones are good for tiny candy, like red hots. A box of wet wipes are good to have at the ready. Snacking on candy is encouraged!



This has become a very dear tradition for us. Since we've started this little event, we've added to our families and now have even more little ones to join in on the fun!

Cooking Party for Jack

I can't believe that my oldest son is 5 years old now. He is such a delight, joyful and sweet. He has always loved to help me in the kitchen and while it may not be so convenient, I usually find him a little job to do while I'm cooking. It was for that reason we had a cooking party for him. We kept the guest list small and had the party at my mom's restaurant. Each child got to make their own pizza! I laid out a few yummy ingredients for topping the pizzas and my mom made delicious dough. We rolled out a small round of dough and placed each one on parchment paper where we wrote each child's name. After the kids were done decorating their pizzas the whole thing, parchment paper and all, went into the big commercial ovens to bake. Having the party at a restaurant made the whole thing very easy!



We had lots of mommies to oversee the fun. My friends are great to fill in the gaps of what I may have forgotten; one friend brought out some bottles of hand sanitizer during the pizza making.



While the pizzas were baking, the kids made their own fruit kabobs. Be warned that you're dealing with sharp sticks here. Little brothers and sisters did not join in on this and we had lots of moms to help out!



After everyone finished, the kids decorated cupcakes. For favors, I made some really easy aprons which were worn during the festivities. I just bought a big bag of white hand towels from Sam's, folded over the corners on the top and seamed down to make a slot for a ribbon. The ribbon goes around the child's neck then ties behind their back. Super easy and cheap! A week before the party I asked the moms of the party guests for favorite recipes of their kids. My husband printed up little cookbooks for all the kids to take home. This was a big hit! I found lots of ideas here and here.
It was a good time! My big 5 year old enjoyed it and so did I!

Yee-haw! A cowgirl party

We really enjoyed our daughter's birthday party this year. She loves horses and wanted a cowgirl themed party. This was really fun for a guest list that included both boys and girls. I've always taken more of a laid back approach to parties, focusing more on good food and the setting. However, as the kids get older I've found that parties need more structure to keep things from getting crazy. This year I wanted to have more games for the kids and less time in the food so I could just enjoy watching my little girl having fun.


This little idea came from Better Homes and Gardens. It's a great easy decoration for any party. I bought two 8 inch embroidery hoops for 99 cents a piece and 4 rolls of crepe paper. Cut roughly 8 foot lengths of the streamers and drape them across the inner hoop, close the outer hoop on top and hang with fishing line. I used red and light blue to match our theme, and I added a little hot pink. This was so cheap and easy.


To set the mood, we bought a few bales of hay for the guests to sit on. A table with a red-checked table cloth was a great place for the kids to stop and play with toy horses. This was a great idea and kept the kids busy in between activities. I also set out peanuts in the shell to munch on, this was a hit with the adult guests especially. I bought cowboy hats for each of the children and mentioned to the parents to dress them in jeans or any western-like stuff they had, if they wanted to.
The Lord blessed us with a beautiful evening and we were able to play games out in the backyard.


Stomp the Flies
This is a fun and easy idea my sister-in-law told me about. The black balloons are the flies and the children are the horses trying to stomp them. They seemed to like this one.


Six Shooter Game
The goal here was to shoot the bottles down with a water gun. I think a dart gun would've been better because the kids had to stand right up to the bottles to get them to fall down. They still enjoyed it, one little fella played with the water gun for most of the evening. He was quite a hoot, walking to the sink in his black cowboy hat to refill his gun.

T-shirt decorating
We did this later in the evening indoors and it was a great wind down activity. We purchased t-shirts in bulk online and bought fabric markers at a crafts store. We looked at buying the markers online also, but they were going to take longer to get in. It may have been cheaper. We just found a coloring page of a horse on the internet and bought iron-on transfers to print the image onto.
I had two other games to play, but there wasn't time. We were planning a stick horse race. I just asked some friends to bring their kid's stick horses, which was handy anyway. For the other game, you hang apples from a long board and the kids try to eat the apple like a horse (with no hands). For this game I had to make sure the apples I bought had a stem to tie the yarn to. I was really excited about this game, but we just ran out of time. Another nice touch was my husband signaled the start of games with one of our kid's cap guns. Also the dads really enjoyed playing with those.


The Menu
I wanted a really easy meal that would remind you of what a cowboy would eat out on the trail. I decided on beef stew and cornbread muffins. We served it on aluminum pie plates to represent the tin plates you always see cowboys eating from in western movies. This was a big hit, although the bottom of the plates got hot from the stew.

Birthday Cake
This cake was so easy and fun to make. I baked the cake a few days ahead and froze it, then my husband and I decorated it after the kids went to bed the night before the party. I wanted it to be a surprise. I found the idea on the Family Fun website. I also made a couple dozen cupcakes. My mom, who makes special occasion cakes, gave me this icing recipe. It is easy and sooo good!


Buttercream Frosting
With a mixer, mix 1 lb softened butter with 1/2 cup crisco. Add 2 lbs powdered sugar and beat just until mixed well. Add 1-2 tsp of your favorite extract (I love almond extract, it is wonderful). If you make this ahead and refrigerate it, you can add a little hot water or milk to soften it a bit before frosting your cake.
I used this on the cake and cupcakes. For chocolate, add about three tbs cocoa. I also added brown paste food coloring for the horse because the cocoa didn't make it brown enough.

Isabelle and her brother really seemed to enjoy this. When I asked her if she had a good time, she said "yes, but I want another cowgirl party!" So I guess we will do this all over again next year!