Why wait for Christmas, when you can make a gingerbread house in October? A DIY Halloween gingerbread house that is!
I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but here it is: I love Halloween. I love it, I love it, I love it. Like, as soon as they start putting out the Halloween decorations in all the stores mid-July I just start running up and down the aisles singing “This is Halloween” from “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” That may or may not be an exaggeration. But what’s not an exaggeration is that I get my DIY on hard during Halloween and fall.
Last Christmas, I bought a gingerbread house kit, but as happens a lot of times during the holidays, things just got too busy, and we never got around to decorating it. But I just couldn’t find it in my DIY self to throw it away. So, since December this gingerbread house kit has just been floating around my house from one storage area to another.
But once September hit, and I started seeing Halloween candy for sale, I knew what this gingerbread house kit’s true purpose was: it was actually a DIY HAUNTED gingerbread house. (And yes, I know they now make make the kits to make gingerbread haunted houses, but I think it’s more fun when you DIY it and put everything together yourself.)
As you can see, my daughter was so, so, so excited to put together our DIY Halloween gingerbread house.
And I mean, who wouldn‘t be excited for a Halloween gingerbread house? Plus DIY crafts and tons of candy are always pretty awesome as well. The gingerbread house kit already came with the house pre-assembled – which was fortunate, because I had a four-year-old chomping at the bit to do some decoratin’ (and also sneakily chomping on the candy). I did however cover a large piece of cardboard with tinfoil to put the house on top of, so we could have more room for a spooky DIY graveyard.
I way overbought on the Halloween candy for decorating our DIY haunted gingerbread house, and if it were up to my daughter, it ALL would have end up piled on top of the house. So I think when doing DIY projects or crafts with kids, it always helps to give them specific tasks. First, she had a blast putting up a candy corn fence around the house.
The candy corn fence was not just a cute little accessory for our DIY Halloween gingerbread house, but it was also a good activity to help her work on her hand-eye coordination.
I then added the black licorice to the roof, while she added her own DIY choices.
We ended up with a pretty cute DIY Halloween gingerbread house. In case you’re wondering where I got all of the candy, a good place to look is the 99 cents/dollar store. The ghosts and the pumpkins in the picture below are actually lollipops that I got in a 6-pack for just a $1. I also got the black licorice and “bones” at the dollar store too.
We had such a good time making our haunted gingerbread house, and I learned some things in the process too! One thing to note if you are DIY’ing it, is that FROSTING is NOT the same as ICING. I learned the hard way that icing will make things stick to your house, and frosting won’t. Additionally, if you are going to make your own DIY gingerbread haunted house with your little ones, I would definitely suggest limiting candy consumption throughout the project, otherwise you will have some little decorators bouncing off the walls by the end.
Now I can’t wait to make a gingerbread house for Christmas! I will be sure to set some time aside this year, so that we don’t miss out on even more DIY fun!
Have you ever taken a DIY project meant for one holiday and repurposed it for another holiday? Leave me your tips and ideas in the comments.