22 Best Gingerbread House Ideas & Inspiration: Christmas Crafts!

It’s Christmas time and not at all too early to make a fanciful and happy candy decorated gingerbread house to decorate your home or table for the holidays! It’s truly a fun tradition to begin even if you never made gingerbread houses when you were growing up…please pin pin pin to share the magic with your friends on Pinterest so everyone can savor the holiday inspiration!

Dreamy and romantic Gingerbread house with pink and rock candy decorations
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Christmas Craft Inspiration

My own gingerbread houses were rarely pretty enough to post on the blog, but the smells of gingerbread baking, the fun of watching my children glue on their Halloween candy (the leftover candy frozen just for this Christmas craft), and the festive cheer gingerbread houses bring to decor outweigh the mess and lopsided roof lines. You can buy gingerbread house kits online or at the grocery store, skip the gingerbread and use graham crackers, or just decorate cardboard or a milk carton with candy. This year, I will be making a variety of gingerbread houses and will share them with you soon.

Ready for your Christmas Crafty Candy House inspiration, hints, and ideas?

Best Gingerbread House Ideas

1.

Rock Candy Trees

No matter what the size of your gingerbread house, rock candy sticks work awesomely for trees since they glisten and look like magical psychedelic quartzy Christmas evergreens. (Also notice how effective a monochromatic color scheme works: in this case, slightly varying shades of pink boost the romance factor…sigh!).

Beautiful pink gingerbread house with pink and rock candy pink trees

Best Gingerbread Houses: Christmas Craft InspirationAnother secret weapon for gingerbread house builders in the know? Old fashioned stripey candy sticks.

Old-Fashioned Candy Sticks (80 pc)
Old fashioned candy sticks

2.

Gumdrop Gabled Roof

Gumdrops are your best friend as a gingerbread house builder since they are easily sculpted into varying shapes, cut open to reveal sticky insides that can be pressed into place, beautiful on their own with their sugary frosted snow exteriors, and perfect for massing on a rooftop as magical, balloon-like roof tiles.

Isn’t the tall gingerbread house below reminiscent of a Paris apartment building!?!

Lovely gingerbread tall house with gumdrops piled on roof
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Christmas Craft Inspiration
22 Gingerbread House Ideas to Inspire - Hello Lovely Studio
Pin me to save to your holiday inspiration boards!

3.

Heart Shaped Candy

Is it any wonder that a heart shaped anything pulls at our heartstrings? These Swedish Fish Hearts and Heart-shaped lollipops are yummy lovely, and if you can find heart shaped chocolates…hurray! If you cannot, think about forming your own hearts from gumdrops or cutting heartshapes from fruit rollups or fruit leathers. The house below is also enhanced with sugary gummy worms suggestive of a frosty winter.

Beautiful colorful gingerbread house with pink and pastels

Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Finla Noronha

4.

Nontraditional Christmas Color Palette

The beautiful gingerbread house below ignores red and green for the most part in honor of turquoise blue which reads happy chic when paired with bright pink and lavender. Go ahead and decorate your gingerbread candy house with your favorite color combinations, designfreaks, and definitely don’t feel limited by the candy available to you on the shelves…so long as you won’t be eating the house, paint the candy as you wish!

5.

Topiary Trees

In the gingerbread house below, topiary trees have been formed with pink lollipops, brown sugar (I think), and thimble-sized caps or plastic toys, but you can easily substitute gumdrops for the base by molding them to your taste.

Adorable gingerbread house with hearts, stars, and pink
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Local Cakemaker

6.

Ice Cream Cones

Sugar cones work wonderfully turned upside down for trees, but you can also incorporate candy ice cream cones as you see below. Even plain old ice cream cones work great (you may have to cut down the size) for a chimney or planter pot outside the gingerbread house.

7.

Old Fashioned Lollipops

Old fashioned swirly whirly vividly striped lollipops and suckers look so at home with homemade gingerbread houses and add to the nostalgia and romance so do try to find one or ten to enhance your gingerbread home’s landscape. These turquoise blueberry beauties may inspire you! How to make them stand in place? Styrofoam will work for a base, and in some cases, gumdrops!

Adorable gingerbread house with ice cream cones, cookies for roof tiles, and pastels
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Allas.se

8.

Repetitive Rounds

The beautiful gingerbread house below incorporates round wafers which soften the home’s overall design and presentation. Even the royal icing is piped in lacy, delicate patterns as opposed to strong straight lines.

Colorful candy decorated gingerbread house
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: King Arthur Flour

Need a pretty scalloped pedestal for your candylicious creation?

9.

Simple Cupcake Chimney Smoke

Isn’t this sweet white cupcake adorned with a single red candy perfect for simulating chimney smoke from a candy cane chimney? Notice too how the vanilla wafer cookies as roof tiles are not perfectly placed in uniformly straight lines but rather are staggered artfully to suggest an aged and interesting rooftop. (Pssst…need lemondrops for house landscaping like below?)

Colorful gingerbread house with cupcake chimney and vanilla wafers
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Christmas Craft Inspiration

10.

Sub Chocolate for Gingerbread

Your magical Christmas Candy House need not be made of gingerbread or any cookies at all should you choose to build walls of chocolate. You’ll want to adhere the chocolate to a cardboard base so the weight of your adornments do not collapse, an I predict this is one house that will be nibbled on throughout the season. How fun to research candy bars and undress them to reveal their shiplap, board and batten, and log cabin architectural textures.

Chocolate bar Gingerbread house decorated with marshmallows and cookies
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Christmas Craft Inspiration

11.

Think Sugar Wafery Pixelated 1980’s

Why not go retro? This neon themed NO-BAKE gingerbread house below, made of sugar wafer cookies, is packed with smart design ideas beginning with its 1980s My Pretty Pony palette. The dotted roof is perfectly decked with dizzying stripes suggestive of pixels, early digital technology, and video arcade wonder.

Whimsical and bright vivid colors on a Gingerbread house made with wafter cookies
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Hello Cupcake Book

12.

Simple Skittles Beautiful

Maybe you will opt for happy hued Skittles, a few gumballs, red hots, and peppermints for your gingerbread house design which can be completed in just a short amount of time…so simple lovely.

Adorable mini gingerbread house on jadeite pedestal and gold and white tablescape
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Design Improvised

13.

Mini is Merry

This wee little gingerbread house looks adorable with its vivid and unexpected color palette and crisper look with royal icing only on the roof.

Miniature Gingerbread Houses with vivid colorful Polymer Clay
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Petit Plat

14.

Look to Frank Lloyd Wright

Who says you have to stick to a gabled roofline for your gingerbread house? Go Midcentury Modern with a flat roof and minimal embellishments for a creative spin on holiday house splendor.

Midcentury Modern gingerbread house with snowman and snow
Bes Gingerbread House Ideas: via Vogue

15.

Open the Door

If you plan ahead in your gingerbread making, you can cut an arched door and position it to be open like the house below which adds to the warm hospitable flavor of the whole design.

Adorable gingerbread house with malted chocolate balls on roof
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Casas Deliciosas

16.

Add a Front Porch

Not that it’s an easy task! But should you decide your gingerbread house is worthy of front porch decor, go ahead and place your house on a base that has been constructed to accommodate a porch with wee built-in benches…my favorite part of this more-is-more candy house.

Fanciful gingerbread house with pastel wafers on roof and pink door
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Christmas Craft Inspiration

17.

Fantasy Fairytale Folly

To create a tower or turret like the wondrous candy house below, you could incorporate a simple plastic kitchen funnel (with its base snipped off) for the roof atop a cylinder which only appears to be gingerbread. The addition of bright candy decorations and little fairy lights inside is pure magic.

Beautiful gingerbread house tower or turret with cone roof and pink
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Lizon

18.

Dotted Door

There’s something very 70’s kitsch and gnome-like nutty about this cheery polka dot studded door on this gingerbread house with minimal royal icing.

Vibrant red and greens on mini Christmas gingerbread house
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Jolies Gourmandises

19.

Candy Cane Hearts

Candy canes are easily found in all sorts of bright cherry colors and can be configured to suggest a happy heart…and aren’t the sugary fruit slices appetizing?

Beautiful juicy fruit colors on gingerbread house with candy cane fireplace chimney
Best Ginger Bread House Ideas: Christmas Craft Inspiration

20.

Monochrome Masterpiece

If red is your favorite hue with which to deck the halls, have at it. The addition of the fondant Noel sign is genius…by the way, did you know you can buy pre-made fondant which is perfect for gingerbread house decorating?

Bright red decorated gingerbread house with Noel sign
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: Christmas Craft Inspiration

21.

Stick to Gum

Don’t forget the geometric lovely and sweet scale of sticks of chewing gum to construct your gingerbread houses. The chocolate bar candy house below is also illustrative of the power of limiting yourself to old fashioned candy only for a truly vintage-inspired gingerbread or candy house.

Hershey chocolate bar gingerbread house with sticks of gum for doors
Best Gingerbread House Ideas: BHG

22.

Make it a Party

Doesn’t the beyond lovely tablescape below take your breath away and perhaps make you yearn to host a gingerbread house making party (which would float the boat of every girl or grandma)? Gold dotted gift wrap or kraft paper, chevron gift wrapped boards, plastic paint palettes to house candies (just 50 cents per pallette and free shipping!)and partially constructed gingerbread houses await the creativity and imaginations of the lucky party gues

Beautiful Christmas party tablescape with gingerbread house building ingredients
Best Ginger Bread House Ideas: Design Improvised

Happy creating, friends, and I hope these gingerbread house making ideas inspire you to get your Christmas crafty craftsmanship ON to celebrate this fleeting season of hope, joy, and wonder. Pin this banner below to save for later and share with friends on Pinterest!

22 Gingerbread House Ideas to Inspire
Pin Me to Save to Your Holiday Boards!

I independently selected products in this post—if you buy from one of my links, I may earn a commission.

Peace to you right where you are.

-michele

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4 Comments

  1. Claire
    November 19, 2017 / 9:06 am

    These are perfect. My five year old granddaughter will love them all. And will want to make all of them!

    • michele
      Author
      November 19, 2017 / 8:40 pm

      I can’t wait to have grandchildren and share this type of wonder! 🙂 Thanks for reading.

  2. Tina Graves
    December 6, 2017 / 6:29 pm

    I DO THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME OF THIS LOVELY WORK. I FOUND SOME REALLY GOOD IDEAS THAT I WOULD LIKE TO INCORPORATE INTO A ST. PATRICK’S DECORED HOUSE. I LOVED THE FLINTSTONE TYPE HOME WITH THE LIFESAVER LATTICE. MY SISTER IS GONNA DO A VALENTINE DECORED HOUSE. I HOPE WE CAN MAKE THIS A YEARLY TRADITION, AND SOMEDAY HAVE FRIENDS THAT WOULD LOVE TO JOIN US.

    • michele
      Author
      December 6, 2017 / 8:23 pm

      That’s great to hear, Tina, and I love the tradition – I have been making them for years and it’s something people of all ages can do! 🙂

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SHOP MY HOME!
29″ Whitewashed Table Lamp Set of 2
White Matelasse Quilt on MY BED
SHOP MY BATH!
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Round Farmhouse Table
Myla Slipcover Sofa
Deconstructed Wingback Bed
French Farmhouse Dining Table
Milagro Heart
Slipcovered Dining Chair
Rustic Farmhouse Stool
Edgecombe End Table
Parisian Style Iron Table Lamp  33.5″
Black or Bronze Accent Table
French Stripe Basket Set
White Cotton Crochet Bed Skirt
French Country Rattan Basket Set
Marble Subway Mosaic Tile
Rattan Basket With Lid
White Ruffle Bedding
Seagrass Basket Set
Schumacher Wild Things Wallpaper
Slipcovered Sofa
Upholstered Dining Arm Chair
Shop My Breakfast Nook
White Matelasse Quilt
Tree Mural Wallpaper
Faux Potted French Lavender
Shaw Daybed
Distressed White French Country Chandelier
French Country Headboard
Oval Back Counter Stool, Set of 2
Antique Brass Pharmacy Floor Lamp
Round French Tufted Ottoman
Kinston Wood Bench
Italian Candelabra Chandelier
Slipcovered Linen Chair
Warner Upholstered Bench
Rustic Country French Dresser
Laurel Wreath Mirror
Round Farmhouse Dining Table
Reclaimed Wood Dresser
Louis Upholstered Bench
Pardon My French Doormat
Stripe Turkish Towel Throw
Pamela Arm Chair
Sweater Weave Basket
French Carved Wood Chandelier
Terracotta Pots & Basket
French Country Wood Chandelier
French Linen Dining Chair
Gustavian Cabinet
French Farmhouse Dining Table
Bar Stool
Beachy White Slipcovered Sofa
Rattan Armchair
Diptyque Oyedo Candle
Cross Back Dining Chair
French Country Candle Holder
French Industrial Metal Chairs (4)
Designer Favorite Wall Mirror
Holborn Lantern Pendant
French Country 6-Light Chandelier
Tray Side Table
French Country Upholstered Arm Chair
Wicker Trunk Set
French Ticking Stripe Pillow
Jute Area Rug
Mohair Throw
Rustic Industrial Farmhouse Shelves
Belgian Linen Sofa
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Rustic Wood Candlestick Set
French Market Basket
Linen Modern Wing Chair
French Country Farmhouse Baskets
Concrete Pillar Table Lamp
Boheme Madera Bench
Belgian Style Lamp
Kendall Skirted Dining Chair
White Charleston Sofa
Scrubbed Wood 5-Light Chandelier
Arched Champagne Wall Mirror
Moravian Star 1-Light Pendant
Highback Armchair
Mini Pendant Light
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Round Woven Placemat Set
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