Our Gingerbread Farm – The Decorations
Our gingerbread farm decorations evolved as we built it out. Although we planned the sizes of the structures to ensure everything would fit on our board, the decoration inspiration came as we saw and purchased items from the store. Thinking outside of the box while browsing the candy aisle at the grocery store was indeed the name of the game!
Husband and I put much of our time into the small details of the gingerbread build to make the scene as realistic as possible. While all of the materials are food items, we did not want a whimsical looking gingerbread house. That drove many of the decoration decisions. Let’s highlight a few of the decorations!
CHECK OUT: MY FIRST GINGERBREAD HOUSE
Trees
Trees on our gingerbread farm were made from sugar cones covered in shredded wheat cereal mixed in food color and candy melt. We added a festive touch with mini M&M and Nerds candies to mimic Christmas lights. I used the white icing to adhere the candies to the trees and it looks like specks of snow.
Windows
Barn Windows
For the barn windows, we used square pretzels shaved down to fit in the precut holes. What I love most about these are that they were crumbling and breaking as I was shoving them into the spaces. In my opinion this made the windows look old and weathered. I love it!
House
Due to a major mishap on my part, the front windows and back windows of the house are different. The front windows are butterscotch hard candies melted into the precut window spaces. The back windows are slightly melted sticks of gum. To me, it looks like curtains on the back windows.
Raised bed garden
When we were planning, I did not think that our gingerbread farm decorations would be complete without some type of garden. With a winter scene, there were limited options for what would be realistically grown in the garden. With that in mind, I stuck with just placing the raised garden beds and not worrying about having anything in them. The garden beds are made out of vanilla wafers cut in half. The dirt inside of them are the shavings from the gingerbread.
FOR MORE ABOUT HOW AND WHY WE SHAVED THE WALLS, READ: Our Gingerbread Farm – The Best Tips and Tools
Driveway
A thinly rolled piece of gingerbread dough is the foundation of the driveway. Prior to baking, we used a drying rack to make the gridlines; using a dough scraper to make them deeper. The shape of the driveway was initially freehanded on to a piece of paper, cut out and placed on the board to make sure it fit. The paper became the template for the gingerbread dough.
Chicken coop
Graham crackers covered in small pretzel pieces make up the walls for our gingerbread farm’s chicken coop. We used thick pretzels as the posts to hold the coop above the ground. The ramp utilizes the same materials and leans up to the main structure.
Read more about our build!
My First Gingerbread House
First time building a gingerbread house from scratch
The Basics
Details on the decorations to make our farm festive
The Best Tools and Tips
Compilation of the best tools and the tips that helped us the most
