So we usually do little, tiny, gingerbread houses. We use the milk carton as the base and it's a lot of fun. My friend, Shirley said that she premakes the houses, but that instead of frosting she hot glues them together! What a wonderful idea, I thought.

They look good and they were super sturdy, but it was not as easy as I thought it would be. First of all my thumb on my left hand will never be the same again!! I lost count of how many times I burned, it but it was a lot. I had a hard time getting the initial wall standing up because all it was glued to was the cardboard. Somehow I made the first one work.

On the second house I ended up using Popsicle sticks as braces. It made the second one a little bit easier to glue together. It took me forever to makes these. It was about 1 & 1/2 hours in the making. I also went through a ton of glue sticks. Shirley must have it down to a science, because it was nowhere near as easy as I had pictured it.

The finished product. Not as cool, as I would have liked them to have been, but they worked and they were very sturdy. No collapsing walls or caved in ceilings. They held up well to the frosting and the kids decorating them. We used regular old frosting from a jar this year and it did not work as well for putting the candy on. Here is a great recipe if you need a really stiff frosting for decorating.

2 eggs whites

1 pound Powder sugar

½ tsp. cream of tartar

Beat egg whites until stiff and add tartar and mix. Then add powder sugar and mix until creamy and stiff. Put in plastic baggies and cut the tip of the bag at the bottom corner to create a frosting bag. You can add food coloring to your frosting to add a little bit more color. Remember not to eat this frosting. It is for decorating only! Probably wouldn't hurt ya, but better safe than sorry!

We used this frosting for our Haunted Houses this year and it works really well. I don't think I will do regular frosting again. Just didn't work as well.

Messy, but fun! The kids love to decorate them and we have the tradition of taking them out and using them for target practice after the holiday 's!! Dual purpose! And they make for such festive holiday decor.