National Gingerbread House Competition 2022 Top Ten winner
November 21, 2022
Omni Grove Park Inn, Asheville, NC
This year’s entry into the National Gingerbread House competition was one that has been on my bucket list for a while. Inspired by deer damage to one of my pots, this one pushed me outside my comfort zone to use new mediums and new techniques. From human figures to working with homemade colored gelatin sheets, I expanded my skill sets and opened up whole new territories for future work.
Pots
Since these were the heart and soul of the piece, and the main gingerbread component, it was important to get them right. First thing I always do is find a good example to look at so that I end up with a realistic final product – right scale, right color, right finish. For this build, I acquired several different sized clay pots to act as color guide, templates, and forms as I baked and shaped the pieces, and looked at pictures online of old, broken pots to ensure the final product had the right patina and had that “distressed” look.
Curved gingerbread is always a challenge. You are taking something that has a natural tendency to be flat and bending it without breaking it, and doing that on a scale that is competition worthy. Because of the size of this piece and how tight the curves needed to be, I couldn’t make it in one piece (believe me, I tried), so ended up with 3 big pieces and one small one in the front. I baked them flat then used the real clay pots as forms to shape them while still hot. This worked well and afterwards the entire piece was covered in ginger clay to mask the seams.
Fairy figures
The fairies were the first freehand human figures I have put on a show piece so were a step out of my comfort zone. They are made from a 50/50 mix of modeling chocolate and gum paste. Their clothes are a gum paste/fondant mix, molded in leaf shapes, shaded, and gilded. Faces, fingers, and toes are incredibly difficult to make look realistic and not cartoonish. The judges will note inconsistencies in scale and lack of details so there is still room for improvement.
Fairy Wings
The fairy wings are made of colored gelatin , which is a medium I have not worked in before. The gelatin has to be poured thin to not be brittle, but has to be thick enough to hold its shape and not curl in humidity. Once dried, you can paint it with food color and alcohol to get very nice watercolor effects. I used pictures of butterflies, moths, and fairies to create individual wings for each fairy that matched her theme. As a finishing touch, they had to be gilded for that fantasy feel a fairy wing needs.
The Details
Gingerbread Clay Pot Fairy Garden 
Lots of details give any piece extra depth and dimension – and they can cover a host of sins! From top to bottom and 360 degrees around, you have to give the judges’ eyes a feast of detail!
Starting with the board – I used a round oak table top from Home Depot and spent weeks with a router and sander making it look like a terra cotta drip tray. Due to my woodworking skills (or lack thereof) I ended up with an already distressed product. I painted it using acrylics to match the main pot and then attached the risers to make it easy to lift and carry.
Because this is a garden, you have to have plants. I found pictures of colorful succulents and used a 50/50 mix of colored fondant and gum paste to create the lighter colored ones and colored ginger clay for the darker ones. Using petal dust, each leaf was shaded for a realistic effect and then they were scattered throughout the pots. The insects and animals were created in the same way and added to the structure.
Finally, to finish it off I needed to cover the remaining exposed areas with something that was realistic. Succulents are often planted with a pebble mulch cover so rocks it would be! Luckily I have a pebble path in the backyard so I had examples galore at my finger tips. I used several colors of ginger clay, marbled them in different ratios, and then sat for hours pinching off little pieces and forming small rocks. If you think that took forever, attaching them to the piece took hours and hours as each one had to be dipped in tylose adhesive and placed with tweezers. It was worth the time as it pulled it all together, covered the screws on the base, and every single judge remarked on the realistic use, color, shape, and quantity of the rocks! I used ground gingerbread and Oreos as “dirt”and sprinkled it throughout to mask any visible adhesive residue.
Another year is in the books and it was a good one placing in the top 10 with over 100 adult entries this year. As always, I could not do this without the support (and tolerance) of my wonderful husband who not only puts up with 6 weeks of chaos as the deadline approaches but also puts up with, and actively encourages, a wife on the edge of exhaustion and patience at that same time. My gingerbread widower is the best husband ever!