We bought a gingerbread house kit from a local craft store that came with everything you need...gingerbread, icing mix, and lots of candy decorations. This is the gingerbread, trimmed to shape and laid out, ready for assembly.

Put the supplied icing mixture into a bowl and add 5 tbsp plus one tsp warm water.

Use an electric mixer to beat the icing on low speed for about 4 minutes.

The finished icing is about the consistency of toothpaste.

Put the finished icing in an icing bag for easy application.

Using the icing as glue, attach the wall pieces one at a time.

After all the wall pieces are "glued" together, let them set for about 30 minutes. We used soup cans to hold it up while the icing hardened.

After the walls had set and the icing "glue" had hardened, I added icing to the top edges and set the roof pieces in place.

The first decoration to go into place was the top of the roof. I lined it with extra icing and then placed peppermint candies along the top.

I added lines with icing and decorated them with little sugar candies that came with the gingerbread house kit.

Then I added swirl designs onto the roof with the icing, and added icicles made of icing to the roofline.

This is the front of the gingerbread house, with the details being added. The wreath on top is made of the same little sugar candies and gumdrops, held in place with icing.

Here's a shot of the icicles on the side of the gingerbread house...also made with icing. Also a better view of the icing swirls and candies on the roof.

This is the back of the house...the colors on the windows are made of gumdrops rolled flat and attached with icing.

I'm adding snow to the ground using a spatula to spread icing all over the cardboard base.

Here's our gingerbread house, all finished! I added more candy details to the snowy ground, including a gumdrop walkway and a candy snowman and christmas tree which were included with the Kit.