Gingerbread Castle

In the part of California where I live, it gets very hot in the summers. So, when my husband mentioned that he wanted to go to the Organic Stone Fruit Jubilee, I balked. I've been to this festival several years. The fruit is delicious. However, standing outside in the 99 degree weather didn't sound appealing to me today. I decided to stay home with the oldest while he took our younger daughter, who loves fruit of all kinds.

In order to keep my oldest from feeling left out, I brought out a Cinderella themed gingerbread castle I bought after Christmas at Walgreens for $3. I intended for us to put it together a long time ago, but a very hot summer day is as good as any. I've never actually made a gingerbread house before, so this was a learning experience for me, too.

Here's what the box and castle are supposed to look like:

Here's the finished project, at least the front anyway:

I've decided I don't like the stars or hearts very much for this kind of project because the frosting gets everywhere, though I guess some might say that is part of the fun! The gumdrops worked much better. I did use some toothpicks to help apply frosting on to the back of some of the candies. I really don't know how they expect a reasonable person to be able to get frosting into the grooves like they have on the box, much less a child. I've decided that this Christmas, I might go to a candy store with the kids and try and pick out some candy for our own gingerbread house. I did like that this bought kit had grooves in the base for holding the castle walls together. I'm going to have to do a Pinterest search for tips before we do our next gingerbread house.