Christmas Market Gingerbread House

Today I'm writing about this year's gingerbread house.

 

Last year I made a gingerbread house decorated not only on the outside but also on the inside, and I liked it so much that I decided to make the same kind this year.

I was impressed by the carousel in the music video "Blue Hour" by TXT, a KPOP group my older daughter loves, (they are of the same agency as BTS) , and I wanted to make carousel cookies like that. As I wrote in my IG post, this video is pretty well made and beautiful. It's worth watching even if you're not interested in KPOP.

When I looked at some Christmassy images on Pinterest, I realized that in the West, Christmas markets sometimes include mobile amusement parks like carousels, so I thought it would be a great idea to have a Christmas market inside a carousel. (In Japan, I've never seen or heard about mobile/temporary amusement parks.)

 I had been excited about the idea for quite a while, but I hadn't thought enough about the details, so I had to decide how to decorate while I was making it, which is not a good way for me. I usually spend a while thinking how I decorate in details before I start. 

 

First of all, I started with royal icing transfers of carousel horses. First, I tried to make them with just white icing and painted after drying, but they didn't turn out well, mainly because I'm not good at painting. The horses in the photo below were the second try, where I piped most of the details. I painted only the mint green parts and hoofs. The horses are about 2 cm tall.

I made other transfers using only white icing and painted them after.

 

 

Some of them didn't look like what they were meant to be, but I just wished they would look okay where they belong in the end.

Once the transfers were mostly done, I started icing the walls.

Since the music video depicts a carousel at night, I decided to apply runny navy icing with a paintbrush for the background. However, I thought it would't look good with a pretty elegant carousel, so I flooded over it and then piped roof and pillars.

 

 

For the inside of the shop, I applied runny navy icing with a paintbrush. Piping all the vertical lines of the shops were frustrating because I used the old icing and it didn't work well.  Plus, I couldn't concentrate well and it was hard to pipe lines equally.

Finishing icing the walls, now it was time to add transfers! This was the most fun part for me. I started with the horses on the carousel sides, because the shop sides have more fragile decorations such as leaves.

Then the shop sides. Nutcrackers, snowmen, and ornaments.

Next is a candy store.

 

Just in case, there are gingerbread men in bags, a cake in a dome and a cookie jar. Even the tiny red and white dots are transfers.


And a shop that sells gnomes and wreaths.

Last, a shop selling hot drinks. You might think that the pot would contain a magic green potion made by a witch, but it's meant to contain spiced hot wine. Actually I've never bought hot wine at a Christmas market and I don't know how it's usually served.

When it was almost finished, I realised that this house had no roof and completely open. I decided to make a roof to fit the shape of the building, but my plan had something wrong and it didn't fit at all.  This is why the roof is always open like this.