21 Gingerbread House Decorating Ideas, From Coconut Snow to Pretzel Window Boxes

Give your gingerbread houses an upgrade with these clever decorating ideas.

Whimsical, fantastical, and fun, the best part of making gingerbread houses is the decorating. Even better? All you need to make a next-level gingerbread house are easy-to-find candy and ingredients, and a little inspiration. Here are our favorite gingerbread house decorating ideas to help you make your gingerbread house — whether store-bought or homemade — a little extra this year.

First, plan your setting. The table where you will display your gingerbread house is ideal, but a large cutting board or platter will also work. To set up a picturesque mountain town with a group of gingerbread houses in varying sizes, use our gingerbread house template to create the different sized houses. Drape a tiered surface with a white cloth and set up rosemary pine trees. Place mini houses along the horizon line. Position larger houses at the base.

Reach for bright and colorful candies

From grocery store favorites to seasonal and nostalgic vintage styles, candies are classic gingerbread house decorations, putting sparkle and color at your fingertips.

Related: How to Make Candy Magic at Home

Hard candies

Lollipops, fruity candies, starlight mints, candy canes, and crystallized rock sugar all fall into this category. Use them for paths, roof tiles, trim, and accents. Melt hard candy for window panes and skylights.

Candy-coated shells

A wide range of colors make these chocolate candies very versatile. Buy in bulk by color from a retailer like ohnuts.com for monochromatic looks. Use the treats for roof shingling, trim along the house eaves, and other accents. Cinnamon candies can work similarly here.

Gummies and gumdrops

Soft and sugary, these candies give a wintery effect to houses and landscapes. Use for shrubbery, wreaths, and accents.

Candy canes

Old-fashioned candy sticks and candy canes come in swirly colors and line up well as siding for a house front, back, or roof.  Cut to make window boxes, archways, and trim eaves.

Sour ribbons and gum

Arrange strips in rows for quick roofing jobs. Tie into bows or cut out shapes for fun details like skis and sleds.

Sprinkles and nonpareils

Use for doorknobs, or arrange in a circular pattern for a wreath. As trim, these tiny confections make the sweetest little accents.

Use crunchy snacks to give it a woodsy feel

You probably have half of these items in your pantry already — cereal, spices, and snacks like pretzel sticks and cookies. Think outside the box and imagine them as natural wood for your construction needs.

Cereal

Round oats can become tiny wreaths; flat or waffled cereal squares work beautifully for “wooden” roof shingles.

Pretzels

Trim house eaves with thick rods. Lay slim pretzel sticks side by side, and glue them together with royal icing to create a fence. Waffled pretzels make great doors and shutters, and they can even serve as windows (if you didn’t cut them out of the dough).

Seeds and nuts

Shingle a roof or add trim with sliced almonds or pepitas (pumpkin seeds). Whole almonds pressed into gingerbread dough before baking become brickwork for chimneys or siding.

Spices and herbs

Star anise’s shape makes it a stellar design element. Cut and stack cinnamon sticks for a wood pile. Use woody herbs like rosemary in evergreen-inspired trims.

Cookies and cones

Cigar-shaped cookies can act as trim, fence posts, and roof tiles. Ice cream cones, brushed and flocked with green decorating sugar, become conical pine trees.

Coconut

Sprinkle coconut flakes around the base of the house for snow-covered porches or lawns.

Be a little extra with wreaths, trees, and a deer head

A piped-on garland and plain white icing accents the front of this gingerbread house. Sliced almond shingles form the roof tiles. A bricklike chimney is made from gingerbread baked with whole almonds.

Hang wreaths and garlands

Bend herbs or arrange tiny candies in a circle — or simply  attach a round, green gummy candy to make a wreath. The gingerbread house pictured above uses royal icing tinted green for a piped-on garland.

Grow a forest

Bundle rosemary sprigs for evergreen trees. Dust with powdered sugar to create snow-covered branches.

Mount a deer head

Shape two to three soft caramels into the shape of a deer head. Attach broken mini pretzels for antlers.

Put up window boxes

Saw pretzel logs or candy canes to window width; attach below window frames for planters; attach herbs to the boxes.

Make an entrance

Erect a pretzel fence; sprinkle coconut for snowy ground cover; and lay a path of pebbly candies, tiny baked gingerbread bricks for a pathway. Melt blue hard candies for an ice-skating pond. Find mini figurines of skiers and sledders to complete your wintry scene at etsy.com.

Trim with royal icing and sugar

You can pipe royal icing into a grid design for a shingled effect, rather than attaching candy to your roof pieces. Pipe small dots of royal icing along edges and embellishments to further define your house front designs.

Add woodlike beams

Pretzel sticks can be used to create a rustic barn-style door or bring in a wood-shed vibe. Cut pretzels to size as needed.

Make it glow

Slip a small string of LED or battery-operated tea lights inside the house, or attach like trim along the eaves.