"Up on the Rooftop" Gingerbread Figures & Accents

Take a peek through the windows- this gingerbread house comes fully furnished!  The next step of the gingerbread house construction after baking the pieces and decorating the interior and exterior walls (found here in the 1st post), was creating the gum paste figures including Santa, the spilled packages from Santa's bag, the dog, furniture, rocks and logs.

I was able to bring a few supplies with me to work to make Santa at my desk.  I colored some gum paste red, black and flesh tone.  I started with Santa's head- making a round ball and then shaping the head.  Next, I poked two holes for the eyes and sculpted a mouth.  Then I placed a small ball for his nose and added the white mustache, beard and eyebrows.  Last was a strip of hair around the back of his head and small round balls for his ears.  Then on to his body- shaping shoes, two legs, & torso.

Then I added the white fur trim to the legs and waist, the belt & buckle and lastly, the arms with white fur trim and the gloves.

I loved Santa's bald head so much that I couldn't cover it up with a hat, so I made a hat to set next him in the snow.  My original idea was to have Santa on the roof in the sleigh, but with his gaze turned up, he needed to be down in the snow.  A co-worker gave me the idea to make it appear as though he slid off the roof and is looking back up like "now what".

Here are the other gum paste accents.  The wrapped presents were so much fun to make.  I actually build little boxes with a few of them.  The bows were easier than expected.  I took a ball of gum paste and smooshed it into a triangle- pinching the point and then took a pair of scissors and cut 3 slits for the bow.  Wrap the package with a thin strip for the ribbon and attach the bow by pressing the point with a sharp tool.  The small brown pieces above the packages are the legs of the chair.

The dog is actually left over from here (oh, and these cookies here) and you can see how I made the rocks and the creek by looking at this post of a Trail cake I made a year ago.  Below, you'll see how I made the trees.  There is a decorated tree in the center of the room inside the house and trees with lights on the exterior of the house.  I covered the sugar cone with green royal icing to make sure the frosting would stick as I piped tree branches and placed round sprinkles.

Time to set the walls!  After setting the walls with royal icing (you can follow the recipe from this post), I rolled out a very thin piece of wood grain looking gum paste for the hard wood floors and then placed the decorated Christmas tree, presents, table with bowls/spoons/cups, stools, chair, and coffee table with gifts.  This was probably the most fun part- I felt like I was playing with a dollhouse!

Then I just filled in the scenery- adding the snow covered ground- leaving a walk way- and the creek, placing the rocks and more trees.

Santa still needed a sleigh and Rudolph on top of the roof, so I paused here to decorate the reindeer and sleigh cookies with my niece and nephew who came over to help.  The sleigh was made 3D by placing a small square cookie (size of the window cutouts) in the front and back of 2 cookies.  Rudolph is double-sided as well.

I had the kids watch me as I decorated the sleigh and reindeer and they took over with their own cookies.

 I am so impressed with how well they did using royal icing for the first time!

Santa's bag is brown colored gum paste rolled thin in the shape of a circle.  I placed the rolled gum paste on my palm and filled the bag with small pieces of baked gingerbread to look like packages in the bag.  Gather the bag around the gingerbread pieces.  Then I used a tool to make a stitching pattern around the top of the bag.

Next time, I'll share the interior shots and exterior shots looking in to the gingerbread house.  For the gingerbread house design, construction and baking, click to this post.  To see my gingerbread houses from last year, click here.  I'd love for you to follow WorthPinning on FB by clicking here.