Absolutely stunning! You figured out how to solve some of the problems that eluded me (like the fence). Fantastic detail. I'm glad it did so well.

I'm a gingerbread hack but I had a great time making the "Up" house and clearly you did too. Well done. I'm so impressed with your CLEAN detailing and I LOVE the Chocolate Carl.

Our house ended up in a bidding war and eventually sold for $800. I guess we both picked the right theme this year!

Thanks for the comments Cynthia,

The fence was something I was worried about but Tanya had been making them for her houses in past years so I knew it could be done.

To make the fence, I decided I was not up to piping the fence posts with royal icing as Tanya had in the past. I made gum-paste and modified a cross shaped cookie-cutter to look like the fence posts. It was a quick way to make identical posts very quickly. I let them dry overnight, flipping them once to make sure they did not stick (I always lay out parchment paper under materials I roll out to help prevent sticking).

Then I used a pizza cutter and just cut some long strips for the rails... they are fragile so you have to make more than you think you need...

The final step is to take the fence posts and lay them out upside down (face down) evenly spaced, then apply your royal icing to them where they intersect the rails...
(continued next comment...)

...continued

gently push down to secure the rails to the posts.

Every 4 or so posts, add another fence post face up on-top of the rail (sandwich the rail between the bottom face down fence post and the new face up fence post) On a real fence you could think of these as sturdy 4x4 posts.

Let it dry overnight and you should be able to stand the fence upright in the morning. The double posts should allow it to stand on its own so it should be easy to secure to your base.

One important note... if you are securing a fence to the base, make sure you use a VERY sturdy base that WILL NOT BOW or BEND or your fence will shatter when you move the gingerbread house. Double your base if necessary or slip a piece of plywood under it like a big spatula when moving your house to prevent breakage from the base bending.

I was just passing through crafster and saw the photo of your amazing house. My daughters and I loved the movie and thought your house was too adorable. They now want an Up playhouse! I can't bake a thing, but would love to try this little house. Your craft is stunning!

Cat

I was online looking for toys from the movie Up when I ran across your adorable gingerbread house. My son is just crazy about the movie and I have been trying to figure out how to make one myself. I wont be making one out of gingerbread but I will be making one out of wood. Thank you, you have made such a wonderful house full of details and color along with a chocolate Carl. You should be so proud of the hard work you have done. I hope the one we make will look as beautiful as yours.

I just saw the movie and I found your blog through CRAFT blog. I just wanted to say, "AH-MAZING!!!"

Constructing complicated houses like this can be difficult if you do not plan ahead and have a good idea of exactly what you are building. I always start with a foam-core mock-up of the house and pull it apart and use the pieces as my templates for the gingerbread.

I generally look online for paper-craft versions of the building I want to construct and build the paper model as a reference first. From that point, I can decide how to adapt it into gingerbread and build my plans for the foam-core version.

As I construct the gingerbread version, I usually build it one cookie sheet at a time and test my templates against what is constructed before cutting more gingerbread in order to make sure they still fit where I expect them too, as gingerbread tends to shrink and deform quite a bit in the oven.

Fabulous!!

Such a visual and culinary delight! It looks delicious.

Wow -- and it only got second place? I want to see pics of first place!

absolutely AMAZING!
AND adorable :)
you guys did a magnificent job!

Wow!!!!!!!!!!
i like so much the gingrebread House, congratulations Greg. :)
Saludos desde Chile!

WOW! this is so awesome! great job!

This is INSANE! I made the most basic and tiny little gingerbread house recently and found it the most frustrating task requiring so much patience and a really delicate touch.
I honestly cannot even beging to imagine how you achieved it, but it is magical and really in the spirit of the film!

This is a truly incredible gingerbread house. Congratulations!!

Me en-can-ta!!
Enhorabuena!!
Impresionante trabajo y precioso acabado, además de perfecta elección del motivo.

That's awesome.

Hullo Greg,

What can I say, the house is just simply awesome! I decorate wedding cakes etc. and tried my hand at my first gingerbread house this Christmas. I can really appreciate how difficult and time consuming this project was - congratulations on finishing it and making a simply stunning job. I am sure you are very happy with it :) You are just amazing - such a good job.

I am in awe,
Heather

Just wanted to say that this is AMAZING! I'm actually doing a cake version of this for my sons 3rd bday complete with marshmallow balloons (hopefully lol) I was having alot of problems finding pictures of the house to reference until I found your gingerbread house! Needless to say you made a rather large task seem doable after I saw it has been accomplished (very well in fact) before. These pictures have been a lifesaver when it comes to ideas for making this cake come to life...

I just want to build such a house for my friend as a gift, I happend to see this cake house. It's really perfect and I love it very very much. I've already bought paper to build this,but not yet start, maybe in the future I'll construct wood one. I'm just wondering whether this cake has been eaten? :)

amazing one of a kind

Elize George
South Afrika

oh my gosh....this is sooooo good. i have never seen anyone do this good before. youre a pro

Just ran across your great little house! Our Relay For Life team is using the same house prototype because our theme is "UP Up and Away!" A family member built our (wood, playhouse size) house which will be raffled at the relay in August. I appreciate the time and effort you went to for your house; it's definately a winner! Hope ours is too!

Wow, amazing!

WOW!! I just found the UP! house searching on Google for some ideas for our local contest this year. It is so wonderful. Thanks for sharing all of the ideas. If I try to replicate your beautiful house, I hope it looks 10% as good as yours.

Hi. I am doing a parade at my school and i have chosen to do the movie UP , and I need help on how to built the house. Is there any tips or steps you can help me on how to build the house.
Thank you, Shelby Piearce

MUY BONITA Y BIEN TRABAJADA ESTOY HACIENDO ESTA CASA PARA MY NIETECITA QUE CUMPLE 2ANOS DE EDAD Y SU TEMA ES DE LA PELICULA UP. ESTOY MUY ENTUCIASMADA Y SU CASITA ME INSPIRO, LE PROMETO QUE TRATARE PARA QUE SE PARESCA A LA DE USTED. LE MANDAREMOS UNA FOTO CUANDO TERMINEMOS. MUCHAS GRACIAS

Who came first!?

i know what i am going to do this year aazing how long did it take you to do it ?

Very nice site!

LOVE it!!!

Hi there,

I loved your UP house. Every year I bake about 35 gingerbread houses to auction off to benefit local charities. I work at an Assisted Living and Memory Care and our residents love the event. This year we are donating to the Parkinsons Foundation. Any way, I was hoping that you could sell me a pattern of the Up house. Of course, my decorating will not be as amazing as yours, but I need the general house pattern to get me started. Please let me know if you could help me out with a pattern.

Sincerely,
Jeanette Chidester
801-568-9909

I love this house! I'm a junior in high school, and I'm trying to make this for our gingerbread house project but I'm having so much trouble with the templates! Do you have any tips?

I created my own pattern, but I started by working with the paper model Disney has here:

http://a.family.go.com/images/cms/disney/FinalUpHouse1f.pdf

I also highly recommend this papercraft model of the house. Don't forget to copy the password from the first page you land on after clicking that link so you can open their PDF. BTW: The link to their PDF is hard to find... look right before the comments at the bottom of the page for the link labeled "Carl's Flying House (UP Movie) template". Their model is very good and worth jumping through the hoops to get.

Once you have the model printed out, I would build it. From there you might blow up the printout and glue it to foam core, and built a 1:1 version of the house with foam-core poster board. Once you have the foam-core version worked out, tear it apart and use it as your template for the gingerbread construction.

If your gingerbread is sticky, you might want to use parchment paper (and also a very thin layer of non-stick spray on the parchment facing the gingerbread) between your foam-core and the gingerbread so it does not stick as you cut around the foam-core. Without the parchment paper barrier to separate the template from the bread as you cut, the foam-core sucks up the moisture from the gingerbread and sticks to the bread. If this happens, the surface of the dough will be ripped off as you pull away the template after making your cut which looks very ugly.

i love this!im a junior in highschool and i have a color scheme project for my floral design class and this is exactly what i had in mind and more! ive had the hardest time even finding anything close to this thank you it helps very much just to know this idea is possible.

Hi, My friend and I are going to attempt to make this house for our high school cooking project. We were wondering how you made the door and what was placed over top for the screen. Any other ideas for the fence because we wanted to try and make it as simple yet neat as possible. Thank you so much! Your house is so realistic and has such character.

Hi Alex,

The screen was just black food coloring sprayed on with a air brush. I cut a square hole in a plastic mask and simply gave it a quick shot of color to darken the gingerbread. I might suggest scoring your raw-gingerbread before baking it where you want the screen. You could just leave it like that after, or use some frosting on it and then wipe it off leaving the frosting in the grooves. Either dark or light frosting color for the fill would likely look nice. I would probably just leave the groves unfilled. If you don't have an air brush, you can find food color markers/pens at cake shops you can use to simply draw on the gingerbread.

We just finished our houses for 2011 and we used the scoring method on the pre-cooked bread to make the features on our doors. We also used a straw to cut out little holes it kind of looks like a screen.

I'll try to post some photos of the new houses later today.

Good Luck!

Coolest gingerbread house....EVER!