I love a gingerbread village at Christmas time. Someday I want to have a collection of beautiful realistic looking faux gingerbread homes to display at Christmas.

Since those gorgeous fake gingerbread homes are currently not in my budget, I thought I would try my luck with a creating a budget friendly gingerbread village.

Last year after Christmas I picked up a few ready made gingerbread houses at the grocery store. They were discounted to around a couple of dollars.

I pulled them out this year and they were still in perfect condition, and ready to be decorated!

Instead of using royal icing, or the icing that the kit came with, I decided to use a spackling compound.

I did not want to use royal icing because I found it too delicate and it breaks so easily. I did use the pastry bags and tips provided in the gingerbread kit to pipe the compound on. The spackling compound is the exact consistency of buttercream frosting and I was able to use food dye with it. I dyed half of my icing pink.

Once that was finished, I went to work on creating the details on my houses. I googled pictures of gingerbread houses to get an idea of how I wanted mine to look like.

They are definitely not perfect, but did create the Christmas atmosphere that I was looking for.

Each gingerbread house received a dusting of sparkling snow.

I think they turned out pretty well. 

They are the perfect addition to my kitchen table for the holidays, and extremely budget friendly!