Craft a Gingerbread Castle for American Girl Dolls

The dolls are admiring their latest Christmas desert; a giant castle made
  from faux gingerbread. The white icing looks just like real snow.

Supply List:

• colorful sheets of foam
• hole punch
• ric-rac
• tiny tiles (optional)
• white puffy paint
• hot glue and hot glue gun
• tiny pine tree(s)
• white colored pencil
• brown paper bags
• white school glue
• brown acrylic paint
• tiny colorful beads (optional)
• toilet paper tubes
• corrugated cardboard and thin cardboard

Instructions and Detailed Photographs for Crafting a Doll Sized Gingerbread Castle

This is just one way to build a candy castle.

       First cut the toilet roll tubes down to equal sizes and place at the four corners of a rectangle drawn on top of a piece of scratch cardboard. Use masking tape and white glue to attach these firmly to the cardboard. Cut walls of your castle from flat pieces of cardboard and include a large arched door where the cobble street may pass under to get inside the courtyard of your gingerbread castle.

Collect several thicknesses of cardboard for this project. Don't be afraid to experiment with texture and weight.

       Cut and curl light weight cardboard into cone shapes and tape these firmly into place on top of each tower. Finish covering the rest of your structure with masking tape.

Although I like to see inside the courtyard, I think I would prefer to give this palace a roof instead.

       Mix together part water to part white school glue and layer shredded scraps of brown paper bag dipped into this mixer all over the castle form. This will strengthen the castle towers and walls. 

Although the brown paper looks a bit like gingerbread, I still think it needs to be darker so that the
white pencil will show up nicely.

       Layer several levels of the corrugated cardboard to form a hill with a moat for the castle. Glue the castle onto the top layer and shape a road to inter through the arched castle door.

I prefer the roof don't you?

      After shaping my castle structure, I decided to include a roof. One of the nice things about learning to work with paper mache is that you can change your mind about how something should look after finishing parts of a design. It's easy to simply add more parts and glue paper over these if you decide your castle is in need of a roof!

Try different shaped hole punches to make all kinds of pretend Christmas candy to paste onto your gingerbread.

       Paint the structure a nice gingerbread brown color using acrylic paints and punch out multiple colors of faux mints to cover your castle's roof. Layer these tiny candy shingles using the hot glue gun.

It's easy to cover the edges of corrugated cardboard with puffy paint and faux candy tiles.

       Now comes my favorite part. I used the white puffy paint as though it was icing. Squeeze out all the decorative touches, adding dots of snowy icing to every space on the faux castle!
       I stuck tiny tiles that reminded me of hard candies around the outside of the large castle door and also around the candy hill and lining the chocolate river bed.

The dolls love the rick-rack trim on the towers and the silver beads across the roof top; these look just like real candy!

       I also used a woven strapping tape to imitate an intricate icing pattern for the castle walls. 

       Then I shaded in a cobble stone road and ice on the chocolate river using the white colored pencil on top of the brown painted surfaces.

Front and side views of the completed, doll sized, gingerbread castle project.

The back side and an additional view of the gingerbread castle for our 18inch dolls.

More Gingerbread Castles:

• Gingerbread Castle by Jessica S.
• How to Make A Gingerbread House Cake with Chocolate, Buttercream, Candy and Icing
• Easy Gingerbread House Decorating Techniques by Wilton
• Winning Designs from 25th National Gingerbread House Competition