There are a lot of ideas for candy and other edible items that you can use for a Hawaii or beach-themed gingerbread house.
This is a list of some items and ideas for things you could make with them to decorate a tropical island gingerbread house for a summer Christmas.
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Candy decorations for a beach-themed gingerbread house.
- White frosting for adding some detail to the ocean waves.
- Crushed graham crackers or vanilla wafer cookies to make sand.
- Candy or molded fondant in the shape of seashells to put on the beach.
- Blue frosting to make the ocean water around the house landscaping.
- Candy that looks like rocks for beach landscaping.
- Gummy fish or goldfish crackers to put in the ocean waves.
- Fruit Roll-Ups for beach towels or beach umbrellas.
- Sour Patch Kids and Gummy Bears for people sunbathing or playing in the water.
- Lifesavers candy for water float toys.
- Jawbreakers or gumballs for beach balls.
- Candy canes for porch railings or trim on the buildings.
- Dried coconut with green food coloring added to make palm tree fronds or beach grass.
- Sunflower seeds for rocks on the beach or stone walkways.
- Shredded wheat cereal to make a thatched roof on a beach hut.
For a list of candy to use for gingerbread houses, click here.
- Candy pearls to use to decorate the house.
- Round pretzels and pretzel sticks to glue into the shape of chairs for a patio.
- Wafer paper monstera leaves for plants around the house.
- Pretzel rods to make a beach house built on stilts.
- Gelatin sheets to make large windows in the house.
- Twizzlers for palm tree trunks (bundle a few together.)
- Pretzel sticks to make bamboo window shades.
- Pretzel sticks to make the logs in a beach bonfire.
- Red fruit leather cut into pointy shapes to make the flames in the beach bonfire.
- White lifesavers with red twizzler strips cut into thin lines to make a boat’s life saver ring to hang on the wall of the house.
- Pretzel rods cut into logs to make the planks for a deck or a raft.
- Biscotti cookies for surf boards.
- SpongeBob candy to use for characters in the yard.
- Stack mini Reese’s cups to make the trunk of a plan tree.
- Pretzel rods with a red or orange gumdrop for a flame to make tiki torches.
- Ground-up gingerbread or graham crackers mixed with brown royal icing to make balls for a sand snowman.
- Colorful small candy to make a reef in the water.
- Royal icing used to make coral (read the article about how to make microwave coral here)
And a non-edible idea…Drink umbrellas to use for beach umbrellas.
Ideas for how to decorate a gingerbread beach house.
To decorate a beachy gingerbread house, you’ll want to make the house a part of the scene, but most of the details will probably be around the house.
After decorating the house with a thatched hut roof and making a deck around it from pretzel rods, you can put most of your creativity into the landscaping.
Use a larger base board so that you have a lot of space to work with as far as decorations go. (This article talks about what to build gingerbread houses on for transporting them.)
Place the house toward the back of the scene, and use the front part to create a sandy beach that borders some blue water.
Add beach accessories, palm trees, a bonfire pit, and things like stones and beach grass on the beach.
Add blue water with icing, and add some fish, shells, and waves to the water.
Use some white icing to show the surf on the sand and the crests of waves in the water.
Bunch some small, colorful candies in the water to make a little coral reef that peeks out. In this photo, I used some dried-out cotton candy that I crushed into white dust.
You could also use some of the beach landscaping ideas to decorate around a gingerbread lighthouse (get the free template for the lighthouse here.)
