Make an easy quick gingerbread cottage

This is my take on a summer non-Christmasy type gingerbread house. We did this also at Kalla's party. I got the inspiration from this by Martha's no bake cookie cottages. I figured they would make adorable fairytale type cottages.

Supplies needed are graham crackers, icing and decorations. I found these cool chocolate 'rocks' and the colorful fruit wedges at Walmart. The pretty candy flowers I got from Bake It Pretty.
For the icings, you want a royal icing that will harden for building the cottage (I found this bottle of cookie icing at Walmart on clearance). The cake decorating icings can be used for decorating.
We also used a bunch of miscellaneous bulk candy and sprinkles to decorate. I made the 'grass' by taking a bag of shredded coconut and adding green food coloring and toss with a fork til thoroughly colored.

Here is how I built the cottage:
To make one cottage, you need total 4 rectangle graham crackers. Break 2 in half to make 4 squares. Carefully cut the top half of 2 crackers to make the sides of the roof (I used a serrated knife) and one skinny piece for the very top (I used my broken piece pile to cut my skinny pieces from).
To put together I found it easiest to lay the squares for the sides down and put a line of icing along the top edges and then press the edges of the tall sides onto them. Once you've secured the bottom, repeat that idea for the squares for the roof and place them gently on the sloped edges. I always had a gap at the very top so I used the skinny piece to place on top. Once the whole thing is secure, begin to decorate. It is easiest to put the frosting on the piece you want to place on your cottage.
Then play the candy with the icing 'glue' on them to the cottage where ever you please.

We built them on sturdy paper plates to let dry and take home. Other fun ideas to add would be the gumdrop mushrooms shown in this article.

A few last tips:
If you are doing this for a group project of party like I did, you might want to consider putting the cottage together ahead of time and letting the kids do the decorating (I didn't do this as I ran out of time, but would of gone smoother/quicker on party day). Also it took me several boxes to get enough for 12 cottages as many of the pieces were already broken when I opened it and they are easy to break when trying to cut as well. Be prepared for lots of scraps (I saved mine for afternoon snack times).