This DIY Halloween Gingerbread House idea is the perfect Halloween activity to do with your tweens and teenagers this Halloween season. Follow along with my video and easy step-by-step written tutorial so you can make these homemade Halloween cookie houses too.

Halloween is this weekend and I couldn’t be more excited about it. I’m not normally a huge Halloween-lover, but this year more than ever I’m looking for any excuse to have fun and be ultra festive! I’m totally being “extra” this year and loving every minute of it.

Before you click away from this post in fear that what I am about to share is going to be difficult, let me reassure you that my form of being “extra” isn’t hard at all. I’m all about finding easy ways to add seasonal activities and entertainment into your holiday festivities. 

This DIY Halloween Gingerbread House activity is a great example of how you can add a big dose of Halloween spirit and excitement into your home without killing yourself in the process. Believe me, if I can do a similar project like this with 20 fourth grade students you most definitely can do this with your own tweens and teenagers with no problem.

So, yes, the idea for these homemade Halloween cookie houses came from my days as an elementary school teacher. Every year for the winter holidays, we would make milk carton gingerbread houses with graham crackers, frosting, and candy. It was one of my favorite activities to do each school year and all my students went crazy for it!

My own son, Zach, went to the same school I taught in so he’s made his fair share of milk carton gingerbread houses throughout the years too. And even though he is now a senior in high school, he was so excited when I pitched him the idea of creating a spin-off DIY Halloween Gingerbread House this year for Halloween.

We decided to make a day out of it and invited Zach’s girlfriend over to join in the Halloween fun. These homemade Halloween gingerbread houses were one of the three activities we did. The other two were DIY Halloween tree ornaments and tie-dyed Halloween cookies. The activities kept them entertained for a few hours!

I want to stress to you as a parent of a teenager that big kids still very much enjoy doing seasonal crafts and activities. Gosh, I’m 38 years old and still enjoy doing them too. Hence my annual Pinterest parties! 

I want to encourage you to not put an age on when you think you should stop doing these fun holiday activities with your tweens and teens. What I’ve learned over the years of raising my own child is that they still have that little person deep down inside them. Not only that, they’re eager to recreate those fun childhood memories they had in their earlier years!

With your kids being older, they are able to work on activities like this completely independent from start to finish. I love that they’re much neater about things too! As a parent, you now have the luxury of sitting back and watching your tween or teen’s creativity unfold right before your eyes. 

You can even join along with them if you choose! I opted to be the person in the background refilling their supplies and making sure they didn’t need any help. Apparently, I wasn’t as ready for them to be independent as I thought. I think I might be a “Smother”…a mother who likes to smother too much!

DIY Halloween Gingerbread House

Chocolate graham crackers, small milk or orange juice cartons (I used pint-sized half & half cartons), chocolate frosting, an assortment of Halloween candy, aluminum foil, cardboard/cardstock/foam board (to use as something sturdy to hold your house)

Begin by covering your carton with aluminum foil. I recommend not covering the bottom of the carton so it will sit flush on the sturdy base. 

Using a butter knife, generously cover your entire carton with chocolate frosting. I purchased the whipped frosting variety and the kids said it worked better than regular frosting. 

With the carton completely covered in frosting, begin adding your chocolate graham crackers for the roof and walls of your Halloween gingerbread house. If you are using a carton that is a half-pint like the ones you receive with a school lunch, your graham crackers will line up almost identically with the sides of your carton. 

If you’re using a bigger carton as we did, you’ll have to do some cutting or breaking of the graham crackers to completely cover your Halloween haunted cookie house. We actually really loved the creepy effect that the broken graham crackers made. The imperfections made the house look super spooky!

Once you have your chocolate graham crackers on your haunted Halloween gingerbread house, walk away from it and let it dry. Ideally, an hour would be great for this. This gives your frosting time to dry and your graham crackers time to adhere securely to your milk carton. 

You’ll be grateful you allowed your Halloween cookie house to dry once you start adding on your Halloween candies. The weight of the additional frosting and candies will not hold up as well on a wet house that hasn’t settled quite yet.

I filled small bowls with Halloween candies for decorating. We used gummy worms, Brach’s autumn mix, and Halloween M&M’s for this but feel free to use any candy you want. 

I also filled some sandwich bags with chocolate frosting to make decorating a little easier for the kids. Push the frosting towards one corner of the Ziploc bag and then cut the tip off of it.

With all the decorating supplies ready to do, all that’s left to do is to design the most epic Halloween gingerbread house you can think up!

As you can see, both houses were completely different. We have the final product with more clean lines and meticulous details on this house.

And then we have the more abstract, let me see how much space I can cover with candy, on this Halloween cookie house.

Both are equally adorable might I add. Don’t you think?!

This DIY Halloween Gingerbread House idea was a huge success with these adorable teenagers. It was so much fun to watch what they created. I highly recommend trying out this Halloween activity with your own tweens and teens. Everyone will absolutely love it!

Want to remember this? Post this idea on How to Make a DIY Halloween Gingerbread House to your favorite Pinterest board!