shivver | And the winner is...

Me! Well, tied for first with the house built by the company owner/CEO and his wife (who works as office manager). Only about 2/3 of the people in the office voted, so I suppose my victory is about as valid as any American election. They ceded the win to me, so I received a bag of a lot of chocolate, Skittles, Shakespeare insult bandages, and a Shark Bite with Lollipop. The Shark Bite is awesome. I am now the terror of the office.

Here are the entries:

First, the boss's house.

Honestly, it's gorgeous. Most of the entries were far better designed and executed than mine (I still have no idea why I won - I think it was the light), but this is probably the best. The river is blue frosting, and the trees are all individually crafted. And that bridge is just adorable.

Then the bulk of the entries.

This is the one I voted for. It was created by the COO and his kids (each one made one house), and I just loved the ingenious use of the different candies, especially the Rolo chimney with the frosting smoke.

One of the backend devs made this one, and he basically just went to the store, bought all the different kinds of candies he could find, and used them in any way he could think of. Totally fun!

This one was made by the manager of the project I'm on, and unfortunately, he dropped the house as he was taking it out of the box and it broke. So, he put it back together the best he could and made the outhouse with the extra pieces. I think it's awesome.

Not sure who made this one (Brandon, I think), but I love the Starburst sidewalk.

I used to know who made this one, but I forgot. FF is the initials of the company.

The one on the left was made by one of the developers who poured a bunch of small candies as gravel all around on it. Then, every time he passed by the display, he'd grab a handful to eat. The one on the right was also by a developer, with his kids. It's a monster house. Apparentlly, after the entries arrived, he took pics and sent them to his kids to show them their competition, and they texted back, "Aw man, the TARDIS is going to win!"

And finally, the artist's castle.

Three pictures, because there was no way to capture this with only one. Note the Rapunzel with her hair flowing down one of the towers. The windows are baked Lifesavers - crumble them, then bake them so they melt into varied-colored panes. There's a light inside the castle so you can see them, but it was hard to see even if you knew it was there.

Why this didn't win, I don't know, but I have a theory. The company bought the house kits for this and the contest was to decorate the kits. I think people didn't vote for this simply because it wasn't in the spirit of the contest to overwhelm everyone else by baking your own gingerbread and creating a castle that was six times the size of everyone else's.