A Last Minute Craft for Little Ones: Gingerbread Boys

Every year I give the little guy a craft project so he can make some gifts to give to his loved ones. Last year we made Snowmen; this year we are making Gingerbread Boys(or Girls if you add eyelashes). It is an easy peasy idea. I've included a template to use as the body shape. We used left over cardboard inserts as the body since they are nice and sturdy but you could just as easily use brown construction paper if you have it on hand. As a matter of fact, every thing we used was what we had on hand. I'll give some possible substitutions.

What you'll need:

Cardboard

All purpose shears (we used our kitchen shears)

Construction paper (we used black, red and green glitter paper)

Large paper punch

Ric-Rac ribbon( I had some that is felt-like but any kind would do. If you have pinking shears, you could even cut out strips of plain white paper)

Small glitter pompoms (you could use construction paper punches instead)

Body template

All purpose school glue

Black Sharpie marker

Satin ribbon(for hanger)

Any other additions you'd like; crayons, glitter, markers, paint

body template

Step 1: Cut out body template and trace onto cardboard or brown construction paper (I traced it onto the back with the sharpie marker) Cut out body. Depending on your child's cutting ability and strength they may need help with this step.

 Step 2: Punch out some black and red circles. Glue in place for eyes and cheeks. Your little one can also paint or draw on the face.

Step 3: Add some buttons. We glued on glitter poms but feel free to use real buttons, punched paper, drawn or painted buttons, whatever you have available.

Step 4: Add "piping". We used our ric-rac, you could also 'pipe' on some glitter glue, dimensional paint, pinked paper strips, yarn, painted or drawn zigzags.

Step 5: Draw on smile and other features. This one has eyelashes so we consider it a girl. You could add a nose of some sort; we didn't like the ones we came up with no we skipped it. Add hair, clothing, etc. If you want to use the finished Gingerbread boy as an ornament punch a hole in the top center and run a ribbon (or yarn) through it. They are fairly large but very light weight and would look adorable hanging on the bottom half of the tree.

Hope you enjoy this little craft tutorial. I hope to add some more in the upcoming months.

From Our Family To Your Family, We Wish You a Very Merry Christmas!

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christmas elves

Finally, we are getting our decorations up. With school and the craziness, we haven't had a chance to get them up as early as I usually do but after spending the better part of the day cleaning and decking, we are finally getting somewhere. I'm really loving the kitchen this year. Since we are in a house built in the Sixties, I really am playing up the Mid Century inspired decorations and featuring some of my collectibles.(one of which I decimated when I was cleaning it to put out. I glued him back together but killed whatever value he would have had. Oh well! He's still cute)

 

I love when you take pictures of your home and you realize that there are certain things you should find a new home for. Case in point, my mass quantity of gallon sized Ziplocs.  I use them when I make batches of play dough. Needless to say I've been making many batches lately but I really need to find a better place to stash them during the holidays.

Haven't found my mistletoe that I hang above my kitchen window and I think I need to make ribbon tie backs again, The windows look so much cuter when the curtains are pulled back. I'll have to get a better picture of the window. It looks fabulous with the new wall color (my favorite shade of red)

Here's a picture of the little train I decimated (not the sponge holder, the cutie to the right). Can't really tell he's broken but I ripped Santa right out of the cabin! You can see the wall color, and I can see where I need to do a few touch ups.

 A little helper elf helping me hang the garland. (he really can't help too much since he's a bit vertically challenged, but he tries)Tomorrow, we get the tree that will sit in front of this window. The screen to the left will be gone. I thought I could hide my bookshelf but I'm not sure I like how it looks.

The beginning of the hutch decorations. Much cuter now since I added glittered glass ornaments, pine cones and little gold star bursts. Just need an extension cord or power strip to light it. Also, all my cutie Holt Howard Santas are all pulled out. They bring me so much joy to look at. Of course the truck won't stay there but it was a good parking place at the time.

So that's about it for now. More has been accomplished but I don't have the photos yet. (The bathroom is super cute with a silver tree and pink, blue and purple ornaments) Those and the Christmas tree I will share in a few days.

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