We’ve made and decorated real ginger bread cookies in past years. We’ve tried faux gingerbread art clay recipes. The boxed gingerbread house has even made an appearance at our house a time or two. But this year we decided to try something new. Gingerbread ornaments made with cork!
Obviously these aren’t edible, nor are any of the materials used to decorate. But cork sheets are easily cut into shapes and provides a nice stable backing for any decorations you choose to add! And as an added bonus when you open the box of Christmas decorations next year you wont find any gingerbread crumbs down in the corner of your box of special ornaments.
Cork Gingerbread Ornaments Materials List
This list isn’t too extensive, and really, you can throw together about anything you have and it will work! I started with just a few materials and my little girl just kept adding to our arsenal of shiny, glittery things! If you don’t have sheets of cork you could even substitute a sheet of thin brown cardboard, like the inside of a cereal box.
The How-To
I started this project with some cork sheets left over from a bulletin board project. This nine pack of 6×6 plain cork sheets would be perfect. This Quartet Cork Roll (24 x 48) is also a deal and seems to be pretty readily available.
Next we used cookie cutters and a permanent marker to trace shapes onto the cork. We did use some traditional gingerbread men but really had the most fun with simple shapes like circle ornaments. Once we traced them they were pretty easy to cut out using sharp scissors.
The Fun Part~ Decorating
As a parent I have to say I do not mind that all of these decorations are inedible. Finishing a project without a house full of kids experiencing a sugar rush is a good thing in my book. Because no matter how old, how stale, or how nasty I know my kids will sneak as much as possible!
I started with a few bottles of puffy paint. This Tulip Dimensional Fabric Paint Set has 20 colors and would give you tons of options! We used dimensional paint to give the appearance of frosting being piped. Acrylic paint would also work fine, you just wouldn’t have those dimensional lines!
I also got out a basket of leftover rick rack and ribbon, some buttons and some of these fun Sequins and Spangles from Creativity Street. (We use these shiny little thing in tons of projects! They are inexpensive and can be used with abandon~ a real plus for a little girl that loves glitter and a mama that doesn’t love cleaning glitter! These bigger pieces make for a much easier clean up than regular glitter!)
But, of course, the girl broke out her stash of glitter too! The shinier the better, right?
We drilled a small hole in each ornament in order to be able to hang it.
There are no rules here! Just have fun!
