Large Gingerbread Christmas Ornaments using Cardboard (templates included)

I love oversized ornaments to fill up gaps in your Christmas tree. And today I want to show you how I made large gingerbread Christmas ornaments with cardboard and white puff paint. If you use salt dough gingerbread cookies or real baked gingerbread cookies they are way too heavy and pull down the branches of the tree especially if they are oversized. So cardboard is definitely a better and lighter option. The cardboard gingerbread ornaments are also more affordable.

I also don’t like to bake, so for this project, you do not need flour, sugar, icing, or an oven LOL. All you need is a few items. I also included some gingerbread cookie templates for you to download and print, so you can easily trace and cut out the shapes.

I have made numerous oversized homemade ornaments for our Christmas decor over the years. Check out my foldable cardboard 3D stars and DIY paper fans as ornaments.

large Gingerbread Christmas Ornaments using Cardboard

Different ways to make gingerbread Christmas ornaments

1. baked gingerbread Christmas ornaments that you can eat
2. gingerbread salt dough ornaments
3. felt gingerbread Christmas ornaments
4. cardboard gingerbread ornaments

Options 1 and 2 are definitely too heavy for my liking. It’s so much easier to decorate a Christmas tree when the branches don’t get weighed down.

I also don’t like to bake but I am glad that my husband does. Maybe I can get him to come up with a great recipe but since we all have a sweet tooth in our family, sweets won’t last long and definitely never have a chance to end up on a tree as holiday decor. LOL! So cardboard is definitely the best option for us and it’s free.

If you want to make smaller gingerbread ornaments than mine, just print the file at a smaller percentage. You can usually adjust that in your printer window.

Video tutorial

I made a video tutorial to show you what I did exactly. Use the triangle in the center of the image to view the video and if you are on a mobile phone, hold the screen sideways. In case the video doesn’t load for you then you can also watch it on my YouTube channel.

Step-by-step gingerbread Christmas ornament tutorial

1. Print your templates or make your own as l showed you above.
2. Cut out gingerbread Christmas ornament template with a pair of scissors.
   
   
   
3. Trace your template onto cardboard with a pencil.
   
   
   
4. Cut out templates with scissors. If you are doing this with small kids then cut the cardboard out for them. This part can be a bit difficult depending on how thick the cardboard is and what scissors you are using.
   To cut out the rounded shapes on the heart, angel, and snowflake I like using an X-ACTO knife with a sawing motion as shown in my video but be careful not to slip and cut yourself.
   The star is the easiest to cut out since it only has straight lines.
   
   
   
5. Draw a gingerbread pattern with a pencil. I have some examples coming up for you below. Have fun with it. It really doesn’t need to be perfect. I love doodling like this.
   
   
   
6. Trace the gingerbread pencil pattern with the puffy paint by slowly squeezing the bottle. It’s literally just like icing.
   
   
   
7. Let the puffy paint dry.
8. You can hot glue or pin some ribbon or twine to the ornaments for easy hanging. I like just sticking them inside the tree where there are gaps.
   
   

Gingerbread ornament pattern ideas

I love doodling the patterns onto the gingerbread ornaments. That is definitely my favorite part and don’t take it too seriously, it’s ok to mess up. Have fun with it. They don’t have to be exact.

Below you can see examples of what I did with the gingerbread stars, snowflakes, hearts, and angels.

Different ways to decorate with gingerbread Christmas ornaments

• Gingerbread Christmas ornament tree decoration (the most obvious)
  
  
  
• Gingerbread Christmas ornament garland (by the way, those battery-operated candles are my favorite)
  
  
  Also, as you can see, I also made large gingerbread house ornaments that I placed on the mantle.
  The snowflake artwork is also a DIY of mine.
  
  
• Gingerbread Christmas ornament wreath
• Gingerbread Christmas ornament wall decor
• Gingerbread Christmas ornaments mantle decor
• Gingerbread Christmas ornament tree topper
• Or you can use the gingerbread Christmas ornaments as embellishments as I did on my paper bag snowflakes. The gingerbread snowflakes and stars are perfect for that.

View all the gingerbread decor in my recent home tour.

With the above photos, you can already see what direction I’m taking this year as far as my Christmas decor goes, right? I’m loving it so far and can’t wait to share it with you soon for a Christmas home tour blog hop.

If you love traditional Christmas decor like the gingerbread Christmas ornaments then you should also check out my favorite German wooden Christmas ornaments.
Or more DIY ornaments like my macrame ornaments, DIY paper honeycomb ornament, and painted Christmas ornaments.

Tschüß and I wish you all a happy holiday season.