Gingerbread Boy and Girl Ornaments

As usual, my ideas and craft plans are bigger than I can actually handle. I really wanted to make one of these to give to each of the kids in my class since I am giving them The Gingerbread Man book this year  (it was on sale for $1 on Scholastic!!), but of course they took way longer than I'd anticipated. I always assume these project ideas I have will just come together so fast without a hitch even though my projects rarely go that way. There's usually something I have to fix, redo, or I even completely change my mind on how I want the project to be. And of course, I'm not a machine.

I am so glad I made these two though. Now that I've figured out how I want them to be, making more would go faster, just not fast enough to make 24, though, in such a short time! :) I made these Tuesday night thinking I could knock them out in a couple days. I could have if we'd gotten a snow day, but no such luck. The kids were just as excited to get candy canes with their books, instead today. 

Here's how I made the girl! After you see the girl tutorial, the boy will be self- explanatory. 

1. Found a pattern online: gingerbread boy template I used this one for the boy and adapted this pattern to make the Gingerbread girl pattern as shown below.

2. Pin the pattern and cut out two felt gingerbread girls.

3. Glue on embellishments. I used white buttons for the girl, red buttons for the boy, and white ric rac on legs and arms. I first used fabric glue (liquid stitch) on the ric rac and buttons, and I tried to use it for the felt eyes and mouth, but it soaked through. I used the hot glue gun for the face. I could probably have used the glue gun for all embellishments.

4. I set aside gingerbread girl and sewed a ruffled strip of red felt for her skirt. Ruffle strip should be twice the length as your gingerbread girl and about an inch wide. My skirt strip before ruffling was 5 1/2 inches long and 1 inch wide I eyeballed mine just by holding up felt to the gingerbread girl to see where I wanted it to be and how far up on her body it should be. I made sure the bottom of the skirt would be touching the bottom of the "skirt" on the gingerbread girl cut-out. After sewing the ruffle skirt I pinned it to the girl and sewed it in place. (Here's a good tutorial on sewing ruffles if needed.)

5. Pin the top gingerbread pattern and the bottom pattern together. (Notice the skirt is not in this picture. I  kinda forgot that I should have sewed on the skirt before sewing the two cut-outs together. You should do it the other way around so the red thread doesn't show through on the back and there isn't a line across the back either! :) ) 

I forgot to take picture of it, but be sure to go ahead and put a loop of ribbon between the front and back gingerbread girl cut-outs at the top of the head. I put a dab of hot glue on the inside to hold it down so I wouldn't have to worry about it slipping around. 

6. At this point, you could use an embroidery stitch and thread and hand stitch around the edge, but I chose to sew it on the machine since I was trying to be fast. It may have been just as fast embroidering, but I don't have any experience with that so I went with sewing. I needed the practice anyway. :) It seems that most felt ornaments are made using embroidery stitches.

7. I made the felt bow using this tutorial  and hot glued it on. The felt strip I used to make the bow was about a 1/2 inch wide and 3 inches long. 

I made the boy the same way!

There are a lot of sweet Gingerbread boy and girl ornaments out there so this is just one way to make them. I just thought I'd share mine. :)

They look pretty sweet on our tree. Maybe if I start in June of next year and make a couple once a week I'll have them ready for next year's kids. haha. 

Linking this post at Craft Envy. Check out more awesome handmade Christmas crafts on her awesome blog!