After our fun Gingerbread house making party (click on over for recipe), I had SO much gingerbread dough left over.  We decided to try making ornaments out of some of the dough.  The recipe that we used for the dough was not super sticky and allowed the kids to play with it almost like play dough.

The kids love making their gingerbread ornaments.  They were really excited that they would be able to keep their creations unlike regular play dough.

I was curious if once the dough was baked if all the little added hands, buttons etc would stay attached.  We did have to glue a few limbs back on, but for the most part the ornaments were pretty solid.  Before you bake the dough make sure that you use a tooth pick to make a hole at the top so you can hang them on your tree.  We baked ours at 350 for 20 mins.

Let the ornaments cool completely.  This will harden the gingerbread slightly, and make them more sturdy to hang on the tree.  We also painted ours with a 50/50 mixture of white glue and water.  The glue mixture helps to seal the gingerbread ornaments.  I’m not sure if it was necessary, but it seemed like a good idea.  I would love to keep these for another year.  I’m not sure how they will stand up, but its worth a try.

I love how these ornaments turned out.  What a special tree!  These would also be super cute on a present with a little ribbon.  These ornaments are relatively inexpensive, especially if you are already making gingerbread.  Just use all the left over scraps.  These gingerbread ornaments are way less expensive than the apple sauce and cinnamon ornaments that are everywhere.

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Tammy