DIY Gingerbread House Ornament

Create a mini DIY gingerbread house ornament using some oven-bake clay and puffy paint. This adorable ornament will be perfect for a Christmas tree!

Want more Christmas ornament tutorials? Check out this Christmas fireplace ornament and this modern Christmas wreath ornament.

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This is my third year participating in the ornament exchange and I couldn’t be more excited to be paired with Julia from The Quiet Grove.

Julia described her Christmas style as “traditional.”

When I was trying to think of an ornament to make Julia, I kept thinking about cute little gingerbread houses!

I have a slight obsession with gingerbread houses. I loved making them as a kid at Christmas and I think they are just so fun. And I still love making them now! You can see how I made a beautiful wintery white gingerbread house here.

Gingerbread houses are definitely “traditional” Christmas to me. So, I thought I could make a mini version as an ornament for Julia.

Here’s how I made my ornament.

How to Make a Gingerbread House Ornament

Materials

• Brown Oven-Bake Clay
• White Puffy Paint
• Gorilla Glue Clear Grip
• Ribbon or String

Tools

• Mini Gingerbread House Cookie Cutter
• Clay Tools
• Baking Sheet and Parchment Paper

A few years ago, I found this adorable cookie cutter that creates all of the pieces to make a mini gingerbread house. I thought this would be the perfect tool for making a gingerbread house ornament.

To create the frame for my gingerbread house, I used oven-bake clay in a deep brown color.

I used clay tools to roll the clay out into a sheet. Then, I used my gingerbread house cookie cutter to cut out the pieces for my mini house.

I only bought one pack of the clay, and it worked out fine. But, I did have to re-roll the clay a few times in order to cut out all of the pieces.

If you just want to cut everything out at once using the cookie cutter, I would recommend using two packs of clay.

After all of the pieces were cut out, I place them onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Then I baked them in the oven at 250 degrees for 25 minutes.

Once the pieces were baked and cooled, it was time to assemble the gingerbread house.

I decided to use this Gorilla Glue Clear Grip to hold everything together. I was worried that normal glues like hot glue might not stick to the clay.

This Gorilla Glue Clear Grip is much stronger than normal glue!

Assemble the base first by gluing the short walls to the peaked front and back walls. Let this dry for a few minutes. Then add the roof pieces.

I let my gingerbread house frame dry overnight to make sure it was really secure.

Next, it was time to decorate. To give the gingerbread house the look of being covered in frosting, I decided to use white puffy paint.

I outlined the entire house with white puffy paint and made sure to add extra paint at the corners to cover up the seams between the clay pieces.

Then, I added decorative embellishments. I created a few windows on the sides of the house.

My favorite part was the roof. I added a criss-cross pattern to make it look like shingles. I also added some extra paint along the rooflines to make it look like there were icicles.

This process took a long time because the puffy paint needs a lot of time to dry and solidify. I only worked on one side of the house at a time and was very careful when moving it around because the paint was still tacky.

After everything was painting I let the paint dry completely overnight.

Finally, to hang this on a Christmas tree, I needed to add a piece of string or ribbon. I was initially going to use a brown cord as my ornament hanger, but I didn’t like how plain it looked. So instead, I cut a small piece of red ribbon and attached it to the top roofline using some more Gorilla Glue Clear Grip.

Isn’t this the cutest little gingerbread house?! I love it so much!

I actually wish I would have made a second one for myself so I could have kept one. Hopefully, Julia loves it as much as I do!

You can find more handmade ornament tutorials from the rest of my blog friends in the 2018 Ornament Exchange here.

And feel free to share your ornament tutorials too!

If you want to see my ornament from the past two Ornament Exchanges, you can do so in the links below.

DIY Christmas Fireplace Ornament

DIY Modern Christmas Wreath Ornament