Cinnamon Salt Dough Gingerbread Man Ornaments
Many moons ago, we made little Cinnamon Salt Dough Gingerbread Man Ornaments for the Henri Le Worm website. And it is now, finally time to share these with you here on Red Ted Art again. We love to learn all about how to make salt dough ornaments. And, as you know, we both adore making Handmade Christmas Ornaments AND the thriftiness and versatileness of this Cinnamon Salt Dough Recipe!
These Gingerbread Man Ornaments would also look fantastic varnished – which helps “darken” the cinnamon Salt Dough colour!
Over to our original Gingerbread Men Guest Post for Henir Le Worm
With Christmas just around the corner Henri Le Worm has been rummaging around his kitchen to see what he can use to make some lovely little Christmas Crafts. Henri does love a bit of festivity around the kitchen and in his cozy little hole in the ground. After a quick scout, he has discovered that he has plenty of flour, salt and some cinnamon… mmmmh and idea begins to form in Henri le Worm’s mind! “I will make some Salt Dough Ornaments!”
The great thing about Salt Dough Ornaments, is that they are easy to make, can be made from very basic ingredients, can be super simple or super detailed – just as you wish and make for great decorations and small gifts. Perfect.
Henri decided to make some Gingerbread men. He decorated his Christmas Wreath with them, but they would look fantastic strung up as a little garland or simply hanging from your Christmas Tree (or why not pop one on the front of a card and send it to a friend as a small card / gift combo?!).
To make your Cinnamon Salt Dough Gingerbread men, you will need:
You can watch our Cinnamon Salt Dough Recipe video or follow the written instructions below!
- 2 cups of plain flour
- 1 cup of plain salt
- Up to 1 cup of warm water
- Cookie cutters of choice (Henri decided on some Gingerbread Men)
- Optional decorative bits & pices
Optional – you can add 3-4 tablespoons of cinnamon to give them that festive smell, and also to darken the salt dough to a gingerbread man colour. Alternatively, you can add brown food colouring or paint your salt dough afterwards! Or make stars and hearts in plain “salt dough” colour and paint. Read all about Cinnamon Salt Dough Recipes here.
Note: the cup size doesn’t matter – so long as the proportions are correct. Use a big or small cup or whatever you have handy!
How to make Cinnamon Salt Dough Gingerbread Men
- Put your flour and salt into a bowl (add the seasonal spices and/or food colouring if you wish too)
- SLOWLY add the warm water, bit by bit and mix together. You want to have a nice smooth but NOT sticky dough
- Once ready, roll out on a smooth surface and get Gingerbread cutting. Our dough has a lovely brown colour thanks to the cinnamon – though this will fade a little once dried. They smell gorgeous! Be warned, you will want to eat them, but you can’t!!! Decorative only!
- We decided that we wanted to use some craft buttons on our gingerbread men – but you can make some “pretend” buttons out of salt dough or paint them on afterwards or hunt around your craft drawer for other gems and fun decorative “bits”.
- Once you are ready to dry your gingerbread men, using a skewer or toothpick, make holes for hanging.
- Place in the often at LOW heat (100C) for 3-4 hours. Remember in the first 5-10min, you will need to “repoke” your holes, as salt dough sometimes spreads a little and “closes” up again. If you did use buttons or craft gems – do check on them and that they are ok in the oven. Ours worked well and didn’t melt. We have done the same with googly eyes before too. But it totally depends on the item. If in doubt, remove and let your salt dough ornament air dry near a radiator – this can take a few days!
- Once dry, we used pens to add the final details – including a moustache of course!
Your Gingerbread Men are now ready for hanging! Of course you can use paint to decorate your gingerbread men. Or simply leave them plain – that can look lovely too!
We popped ours on our Christmas Wreath (more is more in our house). Though please not, salt dough is NOT water proof, so if you want to keep it outdoors you will need to add a waterproof varnish.
Au revoir et à bientôt!
You may love the rest of our Salt Dough Ornament Inspiration:
And do check out more of our Handmade Christmas Ornaments:
Happy Christmas Ornament Making!