It’s 2pm Friday 18th Dec 2020.

The kids have just broken up from school on what was arguably the strangest academic year ever. Bless em. Hats off to all the incredible teachers – YOU. ARE. SIMPLY. AMAZING.

Mums and Dads – you’ll be wanting to do something Christmassy with the kids this year, yeah? Something to keep the little darlings away from Among Us, Fortnight or YouTube?

Gingerbread bunting to the rescue

With most of the usual things cancelled, why not crank up the Christmas tunes (Bublé I’m looking at you) and have a crafternoon making these little gingerbread papercraft beauties.

Oh, you don’t NEED kids to enjoy making these. In fact it is probably more fun to make them WITHOUT the kids tbh. Pour a glass of something strong and mulled, crank up the Christmas tunes (Bublé I’m STILL looking at you… ding dong) and enjoy an hour or two of complete relaxation while making a craft that will look lovely hanging up at home this festive season.

What you need to make this gingerbread bunting

• Download my templates (for the cost of a coffee you help keep a small business going thank you x)
• Red paper (1 sheet is enough for 6/8 gingerbread)
• White paper (2 sheets – 1 for the accessories and 1 for the instructions)
• Brown paper (4 sheets will make 8 gingerbread = 1.5m bunting depending on spacing)
• Access to a printer (black and white is fine)
• Scalpel or scissors
• Cutting mat
• String or bakers twine
• Glue stick, sellotape or double sided sticky tape

What type of paper do you recommend?

That, my friend, is a cracking question, and one that I can get ridiculously geeky about.The long answer is here – read this blog where I have written about the different weights of paper. The short answer is: anything between about 90 – 130gsm. But if all you have is normal 80gsm printer paper, don’t let this put you off. You can still use this.

I’ve used sheets of A4 kraft paper for my bunting which I bought from Eco-craft – choose hairy manilla or ribbed brown (I will not make a joke about ribbed, I will not make a joke about ribbed). You can find A4 kraft paper sheets on Amazon too (affiliate link).

If all you have is white paper, then you can improvise. Use tea to stain it brown, use a sponge and brown watercolour or acrylic paint to make it speckled. Paint the template whole, keep it flat if you can and only cut the template when completely dry.

How to make your lovely happy gingerbread bunting

Print out your lovely gingery friends. A mono (black and white) printer is fine for this. There’s 2 gingerbread per sheet so if you print out the gingerbread sheet 4 times onto brown paper that would make 8 gingerbread which equates to about 1 to 1.5m of bunting depending on how you do your spacing.

Print out the red PDF onto 1 sheet of red paper (green would also look good but let’s not confuse things right now) and print the white PDF onto 1 sheet of white paper.

Grab your favourite scalpel (you can read about scalpels on this blog post) and a cutting mat and make sure you’re seated at a table with good lighting.

If kids are doing it with you: Little ones can get cracking cutting around the gingerbread bunting shapes using scissors while you grab a scalpel and cut the tricky little bits on the accessories sheets – like the icing squiggles for the arms and legs. Tongue out to concentrate, remember!

With the kids still happy cutting the gingerbread bunting out – or perhaps they’ve grown bored and stomped off to watch tv or squish the presents under the tree – then you can crack on with the red accessories.

Why not pour another glass of something warm and mulled. I LOVE A MULL.

Oh, the kids have definitely given up now yeah? Well GOOD because you’ll do a much better job on the old gingerbread anyway. Pop on a Christmas film for them, pour yourself another mull and do the rest of the gingers.

WARNING: if you’re feeling a bit sozzled because you made the mull a bit strong. PLEASE be careful with the scalpel!

The Santa hats are made up using red and white, so once they’re both cut, then put some glue onto the back of the white paper and stick it on top of the red paper. Then put glue on the back of the hat and stick it on their little ginger head. But fold the tab over in half first and be sure not to stick the hat onto the tab.

You need to ensure the top tabs can still fold over when you stick on the accessories. The tab is needed to stick to the bakers twine or string later. Continue sticking any little accessories you like onto each ginger.

When all your little paper gingerbread bunting friends have their dresses, scarves, hats, face masks, bow ties and hearts on, then it’s time to get them onto the string. Space all your gingers out on a table or floor and get them in the order you want them to be on the bunting.

Cut a piece of bakers twine, string or thin 1/3 mm ribbon – you’ll need to to be the length of your gingerbread spaced out plus I allow about 30cm either end to be able to hang it up on the wall/dresser.

Turn all your finished gingerbreads face down and if you haven’t already, then fold the tabs in half and then unfold them. Pop a bit of double sided sticky tape on the tab.

Take of the backing of the double sided sticky tape and place your twine/string/ribbon on top of it. Folding the tab over on top of itself.

Repeat this for all of your ginger friends.

Oh man you’re are looking GOOD! Pour another mull to celebrate! What’s that, oh NOW the kids want to do it once they see how lovely yours is. No problemo! The PDF are yours to print as many times as you like* 🙂

Thank you so much for reading this – don’t forget to check out my other papercut templates that I have available for your papercutting pleasure, or read about how to papercut using templates here.

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*personal use only, obvs. Full disclaimer on the templates. Commercial licences available for 2021, just get in touch