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DIY Gingerbread Banner – Free Template!

Christmas Crafts | Free Paper Templates | Gingerbread House Holiday Party Ideas | Paper Banners

Create a cute DIY gingerbread banner to decorate your home for the holidays or for your very own gingerbread house party! This festive banner is made from paper and yarn. Grab the free pattern to help get you started!

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Gingerbread and peppermint paper banner.

Hello! This past weekend we hosted our annual gingerbread house party. The tradition started several years ago and is now something I look forward to every year. We invite our friends to come decorate houses while we listen to Christmas music and get in the holiday spirit! This year I added some fun decorations to jazz up the party – including a DIY gingerbread banner! 

The banner is quick, easy, and I was lucky I had everything on hand – my favorite kind of project! This is a fun craft to do for the holidays alone or with a group. Decorating the paper gingerbread figures with paint is a lot like decorating cookies with icing. I had a lot of fun adding different faces and details for each one. 

Christmas banners with paper gingerbreads and paper peppermints.

* Update: I have hung this DIY gingerbread banner up every holiday season for the past seven years! It is such a fun banner. Since then I have created a bunch of other fun gingerbread-themed crafts, printables, and projects. We have continued our tradition of decorating houses, even doing it virtually one year. I hope you enjoy this tutorial and these other fun gingerbread-themed projects.

How to Make a Gingerbread and Peppermint Banner

Supplies Needed:

White, red and brown paper, white acrylic paint, hole punch, green yarn, gluestick and hole punch.

The Paper Peppermints

Step One: Create the peppermints.  Using the pattern, cut out one white circle and four red stripes for each peppermint. With your glue stick, glue the red pieces to the white circle. On some of the peppermints you may need to trim any red paper that hangs over the white circle depending on how you positioned them. Punch two holes in each peppermint on opposite sides.

Red and white paper peppermints.

Paper peppermints with hole punches on each side.

The Paper Gingerbread

Step Two: Create the gingerbread figures! Using a cookie cutter or my pattern, cut out the gingerbread figures. Punch a hole in each of the gingerbread’s hands.

Gingerbread cookie cutter is traced on a sheet of brown kraft paper.

Paper gingerbread shapes cut out in a pile.

Step 3: Decorate the gingerbread figures!  This was the fun part! Using the acrylic paint and a thin paintbrush, paint on some fun designs. I made each gingerbread have a different expression and gave them different buttons or shoes. 

Gingerbread details including a cute face are painted on a gingerbread shape.

Brown paper gingerbreads are painted with white paint.

Stringing the Banner Together

Step Four: String the banner together. Tie the banner together using the green yarn. Alternate between peppermints and gingerbread figures as you string them on. Leave long pieces of green yarn on either end of the banner for hanging. The banner is finished!!

Paper gingerbread and peppermint are strung together with green yarn.

Gingerbread and peppermint paper banner.

Hosting a Gingerbread House Party

For our gingerbread house party, we asked each guest to bring their own pre-built house (we don’t have enough patience to build our own!) and a candy to share. I dug out all the candy, icing, and sprinkles we had and set it out. I used a cupcake tin to hold some of the candy. I used a plastic tablecloth over the table and snowmen placemats for each spot. These are great because they just wipe clean. The banner added so much to the decorating area! Read more about hosting your own gingerbread party for all the details and links to all of my crafts. 

Table ready for decorating gingerbread houses.

I made little gingerbread house treat boxes for each guest and set them at their place. They could fill them with all the leftover candy and treats once the party had ended. 

My husband made hot cocoa which turned out amazing! This was our first time making it from scratch. He found the recipe from Crystal, over at Mrs Happy Homemaker. It was so good we are planning to make it again when his family comes for Christmas next week. My husband and his friends added Peppermint Schnapps to it and said it was delicious. I’ll have to take their word for it! I’ll give it a try when I’m not pregnant, but for now the plain version was so good I don’t think I’m missing anything!

Two gingerbread house treat boxes sit on a red table.

*Update: We’ve since added onto our gingerbread house decorating party and added award ribbons that everyone gets to vote for. It is so much fun and a great for everyone to have a chance to admire everyone’s work. You can download them for free!

Gingerbread House Award ribbons lay on a table with gingerbread cookies.
Party

I also made these adorable North Pole Bakery Gingerbread Aprons for the kids to wear while decorating. They got to keep them and use them each year until they grew out of them. 

White holiday apron with cute gingerbread image that says "North Pole Bakery" lays on a cutting board with peppermints and cookie cutters.

Gingerbread houses are so fun to decorate and we had a blast. Do you decorate gingerbread houses for the holidays? I’m getting excited for this weekend – Saturday is cookie day with my family and we will be busy making all our favorite Christmas cookies! 

Get the Free Gingerbread Banner Template!

Fill out the purple form below with your first name and email address! The free file will be sent straight to your inbox! If you have already filled out the form below, don’t worry – you won’t be added to my list twice! This freebie is for personal use only. I hope you enjoy crafting something special. Please let me know if you have any questions :)

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14 Comments

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    1. You should be able to click on the red link “free pattern” under Supplies Needed. The file has all three pattern pieces – gingerbread man, circle, and stripe on one page. If you have problems downloading, it I can always email you the file, just let me know!

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