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Scented Salt Dough Gingerbread Friends Garland

As we head towards Christmas we are sharing some of our favourite Christmas Book Inspired Activities and Crafts for Kids. One of our favourite author and illustrators is Jan Brett and Gingerbread Friends, the sequel to Gingerbread Baby is one that we reach for every Christmas. This Gingerbread Salt Dough Recipe is used to create some little gingerbread friends to use for creating a garland to decorate for Christmas. Don’t forget that you can join in this year with our Storybook Advent further down to get fun crafts, activities and recipes inspired by 4 classic Christmas Books Counting down to Christmas.

Gingerbread Friends inspired activity for kids
Gingerbread Salt Dough for a Christmas Garland to make and thread with kids.

Homemade GIngerbread Salt dough

We love using salt dough for Christmas Crafts and this recipe is great it slightly colours the dough but the best bit is that it slowly releases the scent of gingerbread throughout the holiday season.

A batch will make up around 3m of garland which is ideal to decorate even our biggest Christmas tree.

gingerbread friends book on a white surface with little gingerbread men and women salt dough decorations below

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Materials you will need

a painted salt dough Christmas Tree ornament hanging on a tree branch with light behind it.

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How to make your Gingerbread Friends Pattern Garland

Make up a batch of the Christmas Scented Salt Dough using our recipe from last week.

hand holding a ball of gingerbread salt dough on a black surface

T loves to roll out the dough – she rolled it out around about 1/2 cm thick on a lightly floured surface.

gingerbread salt dough rolled out with cookie cutter gingerbread men pin and child cutting more out

Then she cut out equal numbers of gingerbread girls, boys and stars from the salt dough.

making holes in gingerbread salt dough women to create a garland for Christmas decorations

Using a chopstick (we didn’t have any straws) she placed a hole in each hand of the gingerbread people and two holes in the stars.

They then went into the oven for an hour on the lowest settings, we turned them over and repeated on the other side.

Once they were dry we let them cool.

air dried gingerbread salt dough girl, boy and star with holes in to create mini buttons or garlands for Christmas

Then she started to pattern make. She decided on her pattern, girl, boy and star she wanted to make and laid it out on the table.

preschooler threading ribbon into the holes on salt dough ornaments
preschooler pulling the ribbon through a gingerbread man salt dough decorations for Christmas

Then it was time to thread. Copying the pattern she placed them at regular intervals along the ribbon.

preschooler holding a garland of gingerbread men and women scented salt dough decorations.

Using the window suction cups we tied the ribbon around each one and placed it on the window over the kitchen sink where we can see it every day and makes our kitchen smell amazing.

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Love salt dough why not try our quickest ever salt dough recipe or our classic salt dough recipe as well.

salt dough garland of gingerbread men and women hanging in a window
Pinterest collage for Gingerbread Friends Garland

Author
Cerys Parker

Cerys is a marine biologist, environmental educator, teacher, mum, and home educator from the UK. She loves getting creative, whether it is with simple and easy crafts and ideas, activities to make learning fun, or delicious recipes that you and your kids can cook together you'll find them all shared here on Rainy Day Mum.

a painted salt dough Christmas Tree ornament hanging on a tree branch with light behind it.

Unlock the Secrets of Salt Dough Crafting!

Subscribe today and get our top-rated recipe to gorgeous craft ideas straight to your inbox. Plus an exclusive printable recipe.

One Comment

  1. Oh, we love Jan Brett’s books. We recently made some gingerbread ornaments, but I love the garland idea. I think we need to make another batch of friends.

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