A gingerbread house theme decorations theme is not complete without a gingerbread man prop! On this post I’ll share the steps I did to make this prop for this years Christmas theme.
Items you will need:
- A printer with letter size paper
- Scissors
- 1″ thick or thicker foam or rigid foam board
- (at least 24″ x 48″ on size)
- Hot wire foam cutter
- Masking tape
- Acrylic paints
- Plastic spherical ornaments
- A hack saw or dremmel
- Hot glue
- 2 PVC pipes about 36″ long
- Duct tape
- Hammer
Step 1 – Tracing/cutting
After gluing your templates together using glue sticks you will need to trim the shape of the gingerbread man using scissors.
Place your cut shape on top of your foam board, if you are using white foamboard make sure the use the metal reflective end as your top surface since removing the metal like foam is easier than removing the transparent film from the other end.
Secure your template to the foam board with masking tape, then you can proceed cutting around the foam paper shape using the hot wire foam cutter.
Ideally you will want to cut the foam board on an open and spacious place, I cut mine on my backyard using benches to place the foam board sheet.
Step two – Paint + ornaments
After the foam shape has been cut the next step will be paint, make sure to use acrylic paints every time you intent to paint on foam board since solvents from other paint types can damage the foam by melting it.
Once paint has dried is time to glue the ornaments for the gingerbread eyes and buttons, I used Ø 2 1/4″ gray ornament size for the eyes and Ø 3″ red ornament size for the buttons.
I used a hack saw to cut these by hand, although at the end I ended up using the dremel to make it faster and finish the cutting, make sure to be extremely careful since both the hacksaw and dremel can hurt you really bad!
Step three – install
I install the gingerbread man by inserting Ø 1/2″ PVC pipe on my front garden, it had rained about 2 days ago and the ground was soft and it was easy to insert the PVC pipes to support the prop.
I inserted the pvc pipes on the ground using a hammer, leaving a space in between of about 8″.
After the PVC supports were set I secure the propr to the pipes using duck tape, making sure I added tape at several locations to hold it for the entire seasson.
What is a gingerbread man?
Although it is made from natural products, today it is usually used as a decoration. The gingerbread man goes right out of the kitchen under the Christmas tree. In contrast to the more edible cookies, they are a little dry and hard, so they are not particularly pretend to be a delicacy.
The Gingerbread Man is the character of an American fairy tale, which in many ways is similar to the Russian story “Kolobok”. According to the plot of the fairy tale legend, he is molded and decorated by his grandfather and grandmother, from whom he escapes. The main character manages to save himself from a cow, a horse, a pig, which he is very proud of. However, the cunning red fox lures the ginger varmint into the river, offers to sit on his nose and safely dines him. As evidenced by many historical facts, the great-grandfather of the Gingerbread Man was an influential person at the court of Elizabeth I. Back in the sixteenth century, in the court kitchens there were made gingerbread figures, which exactly repeated the images of the Queen’s guests. But even ordinary peasants passed down this Christmas tradition from generation to generation.