Creative DIY Gingerbread Decor Ideas

From wreaths to ornaments, I’m sharing creative DIY gingerbread decor ideas that you can use to dress up your home for the holiday and winter season.

Creative DIY Gingerbread Decor Ideas

When it comes to Christmas and the holiday season, gingerbread is a classic. Not only is it delicious, but it can be a beautiful decorative item that you can use in many ways throughout your home. How do I know? I’ve done it.

After perfecting my gingerbread cookie recipe back in 2019, I’ve been having so much fun playing and experimenting with new gingerbread decor ideas. With a handful of fabulous and unique ideas, I thought I would create this post in the hope of inspiring you to give decorating with gingerbread a try.

To get started, you’re going to need my gingerbread cookie recipe. You can find the recipe HERE.

I also wanted to mention that I have yet to save any of these gingerbread decorations from year to year. However, I’m going to give it a try this year and see how they fair after a year. I’m hopeful they will look just as good! I’ll be sure to update this post with my findings.

Looking for gingerbread recipes you can eat? I have those too! 

Check out my favorite Gingerbread recipes to spice up the holiday season HERE.

Gingerbread Cookie Ornaments:

Let’s start with the basics: ornaments. This is one of my favorite uses. In fact, this year I decorated a small, 4 foot tree in my dining room and decked it out with these gingerbread cookie ornaments. (I’ve included a few pictures here, but I’ll be sure to share more once I photograph it and get it on the blog.)

To make the hole at the top of the ornament, I just used a metal straw. It’s the perfect size. Just press the bottom of the straw into the top of your ornament before baking and then you’ll have a hole in your gingerbread ornament so you can hang it on your tree with an ornament hook, ribbon, or twine.

I love the homemade and rustic look these gingerbread ornaments add to your tree. You can choose any cookie cutter shape and even dye your royal icing a color to match your decor. The options are nearly endless. They also smell wonderful on your tree.

Gingerbread Garland Accessories:

Now that you have your gingerbread ornaments made, you can use them in a variety of ways around your home. Here, I added a couple ornaments near the ends of the garland I hung on my living room mantel.

It’s all about the details and I think these gingerbread cookies add such a special touch to this garland.

To hang them, I just strung some twine through the hole I created before baking and thus was able to tie them to one of the branches. It’s a really easy way to add a custom and personal touch to a garland. You can see more of this garland in my living room tour HERE.

Gingerbread Cookie Gift Embellishment:

Another look I love, is to use these cookies as gift wrapping embellishments. Again, just like you did with the ornaments, add a little hole to the top of your cookie and you’re ready to tie these onto a gift for the perfect finishing touch.

I just use a piece of baker’s twine to attach a cookie to my gift. It’s that simple and the gift wrapping looks like it came from the pages of a magazine.

Gingerbread Cookie Wreath:

Here, I took my gingerbread cookies and glued them to a round wreath hoop to create this fabulous Gingerbread Cookie Wreath. It’s one of my new favorites.

In fact, I wrote an entire blog post about this project which you can find HERE.

I think this is such a unique and special wreath idea. As you can see, I tried it in a few places throughout my home. It looks fabulous no matter where I put it.

More Gingerbread Decor Ideas

Gingerbread House Cake:

These gingerbread cakes are temporary gingerbread decor, but I had to include them on this list.

I made these festive gingerbread cakes a fews years ago and I still look back at them fondly. I think they turned out so beautiful. And while I made these cakes to eat, you could certainly bake them and use them solely as decor if you’d like. I wouldn’t recommend keeping them for more than one season, but they would be stunning on a holiday buffet.

They are really easy to make too as you use a special cake pan that’s shaped like the houses. Just bake and decorate. You can find the recipe and more details on these HERE.

Tiered Cookie Tray:

Again, I’m not sure if this classifies as decor, but I wanted to include this idea on this list. I recently shared a tour of my kitchen decorated for Christmas and one of my displays was this stunning tiered tray (which I made out of cake stands) full of sweet treats and cookies. As you can see, a few of my gingerbread cookies made the display.

While this display will hopefully be temporary as guests enjoy all the cookies and treats, I think it makes a gorgeous centerpiece for your kitchen island or dining room table.

Besides, who doesn’t love decor that does double duty. It’s a grand display and a festive snack. You can see more of this in my kitchen HERE.

Gingerbread House Cup Hugger:

I have been wanting to make these for years and I finally did it!

You can easily create these gingerbread house cup huggers using a cookie cutter like THIS ONE. All you do is cut out two of each piece and then assemble them using royal icing.

The doors on the house create a little indent that “hugs” the side of a mug. Are they not the cutest?

As you can see, I created a handful of them and I decorated each one in it’s own unique way.

If you want to keep these as an edible treat, I recommend storing them in an airtight container. If you want them to be a more decorative item, then no storage is required.

Gingerbread “Snow Globe” Village:

If you like those gingerbread house cup huggers as much as I do, then you’re going to love this project too.

I decided to create a gingerbread “snow globe” village using one of those little houses and a forest of decorated gingerbread trees.

I assembled everything in this vintage glass cake plate and dome to create what may be one of my favorite decorations.

To attach the trees to the plate, I just used a bit of royal icing. It does take some time to harden, so you’ll need to prop the trees up with something while the icing dries.

With the trees in place, I used granulated sugar around the base as “snow” and then tucked in one of my houses and two little gingerbread people. (The gingerbread people are sugar cake decorations I found at the craft store.)

The resulting gingerbread “snow globe” village became the perfect centerpiece to decorate the sideboard in my dining room. I’m obsessed with the look.

Bonus – Gingerbread Cookies:

I wanted to include this as a final little note. While I shared my gingerbread cookie recipe above, I wanted to mention it again here at the end of this list.

In fact, this year, I even took my classic gingerbread cookie recipe to the next level by adding detailing as I decorated them with royal icing. Let me show you.

Classic Gingerbread Cookies:

You can find my classic gingerbread cookie recipe HERE. Have fun with the wide variety of cookie cutter shapes that are available and the many creative options that you have when piping on the icing. It can be such a fun process. Make it your own.

Decorated Gingerbread Cookies:

Here, I made my classic recipe, but cut out the cookies a bit thicker and then covered the top with a really decorative piping.

This was only my second time piping cookies with royal icing, but I so enjoyed the process. In fact, I even made some adorable mushroom cookies which you can find HERE.

This style of cookie decorating does take time and patience, but I think it is so much fun!

That’s a Wrap on DIY Gingerbread Decor Ideas:

And that’s a wrap on my gingerbread decor ideas. As you can hopefully tell, I’ve been having so much fun baking and decorating with this classic recipe.

I’m certain that I will come up with a few more ideas next Christmas. I’ll be sure to update this post when I do.

As always, I hope this was helpful and gave you a few new ideas on how you can incoporate gingerbread decor into your home.

Happy Decorating!