CraftyFileCo planning guide
Gingerbread House Crafts Without Food
Make a gingerbread house craft without food by decorating a flat paper house or constructing a standing paper village scene or bakery. Choose flat decorating for arranging paper sweets; choose a model when folding and building are part of the activity.
Pick decorating or building
The Gingerbread House Decorating Printable has five house designs and five decoration pages. Children cut out paper candies, windows, doors and seasonal details, then glue them onto a chosen house. The activity has no single required decoration layout.
This is the option to choose when deciding where each paper sweet goes is the main activity. The listing names paper or cardstock, scissors and a glue stick, with adult supervision recommended for scissor use.
The Christmas village craft instead makes a three-dimensional gingerbread-style house with a circular display base. Santa, a snowman, gingerbread friends, a reindeer, trees and gift boxes form the surrounding scene.
Prepare a construction tray for a model
The Gingerbread Christmas Bakery is a separate, more involved model. It includes a door that opens, a display window, an awning and a bakery sign. Its eleven full-colour pages include templates, a how-to page and picture guides, supplied as A4 and US Letter PDFs.
The bakery listing calls for cardstock, scissors, a glue stick or tacky glue, a ruler and an empty pen for scoring. It recommends ages 5-9 with a grown-up helper. Treat that help as part of your plan, rather than handing over a pile of model pieces.
Follow the route you chose
For a flat decorating session:
- Print a house and the decoration pages you want.
- Cut selected pieces with the planned adult supervision.
- Arrange doors, windows and paper sweets without glue.
- Glue the chosen arrangement when the child is ready.
For the village scene, cut along the outlines, fold the marked lines and use the glue tabs to assemble the pieces. Its listing says younger children may need adult help with cutting and assembly. It recommends sturdy paper or cardstock and lists a printer, scissors and glue.
For the bakery, follow its picture guides for scoring, folding and joining the model. Keep the bakery structure separate from its friends and treats while you work.
Leave room for the finished result
A flat house can remain a decorated paper picture. A village scene needs space for its base, while the bakery needs room for the shop and accessories.
These are alternative downloads, not stages supplied in one package. Decide whether your group wants a decoration to complete or a model to return to for pretend play. That choice is more useful than printing every option and discovering the construction steps after children have started.
By CraftyFileCo · Published · Updated
Questions and answers
Which option is for decorating a flat house?
The Gingerbread House Decorating Printable supplies five house designs and five decoration pages for cutting and gluing onto the houses.
What help does the bakery model need?
The bakery listing recommends ages 5-9 with a grown-up helper. Its supply list includes cardstock, scissors, adhesive, a ruler and an empty pen for scoring.