You may have spotted elves hiding around houses, but did you know that gingerbread people also like to hang around during the holiday season? They climb into the candy jar, sit themselves on shelves, and simply look cute. Plus, there’s no crumbs because they’re made of felt!

Making these gingerbread people takes less time than a batch of cookies, and they’ll provide lasting play value. You can hide them for a gingerbread hunt, decorate a tree with them, or let them play in a doll house with other small toys.

These little felt toys won’t stand on their own (the one in the photo is leaning on his friend), but they will sit and stay. Kids will love that the gingerbread people can pose and hold things thanks to a bendable framework inside!

• Gingerbread People templates (download here)
• Tan felt
• Scissors
• Pins
• White embroidery floss
• Needle
• Pipe cleaners
• Colored scraps of felt
• Craft or fabric glue

For each gingerbread person, use the printable template and cut out two pieces from tan felt.

Embroider the face on one of the felt pieces using white embroidery floss. You can use a different color if you want, but the white resembles frosting.

Use one of the felt pieces as a guide for twisting the pipe cleaners into the bendable framework.

Bend a pipe cleaner to form a circle at the center, then twist it together a little. Next, bend the ends to form arms. The folded end should extend almost to the ends of the arms. Twist the ends together in the middle.

Use a second pipe cleaner to bend the legs. Again, they should reach almost to the ends of the legs. Twist the ends together and join them to the first pipe cleaner piece.

If there is any excess pipe cleaner, trim it away. And make sure that none of the ends will poke out through the seams.

Sandwich the pipe cleaner framework between the two felt pieces, and then pin the layers together.

Stitch around the edge of the gingerbread with running stitch and white embroidery floss. Hide the starting and ending knots between the layers.

Cut little shapes from the felt scraps to use as decorations for your gingerbread people. For example, you can cut little squiggles to be frosting or dots as candy buttons.

Use craft or fabric glue to attach the decorations. A tiny dab will do!

Give the glue plenty of time to dry, and your gingerbread friends will be ready to play.

Now you can bend and pose the gingerbread people so they can sit, twist, hold things, and more. They’re smaller than elves, but almost as mischievous.

For example, these two gingerbread friends were just walking along when they spotted some treats. They just couldn’t pass them up!

You’d think they would work together, but one of them chose to just sit around while the other pried open the jar. At least he was cheering on his friend! (And we won’t ask where he found that peppermint stick that looks like it was inside the jar before…)

But the work paid off! Now they have all the candy they could possibly eat before Christmas!

Happy crafting!