Gingerbread House Napkin Rings & Place Card Holders {7 Days of Paper Christmas Decor}

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Add a festive touch to your holiday table with paper Gingerbread house napkin rings or place card holders.

It’s Day 5 of the 7 Days of Paper Christmas decor! And today it’s time to think about your holiday table.

These little paper gingerbread houses are the perfect way to add some Christmas cheer to your tablescape. There are 2 different designs: one for a a napkin ring and one for a place card holder!

Easy to Make Gingerbread House Decor

These paper gingerbread houses are super simple to make with just glue and cardstock. Then you get to decorate them yourself!

We used inexpensive puffy paint (I paid $1 for the jar and we barely used half of it) to add gingerbread style windows, doors, and roof decorations. The puffy paint adds some texture to the decorations making it look just like frosting!

I let my crafty daughter have some fun and decorate some houses too. She had so much fun, but we learned the puffy paint was a little tricky for younger hands.

It requires a bit of practice to not squirt out too much paint and draw a line at the same time. Next time, I think I’ll let her use a white paint pen to add decorations to the paper gingerbread houses.

Ways to Entertain with Paper

I love using paper decorations when entertaining. You don’t have to worry about someone accidentally breaking something. And clean-up is easy since you can just toss it when you’re done.

Plus you can have fun with lots of different themes for your holiday table without having to have room to store lots of decor.

You could even use them for more than just a dinner tablescape. Here are a few other places you can use these fun paper gingerbread houses:

• Use the place cards with food names on a buffet table;
• Use the place cards to identify different types of cookies at a cookie exchange party;
• Roll plastic utensils inside a napkin and tuck into the napkin rings for a buffet dinner.

These are just a few ways to use them for your next holiday gathering! Please share more in the comments.

How to Make Christmas Napkin Rings & Place Card Holders

Supplies:

• Gingerbread house template
  • I am sharing the SVGs & PDFs in my subscriber library until 11/29/2020, then they will move to the shop. Click here to subscribe to my newsletter and gain access to all the freebies. If you already have your password, click here to download them.
• Brown Kraft cardstock
• Hot glue gun & glue stick
• White puffy paint
• Optional: Electronic cutting machine
  • I love using my Silhouette Cameo to quickly cut out paper decor projects, but you can also print the template and cut it out with scissors and an x-acto knife.

Cut out the pieces

There is a separate template for the napkin rings and the place card holders. Each template cuts out 2 napkin rings or place card holders on 1 sheet of cardstock.

To give your gingerbread houses the cookie coloring, cut them out from brown Kraft cardstock or other brown colored cardstock.

I like the Kraft cardstock since it is a bit more sturdy than regular cardstock.

Fold along all the dotted lines to prepare for assembly.

Assemble the gingerbread houses

Add hot glue to the flaps on the house piece and secure it to make a box. I like to secure one flap at a time.

To add the roof to the top of the house, start on the back and add glue to one flap. Then attach the back of the roof piece so the center fold sits at the top of the roof peak.

Then repeat for the other side of the back of the roof.

Add glue to the two front roof flaps. Then tuck them under the roof to secure so the overhang can fold over the front of the house.

Finish the roof by adding a dot of glue under the overhang that has the flap on it. Secure to the front of the house.

Then finish by adding a dot of glue to the flap and one under the second overhang and press it to secure.

Decorate the houses

Use white puffy paint to decorate your paper gingerbread houses. Have fun decorating them in lots of different ways.

The puffy paint can be a little challenging to get smooth lines, you could also use a white paint pen to add decorations.

Have fun with it and allow guests to decorate their own house too. Or let the kids decorate them and then set the table for Christmas dinner!

For the gingerbread house place card holders, slide a place card with the guests name on it in the slot on the roof.

The place card in the picture is 3″ wide x 2″ tall.

For the gingerbread house napkin rings, slide your napkin through the hole in the center.

You can use a cloth napkin for a fancier dinner or paper napkins for easy clean-up.

Then have fun setting your table with the cute paper gingerbread houses!

More Paper Christmas Decor

And we still have 2 more days left of the 7 Days of Paper Christmas decor series. Come back tomorrow for more and make sure to check out any projects you missed below:

• Day 1: 3D Jewel Christmas Ornaments
• Day 2: Large DIY Paper Lanterns
• Day 3: Putz Style Paper Christmas Village
• Day 4: Simple Watercolor Christmas Printables
• Day 5: Gingerbread House Napkin Rings & Place Card Holders
• Day 6: Letters to Santa Mailbox Ornament
• Day 7: Reusable Christmas Advent Calendar

Happy entertaining!

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