Description

Craft with jeans!

Do you have old jeans laying around? Maybe the kids out grew them or they have holes. Recycle those denim jeans into Christmas ornaments.

Here we made a gingerbread man Christmas ornament but you can use this same technique to make many different ornaments. Although we used the Sizzix machine to cut out our gingerbread man, you can trace around cookie cutters to make patterns if you don't have a Sizzix machine. The Sizzix machine just makes it easier and quicker.

Materials and Supplies

Craft Supplies:

  • Cardstock
  • Denim*
  • Two 7mm wiggle eyes
  • Red permanent marker (Sharpie)
  • Two dots punched out of pink craft foam***
  • Scrap of fabric for a scarf
  • Tacky glue
  • Sizzix Machine and Gingerbread man die cut**
  • Monofilament or gold elastic thread

*An old pair of jeans works great or you can buy a piece of denim in the fabric store.

**If you don't have a sizzix machine, you can just cut a gingerbread shape out of a piece of cardboard and use that to trace around and cut out. Cookie cutters make great templates.

***We just used a regular hole punch and punched the dots from a sheet of craft foam.

Craft Instructions

  1. Using a Sizzix machine punch out two gingerbread men from denim and one from cardstock. Alternatively, if you don't have a Sizzix machine cut two gingerbread man shapes from denim and one from cardstock.
  2. Lay one denim gingerbread man flat on your work surface right side down. Glue the cardstock gingerbread man on top of this piece then glue the second denim gingerbread man right side up on top of the cardstock piece. Once you've done this, the cardstock will be sandwiched in between he two denim men.
  3. Glue two wiggle eyes on the face. Draw a mouth with a red marker and glue on two pink craft foam dots for cheeks.
  4. Use the red marker (or fabric paint in a squeeze bottle) to decorate the arms and legs of the gingerbread man.
  5. Cut a strip of fabric and tie it around the gingerbread man's neck as a scarf.
  6. Attach a piece of monofilament or elastic thread to the top of the gingerbread man as a hanger, You can do this by either punching a hole in the top of the gingerbread man and threading the monofilament/elastic thread through the hole or by cutting a piece or monofilament/thread and knotting the two ends together. Then glue the knot to the back to the ornament.

Printable Instructions

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