Gingerbread Men & Christmas Star Ornaments

My home was filled with a wonderful aroma today.  Oh – it smelled so good in here that I could have bottled the scent up and sold tons of it.  I wish you all could have been here.  I decided to make myself some gingerbread men along with a few star ornaments and they turned out real cute.  They smell great as well.  I received the recipe from my Mom’s friend Sara.  I must say that Sara is one talented gal.  She has her own shop right next to her home and her shop is always jam packed with the cutest things and the most beautiful dried herbs and flowers.  She definitely has a knack for that stuff.  Anyway, I wanted to share some pictures with all of you of my gingerbread tucks as well as my star ornaments that I made.  I thought that the gingerbread men would be awfully cute tucked into a box with some pine and I even tried it out tonight and boy oh boy – it looks cute!!

First of all – I wanted to introduce you to Sara’s blog.  You can find Sara’s blog at Sara’s Herbs and Everlasting.  She plans on sharing lots of great craft ideas and she will probably be showing you more and more of her shop.  I am sure she will even get more pictures of her shop and dried herbs up there too so be keeping an eye out for those.  If you are ever in the area then be sure to stop by and see Sara & Sam.  Sara is definitely the sweetest gal I have met.  She has been a great friend to my Mom and I know for a fact that my Mom will miss her very much!  Thank you Sara for always being such a wonderful friend to my Mom.  We love you dearly!

Well, let’s take a look at those gingerbread men – ok?  I tried a couple gingerbread women, but I decided I didn’t like them as well so you will probably one see about 4 of them.  I love the stars too.  I thought they would look great on a Christmas tree, but let’s not rush the holidays (lol).

 

Here are some pictures with the pine….. don’t they look too cute tucked in with the Christmas pine?

 

I also made these for Cameron…… I thought that with the small amount of dough that I had left, that I would make him some fake chocolate chip cookies.  Don’t they look so real?  The hard thing was explaining to him that they weren’t real, but for decoration ONLY!

Well, alot of you have questioned me about the recipe and as much as I would like to keep it a secret…… it is only fun sharing it with my good friends to they not only get to experience the fun of making them, but you also get to smell that wonderful aroma that I was talking about.  So, here is the recipe….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gingerbread Men Decorations

-1/2 cup shortening

-1/2 cup brown sugar

-3/4 cup dark molasses

-1/2 cup white (Elmer’s glue)

-3/4 cup water

-2 tablespoons cinnamon

Mix ingredients together then gradually add 3 cups of flour and mix.  Add 2 more cups of flour and mix well until everything is completely mixed.  I was use a mixer, but with the last cup of flour, had to end up using my hands to really get everything mixed well.

-Cut out into shapes and bake at 275 degrees for 2 hours.

-Use whole all spice for eyes, place those on before you bake them, but be aware that you might have to really push them down into the dough to get them to stick.  If they come lose then just use a drop of Elmer’s glue to get them to stick.  It will dry clear.

**These are not edible**  Have fun!!