Make a Gingerbread Carousel for Your Dollhouse

       A carousel or carousel or merry-go-round is a type of amusement ride consisting of a rotating circular platform with seats for riders. The "seats" are traditionally in the form of rows of wooden horses or other animals mounted on posts, many of which are moved up and down by gears to simulate galloping, to the accompaniment of looped circus music.

       Carousels are commonly populated with horses, but may include a variety of mounts, for example pigs, zebras, tigers, or mythological creatures such as dragons or unicorns. Sometimes, chair-like or bench-like seats are used, and occasionally mounts can be shaped like airplanes or cars. Our gingerbread carousel has cookie reindeer "seating" and cookie Christmas trees to celebrate with a Christmas theme for this ginger cookie ride display.

My doll sized gingerbread carousel.

Supply List:

• a recycled tape or ribbon cardboard holder
• scrap cardboard
• Styrofoam mini balls
• brown paper
• acrylic paints - browns
  
• Mod Podge
• toothpicks or wooden skewers
• white glue
• hot glue and gun (optional)
• rick-racks and laces, red ribbon
  
• mini wooden reindeer flats (optional)
• white puff paint (looks like icing)
  

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Cut-out 4 pine tree shapes and paint these a "gingerbread'' brown.
2. Paint the 4 wooden reindeer pieces the same gingerbread brown. (See what these looked like before painting here.)
3. Decorate all 8 with white icing (puff paints) and candy (Styrofoam mini beads) and set aside.
   
4. Cut a larger hole in two equal sized ribbon cardboard holders and insert a sturdy tube between the two. This will be the carousel stage for your pretend ginger cookies.
5. The bottom of this construction must have a floor but the top half will only need to be a hollow canopy-like structure with a cone shaped roof. I made this cone by cutting a cardboard circle approximately one inch larger around it's circumference than the ribbon holder. Find the center of this piece and cut from any part of the circle edge straight to the center point. Now shape this cutout into a gently sloping cone shaped roof. Use masking tape and glue to hold it in place.
6. Cover the entire carousel with brown paper and white school glue, after hot gluing the roof in place.
   
7. Paint the center, column white and glue a red ribbon around it to make a faux peppermint stick.
   
8. Hot glue four skewers equally space around the carousel, with their tops inside the canopy and their bottoms piercing through the floor of the carousel. Paint these white.  
9. I then used the white school glue to paste on white lacy trims and more Styrofoam beads for the gingerbread decorations.
   
10. Hot glue the Christmas tree cookies at the base of the carousel, near the peppermint column.
    
11. Next hot glue the faux, reindeer cookies against the skewers, spacing them evenly around the carousel.
12.  Mod Podge the finished display for your doll's house or bakery.
    

Left, see the ribbon containers and center column used to build the carousel.
Center, is the finished stage. Right, is a close-up photo of the pine tree
shaped Christmas gingerbread cookies.

Make More Gingerbread Crafts for Dolls:

• Doll Gingerbread Horn Book Craft
• How to craft a gingerbread castle for AG dolls...
• The Pioneer Doll's Christmas Tree
  

Craft More Gingerbread for Christmas:

• Fauve Gingerbread Church Tree Topper
• Paint a gingerbread boy for the tree
• Read a Gingerbread Rebus from 1904

A lovely carousel cake by bake artist, Deborah Hwang.