Gingerbread Man Cake Tin DIY Decoration

Happy Saturday, y’all! I actually managed to finish a craft project- can you believe it? This is actually a craft project that I started working on almost 10 years ago. Nothing quite like starting a project, only to get distracted by life. LOL! But I’ve finally done it, and I think it looks great. Now to figure out what I’ll do with it. What am I talking about? A gingerbread man cake tin DIY decoration.

Several years ago, I found this adorable cake tin at the thrift store. I had to have him and give him a new life and a new home. I wasn’t going to use it for baking, though he would make an adorable cake. Then I remembered my grandmother having decorative molds and tins hanging in the kitchen when I was a kid. Sure, hers were all the copper ones, and her kitchen was four times larger than mine. But I wanted to try to recreate that, in my way.

Where I stumbled on the project years ago was that I didn’t think about sanding and coating the cake tin in a primer. So, the time I spent painting the tin was easily scratched off. I was super discouraged. Honestly, that’s probably why I stopped. Because I didn’t know how to fix the problem. Then I remembered we had picked up some spray paint that contained primer for a different project. And the ball started rolling.

Step 1

I went digging in the tool bag and found a sanding block. Then I grabbed a can of spray paint and the cake tin, then headed outside for some prep work. After sanding most of the original paint off and some of the rust that had managed to form, I took a damp cloth and wiped all the residue off. No one wants to see all of that under the primer!

Step 2

Next up was a thin coat of the primer. Yes, I know, the bright green is a bold choice. My daughter laughed and said I should leave it just like that. She’s a strange one!

Step 3

After letting the primer sit for 24 hours, I then set about painting. Let me tell you, my patience isn’t as strong as it used to be. I kept trying to put more layers of paint over the wet paint. Silly me, I know! But I had the motivation to do the project, and I wanted to get it done. When my frustration was getting to me, I set it aside to let the first layer of paint dry and worked on something else—probably making dinner! After that, I added a second coat, painting in a different direction to ensure there were no streaks. What I mean is that I painted the first time horizontally, and vertically the second.

Step 4

Then the fun part came! I got to paint the details! I tried to stick to the usual color scheme one would see on gingerbread men. The heart had to be red, though it turned out more pink, which I adore. And the stripes on his hands and feet had to be white. My daughter picked out the colors for the buttons.

When it came time to paint the eyes, I originally had them white. My daughter was a tad horrified by the intense eyes. She insisted they had to be a different color, but I couldn’t give him pupils. She said he would be cursed! This coming from my horror lover. We settled on a chocolate brown.

Another detail I knew I had to include was something sparkly on the heart. I then decided to add the details to the buttons. It helped that I had glitter paint to match most of the colors. Sadly, the glitter on the yellow buttons isn’t yellow. But I wasn’t trying to spend more money. I wanted to stick with using what we already owned.

Step 5

Once everything was dry and I was happy with how it looked, I added a coat of matte ModPodge. This layer will help protect the paint and hopefully prevent scratches.

Overall, I had fun working on this project. I may even do this to more cake tins in the future. What do you think of my gingerbread man cake tin DIY decoration? Have you ever tried anything like this? Would you be willing to give it a try?

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