Free gingerbread man SVG files

Icing in one colour

A gingerbread man is brown biscuit with white icing. In a single colour the icing has to be cut as holes: eyes, a smile, buttons and a squiggle across each wrist and ankle. Cut the biscuit from brown vinyl, kraft card or thin plywood and put it on something white or cream, and the holes read as icing.

Every squiggle stops short of the edge of the limb it crosses, which is what keeps the hands and feet attached. On a plywood cut those bridges are the weakest part, so keep wooden gingerbread men at 100 mm tall or more.

Sizes that work

The plain cookie shape has only three holes and nothing thin, so it works down to about 30 mm for gift tags and confetti. The iced gingerbread men are best at 70 mm or taller, where the squiggles are still easy to weed. The family and the border are rows of small figures: cut them at 150 mm wide or more. For felt, use the layered gingerbread man and cut each colour separately.

How to open the files

• Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
• Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
• LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
• Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
• Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions