Each year in the Pottery Shop, we create a new limited-edition tile ornament for the holiday season. This year’s theme is a cheerful gingerbread man – we’ve had many guests tell us that collecting and displaying the ornaments on their Christmas trees has become a family tradition, so we try to create something unique and fun to help keep those traditions alive!

The process began quite a while ago – early on in 2011, in fact – with developing the design for the ornaments, then one of our potters, Melinda, carving them into a mold.

It’s quite a painstaking process, with about an entire day devoted to carving the lines so that they’re just deep enough to hold the decorative glaze we’ll apply later, but not too deep, either.

Melinda uses clay to check the depth and quality of the lines she’s carving, and once the carving is complete, we create a rubber mold for the final product and then duplicate this process three more times.

Take a look at this video as Melinda takes you through the process – then look for these 2011 gingerbread man ornaments in our stores; they just might make it into your family’s traditions as well!

What other types of cherished holiday traditions do you follow?

Ryan Forrey is lead potter in Greenfield Village’s Pottery Shop, where throwing pottery is a fun and rewarding job – but nothing like the movie Ghost.