Christmas Craft -- Reindeer Ornaments

Every year I help my kids make something special to give to their classmates for Christmas.  Usually it involves little goody bags with some fun treats in it, but this year we were on a bit of a money crunch so the gifts my kids give out had to be home made and with stuff we already had around the house!

 

I decided we were going to go with Christmas ornaments.  Kids love having their OWN ornaments to put on the Christmas tree, and I know several children who have their own mini Christmas tree's in their bedrooms (and my daughter will NOT stop asking for one of her own, of which I keep telling her No.  No.  No.  We have a 7.5ft tall tree in the living room/dining room area and it is FULL of our hand made ornaments so in no way do you NEED a tree of your own in your room). 

 

Anyway, we sat about trying to decide what types of ornaments to make for each one of the kiddos.  As I sat looking at my tree (to see what ornaments we had made in previous years that might work).  I noticed some made out of popsicle sticks.  I was like, yeh, we can do that for one kiddo.  My daughter chose that particular ornament to hand out to her class mates. 

 

We started making Reindeer Ornaments. 

 

Supplies:

1. Popsicle sticks (we used plain wooden ones as we wanted a 'natural' look but they make some pretty colored popsicle sticks, and they make them in various sizes we used the smaller size for ours).  You could also paint your plain stick if you wanted. 
2. Hot Glue gun, any glue would work, but hot glue just seemed more sturdy!
3. Googly eyes (you can pick up a perfectly sized bag of these at the Dollar Tree, we prefer to use the two smaller sizes)
4. Red pom pom balls, so we could make them look like Rudolph, but any other color would work as well.
5. Jingle Bells
6. Twine 

Directions: 

1. First I glued the tips of two sticks together to make a V
2. Next I glued another across the top, but down a little bit to give the "ears and antlers look"
3. I then glued a red pom pom to the bottom tip for the red nose of Rudolph.       
4. Then I glued on the googly eyes above the nose.   
5. I then cut out the length of twin I wanted and fastened that to the top stick to hang it on the tree,
6. Last I glued a jingle bell to that twine to make it 'jingle' when shook.

 

These were super easy and quick to make.  They look really cute when finished.

 

You can also make Christmas tree's like this too, only you glue sticks together to make a triangle and then can glue a yellow pom pom to the top or a star and then use beads as ornaments if you want.  We've done this in years past. 

On the back of each reindeer I wrote who it was from and the year. 

My daughter is so excited to hand these out to her class mates this year!

Mom Circus

Also See:
Christmas Craft -- Snow Bowl
Christmas Craft -- Candy Cane Ornament
Christmas Craft -- Stocking Hat