You might’ve gathered by now that we absolutely LOVE a good pompom craft! After going a little crazy with packs of Christmas themed pompoms recently, we really had to put them to good use! Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is one of our favourite Christmas songs, so we decided to make a door decoration in his honor!
If you also have far too many pompoms or want to go out and buy far too many pompoms, here’s our photo guide to making Rudolph. This is such a great activity for slightly older children or ‘tweens.’ My 9 year old was in his element…
You will need:
- Cardboard (for face, ears and antlers)
- Coffee cup lid
- Brown pompoms – we used approximately 160 of various shapes and sizes.
- Red pompoms – around 20 should do the trick!
- Googly eyes
- Gold or brown paint
- Christmas ribbon
- Chenille sticks / pipe cleaners in gold or brown
- Low temp glue gun
- Glue stick refills – around 5, depending on the size
- Craft knife
- Scissors
Step 1:
Cut some cardboard into an oval shape (the hole in ours was already there, so don’t worry about that part!) Then use a glue gun to fix a coffee cup lid in place as the nose – this is so Rudolph’s nose sticks out from the rest of his face!
Step 2:
Affix brown pompoms with the help of a glue gun. If you have an older child in your house, get them involved – my 8 year old does love to use the glue gun!*
Step 3:
Once you have filled the face with brown pompoms, use the reds to cover the coffee cup lid. Rudolph should be starting to take shape now!
Step 4:
Now it’s time for our all time favourite craft resource, the googly eye! Well, you’ll obviously need two of them unless you want to go for an alternative ‘Cyclops Rudolph’ look!
Step 5:
Cut out teardrop shaped cardboard pieces for the ears and glue the pointy end to the back of Rudolph’s head.
Step 6:
Cover the ears in yet more brown pompoms!
Step 7:
Use a craft knife to cut out cardboard antler shapes*.
Step 8:
Paint the antlers gold or brown and leave to dry. We opted for a sponge brush to create a slightly stippled look. Once dry, you can opt to decorate with chenille sticks (as shown in the cover image).
Step 9:
Attach antlers to the back of Rudolph’s head.
Step 10:
Fix a ribbon to the reverse of your Rudolph so that you can hang him up on a door or even the wall. Then stand back and admire your awesome creation!
If you like this craft, we have plenty of other Christmas ideas on the website. Just click on the links for more….
Christmas Activities for Toddlers
*Even with older children, please always be mindful of safety. I remind Harrison every time not to touch the glue itself as even though our glue gun is supposed to be low temperature, it still really stings if you accidentally get burnt! In our house, we also consider the use of the craft knife to be very much an ‘grown-up’ job too.
