Hi, this is a November 15th 2008 repost from my other blog, Kids4Crafts.com.
These little reindeer are darling, even if I do say myself. Last month I made a few pencil toppers and the spiral ones gave me the idea to create these odd fellows. Really fun at school and make nice gifts from kid to kid. I borrowed my niece Holly for these step by step photos. Holly is 10 and did a wonderful job as my assistant. These are the now famous “Reindeer Pencil Toppers” that we will be doing in our demonstration on Dec. 13th at Bookman's on Speedway in Tucson. Children of all ages are welcome at the show and please try these at home and send us a note and photo.(UPDATE: this event was really quite a blast! We did 3 demo's and had lot's and lot's of kids:). I called these "now famous" because these Reindeer Pencils Toppers get SO MANY VISIT/HITS each fall and winter it's nearly monstrous!
Items Used:
2 Pipe Cleaners
1 New Pencil
Spare Pencil
5 Shiny Pony Beads
1 Red Pony Bead
2 Googly Eyes
Tacky Glue or Heavy Duty Glue Dots or Hot Glue
(depending on child’s age group)
Directions for Righties: Pick up 2 pipe cleaners. Even up their ends (see photo above) and hold in your right hand. Using your left thumb press pipe cleaners against a pencil about 2 inches below the eraser at the ends and start wrapping tightly about 3 times around the top of the pencil with your right hand. Try to keep the pipe cleaners flat as you wrap upward toward the eraser, this will form your reindeer face area (see photos below).
Your thumb is very important to spiraling the pipe cleaners around pencils so hold it firmly while you wrap. Twist the 2 pipe cleaners together where you stop just behind the eraser, and separate them a little (like giant rabbit ears).
Take the spare pencil and repeat the spiral wrapping on each pipe cleaner antler. Holly took a short cut here by taking the spare pencil and placing it midway atop the reindeer pencil on the eraser end and wrapped both sides of the spare pencil. It looked like a big letter “T” her way. And I've found it to work great for me too. Gently slide the spare pencil out of the wrap you just created. Now your have 2 antlers and a plain face.
Through trial and error we have found that you should glue the face on last and slide the 5 colored beads down the antlers now, 3 on one side and 2 on the other. Glue on googly eyes and little red bead nose (I glued the nose vertically and the hole is seen from the side). On a few pencils at my house I tied a little bell on a thin red ribbon around the bottom of the reindeer’s neck, though this might not be a good idea for pencils to be used in school.
You have a cute reindeer pencil! Make some for your school chums and teachers as gifts.
This is an original Victoria Swanson/Lavender Design, and was published in 2008. It's my most famous creation (if any of us can have that kinda thing) and I'd love you to have fun making these in your home or re-selling for charity (like we've done at my church) it's quite cool to repost my Reindeer, just please remember to give credit and back link to either kids4crafts.com or victorialavender.net.
Thanks so much for this visit. There's fun things to make for the Holidays at kids4crafts. By the way...I need help with kids4crafts. New posts of great ideas are welcome for review. If they fit the criteria for the website, you could be a guest designer. Cool huh?
Peace, love and chicken (Homer Simpson)
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