Everything Crafty, Anything Creative!: Santa's Candy Cane Reindeer

Ok, so I know that it has been forever ago since I have posted anything. I am trying to get the hang of this blogging thing while running a home based business & taking care of my family. Oh, did I mention that I just had a baby too. Then my husband goes and gets a new dog since ours passed away from cancer. Much to my surprise it isn't in fact a dog but a miniature horse.....He is a Great Dane. I hate to admit that I have actually grown to love him. He is the sweetest thing ever. In spite of the fact that he is a large puppy he thinks he is still a lap dog.

On top of all of this I am also making the majority of my Christmas gifts....Those posts will come later, I PROMISE!!

Anywho, I am bringing you one of my most favorite crafts. I was surfing the good ole' internet the last few weeks for inspiration for something to make for my boys Christmas parties at school. I found these awesome creations from Jackie at www.jackietopa.com

Her elves are super cute.

Now seriously, I was thinking of making these except that I don't have any of the stampin' up punches required and I couldn't justify paying over $120 for the punches. So I kept looking....and looking....and looking.

What did I end up with?

Ugh, nothing still and on the eve of the party day!!

I am sure you can imagine how stressed I was, right?

I was determined I was going to do something and that is when my brain went into over drive. Somehow I seem to work best under stress. Go figure!

Well, here is what I came up with:

Candy Cane Reindeer

Don't you just LOVE them? I thought they turned out so cute.

Here is what you will need to make them:

Brown cardstock

Hot Glue

Slick Paint in Pink, Black and Red

1/8" Ribbon

Clear tape

Candy Canes: You will need 2 candy canes for every reindeer.

Here is how I did it:

I copied the owl body from the stampin' up punch and then cleaned it up a bit, erased the feet and made it the size I needed.

You can get the reindeer head below by simply clicking the picture and then saving the image. Be sure to print the actual size when printing the image.

Then I made a template on card stock and traced it onto my colored card stock. Cutting the heads out was really easy. I thought for sure it would take me F.O.R.E.V.E.R to cut 42 of them out but it only took about 15 minutes.

A few of the heads.

Once I had the heads cut out, I started taping 2 candy canes together. I faced them out a little bit because I didn't want them to lay flat but I didn't want them to face completely forward either.

(You can use bakers twine here and make a loop to hang it on the tree. You would simply knot the two ends of the bakers twine together and then slip it up in between the bottom of the candy canes. Then you would proceed to the next step.)

Once that was finished I put a little hot glue down the center of the back of the reindeer head and stuck it to the candy canes.

(I forgot to take a picture of this step.....ooops!)

Red, Black & Pink Slick Paint.

(I was going to use white for the whites of the eyes but they looked better solid black)

It is time to give them all faces once you have the heads attached to the candy canes.

I chose to two different color noses. Some of the girl reindeer had pink noses and some had red. All of the boy reindeer had red noses.

Once I finished their faces I let them dry overnight. I got up the next morning and began making little bows for all the girl reindeer. You can choose any ribbon you want for the bows. I chose to use a red polka dot and pink polka dot. If you cannot make the small bows you can find them on etsy or in my etsy shop.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/bowsgalorenmore