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This Simple Christmas Craft Stacks Up to be a Hit with Your Littles

December 20, 2022

We’ll be celebrating with all of our grandkids the week after Christmas and I CAN’T WAIT!! ChiChi (that’s me) always has a craft or two to do with them in my studio/playroom. This year’s is SO CUTE!

Materials You’ll Need:

1. Inexpensive salt and pepper shakers. I got these at Walmart. They’re about 3 inches tall.

2. Some scraps of material like these fat eighths or ribbon. Yarn and burlap can work, but I didn’t like the finished product as much. You could also use sparkly pipe cleaners or gift wrapping trims. 

3. Thread spools. You can leave some or all the thread on the spool if you like. I preferred the empty spool. I used some really old ones I had stashed away. They were smaller and had a cuter shape than new ones. But these “vintage” spools from Walmart are terrific.

4. Miscellaneous beads like these, buttons like these or these (or small ones you might have on hand in your sewing kit) and–for lack of a better word–doo-hickeys. Here’s a link to some doo-hickeys! (LOL)

5. Glue. I’ve tried every kind of glue imaginable but for this I’d use Aleene’s Tacky Glue or Gorilla Super Glue Gel. I would NOT use a hot glue gun, school glue (like Elmer’s), glue sticks, or E6000.

6. Cotton balls. You could also fill the containers up with regular salt, Epsom salts, miniature marshmallows, or anything white!

7. Googly eyes. Get some here.

8. Bright multi-colored (small) pom poms like these.

9. Styrofoam balls like these. I used 1 ½-inch balls.

Step by Step

Here’s how we made them:

  1. Unscrew the lids to the shakers and stuff cotton balls in until the container is full. You might want to stretch the cotton ball out a bit before you stuff it in.
  2. For the taller snowman screw the shaker lid back onto the container. For the shorter snowman, keep the lid off to use as a hat. 
  3. Glue the small styrofoam ball onto the top of the lid (for taller one) or onto the neck of the container (for the shorter one).
  4. Glue on eyes, nose, mouth (for the mouth I used a few strands of thread to cover up my first attempt, which was and epic Sharpie fail! And I used an oblong bead stuck into the styrofoam ball for the nose on the taller snowman. You should put a drop of glue on the tip of the bead before you stick it in.
  5. Cut your ribbon or fabric into a strip about 11 inches long and 5/8th inch wide and tie it around the neck.
  6. Glue buttons or pompoms to the “belly.”
  7. Glue the hat–either a spool or the top of the shaker–on top. Add pompoms, miniature flowers, small feathers, or anything else that strikes your fancy, to the hat.

Oh What Fun!

Don’t forget to name your creations and give them personalized stories. Let your littles do the naming–it will be fun to see what they come up with! I love the way the angle of the hat or the accessories you glue on give each creation a unique personality.

Go ahead and give this a try! If you can cut a piece of ribbon and glue on a googly eye, you’ve got it made! Oh, and, be sure to let me see your finished product!!

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