Five Minute Paper Snowmen

We may not have snow this Christmas, but allow me to introduce you to our choir of paper snowmen which we’ve had great fun making.

I’ve got a bit of an obsession with paper snowmen. When I was little my grandmother had this really cute paper snowman with a paper honeycomb ball body that would get unfolded every year, and in hindsight I was probably a complete nightmare to keep away from it, constantly poking at the poor thing. I’ve been trying to find one like it now that I have my own house, but I’m always really keen to try making some kind of paper snowman every year until I manage it.

I came across some really cute 3D paper Christmas trees on Hattifant’s blog recently and had great fun making loads with my daughters. She has a free printable that makes it really easy to get the base angle right so they stand up properly, and it’s a lovely craft for children who are working on their scissor skills. All you need is paper or thin card, a ruler, a pencil and some scissors, then pen to decorate. I used this basic layout to make these snowmen, and my oldest daughter had great fun designing hats and scarves for the different snowmen, while my two year old enjoyed colouring them all purple. Whatever floats your boat!

The trick with the snowmen, and the Christmas trees, is to get the angle of the base right so that they’ll have a fairly stable base. I made mine from thin card as it stands up better than paper, though paper is fine if you don’t make them too tall so they get floppy. Then you just cut out from the paper folded in half like a paper doll, and cut “ribs” through the center which can be folded out in opposite directions to support the 3D shape. Scoring gently through the middle and along the edges of the triangle as shown in the picture makes it easier to fold out the snowman neatly.

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Easy Christmas Tree Hat for Kids

Is there anything to match the sinking feeling you get when you have a last minute email from your child’s teacher saying they need a last minute item or costume for an event at school? For me the latest was a Christmas tree hat for their celebration Christmas lunch, and with it being 2020 we couldn’t grab something from the shop. Also my five year old has decided that it’s her goal in life to be extra, so she wasn’t going to wear a nice cardboard and stick reindeer head band like we’d made in previous years.

Christmas tree hat, can double as a homemade mini Christmas tree when not in use

Cue a scrabble to make a hat from stuff we already had in the house, something that looked cool but was also led by my daughter. Enter, the Christmas tree hat, which looks jazzy but is deceptively simple, with a little help from me, my daughter managed most of the steps pretty independently.

To make a Christmas Tree hat you will need:

A3 thin cardboard (we used green but your Christmas tree could be any colour)

A long piece of tinsel (again, we used green but any colour could work)

Sticky tape

Tacky glue

Pencil

Scissors

Ribbon

Decorations (we made a star with gold cardboard and a pipe cleaner, and wrapped a length of string with felt Christmas shapes and jingle bells for baubles, but ready made pom poms with tacky glue would work really well I think.

How to make a Christmas Tree Hat:

Step 1. Roll your A3 cardboard into a cone shape, leaving a hole at the top to poke the tinsel through. Check the fit on the head that’s it’s intended for, then sticky tape into shape. Trim the edges for an even cone.

Step 2. Using a pencil, poke two holes on opposite sides of the hat and thread ribbon through. This will help the hat stay on when the tinsel and decorations added, as the extra weight can make it slippery. Heavy is the head that wears the Christmas crown.

Step 3. Poke the end of the tinsel through the hole in the had and sticky tape into position to secure.

Step 4. Spread tacky glue on the cone in sections working from the top of the hat to the bottom and wrap the tinsel around the hat to create the effect of branches. If you have a shorter length of tinsel you could go for a spiral around rather than full coverage. Sticky tape inside for a secure finish.

Step 5. When the tacky glue has dried, add your decorations. What you add will determine how you secure it, but with the star, we inserted the pipe cleaners inside the hole at the top of the hat and sticky taped the pipe cleaner inside to help the star stand upright on the Christmas tree hat. We threaded the felt shapes and small bells onto Christmas twine and wrapped around in the same way as the tinsel, securing at the bottom with sticky tape.

And voila, a very sparkly Christmas tree hat

This only took around half an hour to make using materials we already had, so I’d definitely recommend giving it a go as a last minute Christmas craft.