Christmas Mice with Candy Cane Tails
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Felt and glue are two of the best things to have on hand during Christmas time with your kids. I can’t even begin to count how many different ornaments and crafts we made up as kids to hang on our tree or give to friends using mostly those two simple supplies. It’s so important to let kids make gifts for friends because it really teaches them that the best gifts, the ones they should get excited about, come from the heart
These little mice are a great place to start with your kids. I know its difficult to find red and green felt this time of year so don’t worry about those colors, just think outside of the box. Why not make them in your favorite colors or school colors even? Think of your sports fan and how much they would enjoy a gift from your child in their favorite team colors!
Either way you go, you’ll have fun and your kid will be proud at the results. I’m including a template you can print off to trace onto your felt to make this a breeze. There ya go, excuses are gone and its time to get crafting with your younguns!
This is a fun little craft for kids and adults alike.
You’ll need: felt, little pom poms, googly eyes, scissors, glue, and the little template I’m using.
I am using Tacky glue but a glue gun and even good old school glue would work.
You really should print off the template if only to see what happens when you draw two shapes on a piece of paper, hand them to a mechanical engineer, and say “Can you make me a template of this in a pdf file so I can upload it to the website?”
~blinks~
Methinks he gets a bit technical!
(You can also click on that photo up there to print it and it will pop right up on your screen)
Cut out the mouse body and ear templates and trace them onto your felt. I like to use two different colors for ears and body but there isn’t a rule that says you have to!
Here is my little army of mice just waiting to be made.
All of my photos are a little off tint here because I did this tutorial indoors at night and because I haven’t a clue how to work photoshop or any other fancy schmancy program. And I’m cool with that…
Then cut two little slits for the ears to go through.
I have these marked on the template to give you an idea of where to put them and about how big they need to be.
Then you just slip the ears through the holes of the mouse.
Doing this creates a little pocket on the back that the candy cane slides through.
Then glue on little googly eyes and a pom pom nose to each one.
Katy Rose has been having fun gluing three eyes and two noses to some of hers. Let your kids have fun and create three eyed mice if they want!
It’s quicker if you just set up an assembly line, dotting little bits of glue for eyes and noses as you go along and then placing them.
Here are the little mice babies as they dry
Then turn all the little guys over and insert a little candy cane in the pocket the ears made.
They make cute little set! Don’t forget to make some in your school colors!
You can hang them on the tree or use them as little favors.
These are great little gifts for your kids to make for their teachers and friends.
Print the template for making the mice by clicking here.
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It isn’t the size of the gift that matters,
but the size of the heart that gives it.
~Quoted in The Angels’ Little Instruction Book by Eileen Elias Freeman
We collect the promotional CD’s that we receive in the mail. At Christmas, we take tops to travel shampoos that my husband gets on his business trips and glue them to the bottom of a CD. This creates our base for our advent wreath display. On the top of our CD we glue four shampoo tops facing upward so that we can glue a small candle in each one. With the candles equally placed in the four corners of the CD, we then take hemlock pine cones and glue one cone equally spaced between each candle. With the CD’s reflective finish, the overall effect when the candles are burning is superb. You can also add white paint to the tips of the pine cones to look like snow. I love giving these to families each year after Thanksgiving to start the advent season.
My favorite thing is a thing my son made for us. they took puzzle pieces & painted them green. Glued them in a circle & put their picture behind it. It was so cute. I still have it.
Every year my kitchen turns into a cookie factory and we make hundreds and hundreds of cookies for neighbors, family, friends, teachers, and co-workers.
My daughter (who is not a “crafty person”) created a sweatshirt for me about 8 or 9 years ago with a Christmas scene on the front. I am still wearing it every Christmas season. I think it was just an iron-on deal, but everyone still comments on it.
I taught school for years, and one year a student gave me an ornament that he made himself. He went to the beach the during the summer break and found sand dollars. His mom helped him preserve them, and he then painted holly and berries on them. I have been hanging that sand dollar on my Christmas tree for 22 years now, and I always stop to wonder what Daniel is doing these days. That for sure is one of the most favorite homemade gifts I have received.
Christy, West Clinic is a cancer treatment center in downtown Memphis. I’ve had several friends who received treatment there and I sometimes took my friends for their treatment appointments. Two years ago, in the coldest January you can imagine, I accompanied a friend. When I walked in and saw all those shiny bald heads, I felt so sorry for these men and women. In addition to suffering through the torments of cancer treatment, they were also forced to endure the cold weather with little or no hair. I, along with a couple other ladies from my Sunday School class, began knitting “chemo caps” from extra soft baby yarn and we travel to the Clinic monthly to hand them out to the patients. They love the softness and because we make most of them in a style that looks like short hair, they enjoy wearing them when they go out… no more humiliation or stares from strangers. This, by far, is one of the most meaningful gifts that I am blessed to give. Also, as we make the caps, we pray for the eventual owner of the cap. God uses us to bless these cancer patients in a very small way… but WE get the biggest blessings of all.
I make ornaments each year that hold pictures of the grandkids. These are the favorite ones to put on the tree.