If you’re looking for a fun project to do over winter break with your kids, Nicole from Tikkido is here today with an adorable craft to try — precious pom pom mice!
Perhaps it’s a legacy of watching The Nutcracker ballet many, many times, but there’s something that just feels right about little mice during the holidays. Dapper, well dressed, adorable little mice, mind you. Like these little charmers. Here’s how to make them…
Materials:
- White and pink felt
- White yarn
- White pipe cleaners
- Two small black beads
- One small pink bead
- Scraps of fabric
- Scissors
- Hot glue gun
Directions:
Start by making two simple yarn pom poms, one for the head and one for the body. Take a piece of yarn (about 5 inches long) and stretch it out along your index finger. Take the skein of yarn, and start winding it around your finger AND the short piece of yarn. Wind wind wind–more than you’d expect!
When you’re done winding, carefully pull the yarn off your finger, being sure to keep the short strand of yarn threaded through the tunnel of yarn you just slipped off. tie the short piece of yarn tightly.
Use sharp scissors to cut all of the loops of yarn. This creates your basic shaggy yarn pom pom.
Use the scissors to give the shaggy pom pom a haircut, trimming just a bit at a time, and shaping the pom pom into a teardrop-shaped mouse head.
Make a slightly larger oval pom pom for the body of the mouse.
Use a hot glue gun to glue the head pom pom to the body pom pom. Add pipe cleaner arms and legs to the mouse body. The arms are made of a single standard pipe cleaner cut in half. The legs are a single uncut standard pipe cleaner. Attach the arms and legs by simply winding tightly around the body of the mouse. Use the remaining half-pipe cleaner as the tail. Attach that by gluing it in place with the hot glue gun.
Cut a petal of white felt for each of the mouse’s ears. Cut a smaller petal of pink felt for the inner ear. You can sew the two pieces together, or simply use a hot glue gun to attach the two pieces.
Dab a bit of hot glue at the base of the ear and pinch together, to create the perfect mouse-ear shape. Use the hot glue gun to attach the ears to the mouse’s head.
Use scraps of fabric and lace to fashion a dress for your little rodent friend. No sewing necessary — I just glued the dresses in place with that handy-dandy hot glue gun!
Attach two black beads for eyes and one pink bead for a dainty little nose. 4mm round beads worked perfectly for the mice ornaments I made.
Tuck in the branches of your Christmas tree — if you can persuade your children to stop playing with them! It’s a good thing they’re soft and surprisingly durable. My girls can’t get enough of them.
Omg, Nikki, we will be trying these this week!
To learn more about Nicole (who enjoys decorating cakes but not eating them, Irish dancing, public radio, Old English language and archaeology, and geekery of all sorts), visit her at Tikkido and Tradewind Tiaras.