Sew Can Do: Fluffy Yarn Reindeer Decoration Tutorial

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm definitely short on time this Christmas season. The days are counting down so fast and there's still loads to do. This is when the Christmas crafts need to be pretty quick & easy. Enter: The Fluffy Yarn Reindeer.

I'd seen yarn wrapped trees and a few reindeer here & there, but they all had a children's arts & crafts, rope-y look and even the slightest imperfection was really noticeable. I wanted our reindeer to look a bit magical and what could be more fantastic than fluffy, shimmery antlers?

With his cherry red nose and snowy texture, he's an elegant Rudolph:

The best part? It's simple to make, doesn't require loads of materials and is inexpensive. My craft win trifecta. I didn't even have to leave the house because I had all the gear just sitting around in my craft ~~hoard~~ stash. Which is good since I don't have time to run to the craft store all that often these days.

Materials:

- Papier mache reindeer (or tree/whatever shape you like)
- Skein of eyelash yarn
- Tacky glue & hot glue
- Red shank button & satin ribbon
- Optional, but helpful, acrylic paint in the color of the yarn

The first part is optional, but key if you're a perfectionist type. Add a bit of acrylic craft paint to the areas that are more challenging to cover. This helps camouflage any gaps. In this case it was the pointy ends of the antlers. If I were doing this all over I'd probably paint the entire thing, but I was short on time so I just did a few choice spots.

I found starting at the antlers was the easiest with the yarn. Dabbing a bit of glue along the upper area, I laid a bit of yarn over the antler tip and wound the yarn around about an inch down. I did it a few more times to get the tip covered and then wound downward and moved to the other antler, loosely going upward and winding in more tight rows on the way back down.

Spread more of the tacky glue around the muzzle area

Then start winding from the antler area to around the mouth:

Wind around the area and then back around from the neck to the tip of the muzzle to get full coverage and then start looping it around the ears. Dabs of hot glue here & there help keep the yarn from slipping off.

Work down the neck and then start wrapping around the center and then front to back to get the entire midsection covered well:

Then wrapping down one leg and adding a dab of hot glue at the hoof and cutting the yarn. I glued a new strand at the top of each of the remaining legs and wound down finishing them the same way. Using a pin, I pulled loose some the the eyelash strands than got matted down with all the winding to fluff him up a bit.

For some added detailing, I ground off the shank of a cherry red button and hot glued it on for a nose. Adding a nose was my daughter's idea and it really added the right touch.