Reindeer candy canes

You’d think I’d have noticed by my age that Christmas always falls on the 25th. But once again, it’s taken me by surprise, so I was looking around for something quick and easy to make to satisfy that festive urge. Last year I made candy cane mice which were very popular. But this year I fancied something a bit different, so I came up with these reindeer candy canes, which are equally easy.

You can hand or machine sew them, and they just use a few scraps of felt. Here’s how to make them.

Materials

• brown felt
• reindeer template (download it here)
• 12cm (5 inches) brown ricrac
• 2 googly eyes
• 1 red pompom or bead for the nose

Instructions

1. Print out the template and cut two head pieces and one ear piece from the felt. Cut the slit in both reindeer pieces as marked.
2. Take the two reindeer head pieces and sew round the edges, leaving the bottom open. I used a blanket stitch on my sewing machine, but you could hand sew this if you prefer.
   
3. Glue the googly eyes in place, one on each side of the head in the marked postion.A hot glue gun is probably the most secure way.
   
4. Sew or glue the nose on the end, and insert the candy cane. I used a pompom I had in the craft cupboard, but you could make a small pompom using a fork, or just substitute a bead.
   
5. Fold the ear piece in half lengthwise and push the ear piece with the ricrac on top through the slits in the head so half of each is on either side.

   

6. If you want to add a ribbon or loop to hang them up, thread it through the slit on top of the ricrac and tie in a knot.
   

Just pop the reindeer head over the end of the candy cane to finish off.

I’ve made a team of reindeer (apparently the collective noun for reindeer is just ‘herd of reindeer’, but I’m not sure four really counts as a whole herd) so you can see the different options for the noses.

Let me know if you make some!