For the Love of Food

This year I am taking advantage of my son’s young age. A Christmas tree is no place to be hanging fragile breakable ornaments with an almost-two-year-old around. But, his age and care-free ways are a great excuse to make some homemade Christmas ornaments this year that he can not only help make, but will also withstand pulling, squeezing, bumping, and falling.

And, in keeping with the theme of my food blog – these ornaments are made from recycled food packaging – namely – Actimel yogurt drinks (known as DanAktive in the US). To be honest, we don’t drink Actimel since we’re not really fond of sweetened yogurt, but since I wanted to be able to do this project, I bought a pack of 6 and poured out the yogurt into my popsicle molds and froze them – they make a great snack and hold much longer frozen!

This is a really fun, quick, and simple project that a toddler can help make with adult assistance or older children can make by themselves.

What you will need for 6 snowmen:

6 Actimel (DanAktive) containers, rinsed, dried, and labels removed
Thin rope, sturdy garden wire, sturdy yarn, or sturdy string, cut into 5-inch pieces
6 Tea Lights, candles removed
Glue
Permanent Marker
Orange Construction Paper
Scissors
Pencil
1 medium-small Nail

Building your Snowman:

Get all pieces ready for your project before assembling so it goes quickly.

1. Draw 6 little triangles (or rounded triangles) on the corners of the orange construction paper – this will be the carrot nose.

2. Cut the noses free from the large piece of paper.

3. Using the nail, cut 2 small holes, opposite each other, that are large enough to fit your rope through, but small enough that if you knot it, the knot won’t pull through.

4.  Knot your rope on one end.

5. Thread your rope through the first hole.

6. Loop the rop around the back and thread your rope in through the second hole.  If one or both of your holes are too big and you are afraid the knots will pull through (like mine), go ahead and knot the rope ends to eachother at the vey tip.

7. Pull the rope “up” so that the bottom of the tea light is now the top with the rope pulled up above it.

8. Squeeze a decent amount of glue around the edges of the yogurt container.

9.  Place the tea light cap on the yogurt container and now your snowman-to-be has a hat and a way to dangle from your tree.

10. Draw on the eyes -or scribble on it – my son enjoyed the scribbling!

11.  Draw lines on the carrot nose.

12. Attach the nose with a spot of glue.

13. Draw a mouth and some buttons.  Let dry for a few hours before hanging.

Some other ideas/options to complement this ornament:

-cut a small hole in the top and stick a Christmastree light through the top so it glows

-or, cut a hole in the back and stick a Christmastree light through so it glows

-fasten the lids loosley with double-sided tape and hide treats inside -like gummybears or jelly beans

-fill with littlejingle bells so that anytime yourcat, or young child, brushes by the tree the snowmen jingle

I originally got the idea to make these when I saw these (see picture bellow) cute ornaments at my local Christkindelsmarkt.  They round-off the back of the carrot nose which I think looks more realistic.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS