Santa Shelf Pal

Ho Ho Ho!  Kids will have great fun creating this festive Santa from recycled cardboard tubes, with dangly legs for the mantel shelf or their bedroom this Christmas.

Santa Shelf Pal

Skill Level

Easy

Time to Make

1 hour (+ drying time)

Adult Supervision Needed

Yes

How to Make

  1. Paint the cardboard tube red with acrylic paint. Leave this to one side to dry. Mix a skin tone colour and paint the polystyrene ball, then leave to dry with the cardboard tube.
  2. Draw and cut out a curved triangle shape on red felt for Santa’s hat. Once cut out, flip the shape over and trace around it on more red felt. Cut this shape out, so that the hat now has 2 identical sides. Use needle and thread to sew around the curved edges of the hat, but make sure to leave the bottom edge open. Apply a small amount of glue along the outside of the open edge of the hat and wrap some cotton wool around it. Also stuff the hat with more cotton wool to make it 3D and leave to dry.
  3. Cut a strip of black felt, making sure its long enough to wrap around the cardboard tube. Stick the felt to the tube. Cut a small square of gold glitter self-adhesive foam that is only slightly wider than the black felt. As an optional step, cut out a smaller square from the middle of the glitter square. This can be quite tricky, so an adult’s help may be required. Once cut out, peel off the back and stick the square to the middle-front of the black felt.
  4. Stick a silver glitter pom-pom to the pointy end of Santa’s hat. It may need to be held in place as it dries.
  5. Gently and carefully poke two holes into the front-bottom of the cardboard tubes. Poke two more holes into the top sides of the tube. Thread a black pipe cleaner through the bottom holes, and a red pipe cleaner through the top holes. Carefully poke two black pom-poms onto the end of the red pipe cleaners.
  6. Fold a sheet of black felt in half and draw a boot shape onto it. Cut the shape out of the folded felt so that two boots are cut out at once. Flip one of the boots over and trace it onto the felt, fold the felt and cut it out. Stick the first two boots together around the end of the pipe cleaner and repeat with the other foot. Similar to the Santa hat, wrap cotton wool around the tops of the boots and stick down with PVA glue. Put the model to one side to dry.
  7. Glue a small pink pom-pom to the centre of the polystyrene ball. Above the pom-pom nose stick two self-adhesive wiggle-eyes. Below the pom-pom wrap a strand of cotton wool around the bottom of the polystyrene ball, and secure with glue. At the front of Santa’s face and under his pom-pom nose vertically hang a few strands of cotton wool, sticking them to the face. Brush some PVA glue onto the top edge of the cardboard tube and stick the head onto it. Leave the whole model to dry.
  8. Brush a layer of glue onto the top of Santa’s head and stick on the Santa hat. It may need to be held in place until the glue has dried enough to prevent it from moving. Mix up some rosy pink paint and dab into onto Santa’s face, just under the eyes. Make sure the whole model is dry before playing with it.
Santa Shelf Pal Santa Shelf Pal Santa Shelf Pal

Top Tip

If cotton wool is not available, white felt can be used as a substitute.