Find a few twigs on your next woodland walk and you will
have the main ingredients you need to make a twig reindeer. The simplicity and naturalness of the
branches used makes a really wonderful Christmas decoration.
We collected twigs from several walks. We found that those from horse chestnut trees
were ideal as they had thin branches that divided nicely like reindeer
antlers. We also cut some stems from the
green and red dogwood in the garden. So
you don’t have to go too far for your supplies.
This meant we started with a lovely bunch of twigs which actually look
quite good on their own in the vase.
Any young children helping with this project will need to be
assisted with cutting the twig. You
could use scissors or just snap any very thin twigs. For the thicker stems I used secateurs.
For the body you will need a piece of twig about 8/9 inches
long. Then you will need 2 “Y” shaped
stems about 7 inches in length (though you could go shorter to about 4 inches). You then need to attach the legs to the
body. Set them back about 1 to 1/2inch
along the body. We firstly tried to glue
together. However as this seemed not be
too easy we opted for tying with red twine.
I think this also adds to the overall image of the reindeer. We tied as tight as possible and kept the
reindeer on its side until both sets of legs were on. The front set of legs was very slightly inclined
backwards. You need to cut the stem on the
back “Y”.
Choosing the piece de resistance was the best bit of the whole
project. We opted for some twigs that my
son had found still with a few leaves on.
They were perfect. Again we tied
the two antlers to the neck in 2 different places, rather than sticking them with glue.
We will be making more of these in the coming days as it is
a great way of bringing the outdoors inside – though not sure we make enough
for them to pull Santa’s sleigh. Merry Christmas.
I LOVE these! Thanks so much for popping them on to Festive Friday, we'll definitely be making them!
ReplyDeleteHoping they might be the centrepiece for our Xmas table.
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