Juice Can Santa

Aren't these cute....this is an easy Santa to make. I have used this project for the last 7 years and it works well with all ages you just adjust how much prep you do.

The Santa made from the tree branch is from a post last year.

I originally found this idea in an old 1982 Better Homes and Gardens "Holiday Crafts" issue. I bought it from a garage sale for 25 cents and was delighted to find not only this project but an old Mary Engelbreit Paper Doll design as well as an article about Salley Mavor and her original fabric pins...not to mention the angel patterns...but (..FOCUS Gail..) lets give you the how to on the Santas.




























Materials Required:

red, 2 shades of pink, and black felt or fleece
tacky glue
red pom pom
white pom pom or Styrofoam ball
white trim
juice can, soup can, toilet roll, pringles can....basically any cylindrical container
scissors




Take your red felt and cut a rectangle that has the same height as the container as well as long enough to go around the container plus 1/2 an inch.










Apply some glue to the container and start sticking the felt on as you go. With very young kids I'll have the felt already cut and ready to go.












For the last 1/2 an inch you want to overlap onto the felt at the start.














Now you need to cut the face...you want to use the light pink for this. I can't give you an exact size as your container will be different. It should have this shape though. You can also precut this for very young kids.
















Glue into place....don't follow my example as it is probably easier to put the glue on the back of the face and then stick on.










Take your white trim and cut enough for a beard.

I have used all sorts of trim for this...usually whatever is on sale or on hand....once we used a pompom trim and the kids absolutely loved it.









Glue into place along the edge of the face.












Cut 2 black circles for the eyes, glue into place. Glue on the red pompom.

Cut 2 circles of the darker pink for the cheeks and glue those on as well.











Cut out a mouth from your scraps of red.














When all glued into place it will look like this.











Now the hat. You need to cut a piece of red into this shape...the hat needs to be as long as the container and should fit over the top when put together.

Now you can use tacky glue or if you are making quite a few you can sew them or use the glue gun.

For kids I usually make the hat and they need to glue on the pompom or Styrofoam ball.

That's it....these look amazing as a grouping with a variety of containers...you can even use the tubes from your Christmas wrapping paper that you have cut to size.

Give it a try and I'll see you soon with another Christmas idea.