Peanut Christmas Ornaments

I’m that person who always wears a Santa hat at Christmas. (Ho Ho Ho! I can’t wait for Christmas!!!) I bought myself a Santa hat when I was in high school. My friends and I had a Christmas party together in the school cafeteria, and for whatever dorky reason, we decided to wear Santa hats.

We drove out to Walmart (Walmart was fairly new to our little town, so this was an event for us… haha), and we bought beautiful Santa hats… WAY better than the quality of anything you can buy now. So I decided to wear my hat at Christmas that year. And I wore it again the year after. And then it kind of stuck.

I tried to stop wearing my Santa hat for a few years in my 20’s, but my grandfather, bless his soul, would guilt me into digging it out of my closet if I tried to make an appearance at our Christmas Eve dinner without it. My grandfather passed away last month, so now I feel even more guilt to wear it in his honour. I’ll just try to forget how annoying it is to cook in a hot kitchen with a scratchy hat on, and focus on how well the hat will cover the giant ball of frizz that has been my hair since I cut it all off. Ha!

These peanut Christmas ornaments are another one of those CLASSIC crafts that you’ve probably forgotten about with an excellent use of festive Santa hats (if I do say so myself!). I’m pretty sure we all made ornaments out of peanuts at some point in our childhoods, but if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably completely forgotten!

I tell you, whoever thought of this, however many decades ago it was, was seriously brilliant! Who would have thought that a peanut could be transformed into so many winter characters!? But they’re ALL adorable!

Since I made four different ornaments, a Santa, a Snowman, a Penguin and a Reindeer, this post is going to be loooooooong. So stay with me!

How to Make Peanut Christmas Ornaments

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Peanuts


• Acrylic Paint


• Red, White and Orange Felt


• White and Red Mini Pom Poms


• Cotton Ball


• Brown Pipe Cleaners


• Black Pen or Marker


• Ribbon

I just used acrylic paint from the dollar store. And plain jane peanuts in their shell.

Start by painting the peanuts and allowing them to dry.

For the penguin, I painted the white belly first.

And once that was a little bit dry, I painted the black around it.

For the santa hats, cut yourself a square of red felt, then from corner to corner, cut a curve so that it looks like the felt piece on the left in the photo below.

Using a hot glue gun, make a thin line of glue along one edge of the red felt and fold the felt in half. If your glue line was too thick and the felt looks funny from the back, use sharp scissors to trip it back.

Glue a small strip of white felt around the bottom edge of the hat, and then glue a mini white pom pom to the top.

It’s a little tedius to make the hats, but it’s MUCH easier using the hot glue gun rather than sewing them. And they ended up looking adorable!

For the Snowman:

Cut a small triangle of orange felt and use hot glue to attach it to the top of one of the peanuts as the nose. The nose should point sideways like a carrot.

I used a black gel pen to draw the faces, but you could also use a sharpie.

Cut a small piece of thin ribbon for the scarf, and attach it around the snowman’s neck, again using hot glue.

Finally, use hot glue to attach the Santa hat to the snowman’s head.

For the Penguin:

Cut a small triangle of orange felt and glue it to the penguin’s face. This time, it should point downwards like a beak, as opposed to sideways like the snowman’s carrot nose.

Attach the Santa hat to the penguin’s head with some hot glue and you’re done!

For the Santa:

Gently pull off a small piece from a cotton ball and shape it into a beard, wrapping it around the peanut. It looks best if there’s a thinner section of beard that goes around to the back. (Sorry, I didn’t take a picture of that for you.)

Attach a mini red pom pom to the top of the beard as Santa’s nose.

Then draw the eyes on. Again, I used a black gel pen, but a sharpie would work as well.

Finally, use hot glue to attach Santa’s hat to his head.

For the Reindeer:

The reindeer is super easy! (And I got tired of taking tutorial photos… haha)

Attach a mini red pom pom to the end of an unpainted peanut.

Draw two eyes near the other end of the peanut.

Bend two short zig zag shapes into a piece of brown pipe cleaner. Snip them off and use hot glue to attach them to the sides of the peanut, next to the eyes.

Aren’t they adorable!? And they’re so easy to make!

Cut a short piece of baker’s twine and use hot glue to attach it to the back of the Santa hat. This just happens to be one of the Santa hats that I trimmed off some excess glue and felt at the seam. But you can barely see the glue gun seam! If you’re nervous about using hot glue to make the hat, don’t be! It works amazingly well!

They’re a super fun craft to make with the kids. Or you can make a bunch of them and attach them to the gift tags on your Christmas presents!

My husband got a peanut reindeer as a present from his piano teacher years and years and years ago. And my mother in law still has it! Kind of amazing that it has held up so well over all these years!

These should last a good, long time, but if you want them to last even longer, add a coat of matte finish Mod Podge to the peanuts before you paint them.  That will also help keep your black pen from bleeding as well.

These peanut Christmas ornaments are SO ADORABLE and they’re really easy to make! You can make Santas, penguins, snowmen, reindeer, elves, or any other winter character you can think of! When in doubt, Santa hats can make pretty much anything look festive!

If you’re looking for more homemade Christmas ornament ideas, check out our salt dough paw print ornaments. These are soooooo cute! And such a fun way to make a special Christmas ornament for your furry family members!

Source : onelittleproject.com
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