Happy holidays readers! As Christmas is fast approaching I noticed last
month a bunch of stores starting to sell the 'oh so popular' headbands
with the reindeer ears and antlers on them. Well as I looked at the
sorry excuse for festive cheer, I decided that I could make a way better version. Lets start off with the materials you will need: A wide cheep headband, 4 sheets of foam (the thin kind in any colors you want your reindeer to be in), Felt or Faux Fur (any color), Hot glue gun (low Temp), scissors, and a marker. For alternate hard smooth antlers you will also need a yard of cotton crinkle gauze, a bottle of Elmer's Glue and a wide paint brush.

In my case I used some green faux fur (since i have a TON of it leftover from my other projects), pink Sheet foam for the inside of the ears, and White Sheet foam for the antlers. Now comes the fun part. take whatever color foam your using for the inner ear and think of the size you want the ear to be. I made mine about 4 inches long, which is pretty big. Start at the edge of the foam and make a dotted line the length that you want the ears. Now draw a sort of misshaped U were the curve starts at the edge and goes to the end of the dotted line. Refer to picture at this point its hard to explain.


Now cut out the ear shape from the foam and place it over the felt, or
in my cause the Fur (with the fur side down). With your marker outline
the foam part to match the felt or fur perfectly, then cut it out and
use the hot glue gun to attach the pieces together. Now your going to
take the inner parts of the ear and glue them, top part over the other,
refer to picture, where the parts that are shaded should be curled in
and overlapped then glued.


Now your left with an ear that you can see though.. lol. The part that you just glued should be a nice circle shape and that can now be glued to your headband with the hot glue gun.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat, only flip the pattern for the other ear.


Now the antlers are going to be a little tricky. Take one sheet of foam
you want to make the antlers and cut it in half width wise, then take
one half and cut in half again. Leaving you with three pieces, one large and two smaller. Roll the foam so that one end is thinner than the other and hot glue the end corner to itself. now the tricky part which I will show you with paper so you don't ruin your foam. Note that with the foam it shows where its wrapped around, the reason I like using foam this way for the Antlers is to give it texture, alternatively I am going to show you a way to make them more realistic at the end of this article if desired.


OK you have your paper tube (it looks like a unicorn horn),
your going to cut if the end about two thirds up the horn shape. With
that end and make an angled cut in it. Refer to picture, and then
reattach it with hot glue. This gives the illusion that the foam bends naturally. Take the smaller pieces and roll them into little unicorn horn shapes too and glue the ends like you did with the first one. Then attach them to the main antler and glue the antler end to the headband.
You'll notice it should glue at a slight angle because of the way the antler is rolled. Its supposed to be like that.


If you want the antlers to be hard and smooth. After the above steps take the cotton crinkle gauze in strips and wrap them around the foam while taking a thick mixture of Elmer's Glue and water and painting it first onto the antler while wrapping and then adding another coat on top. Make one layer of gauze and let it fully dry. If you want to add a second layer you may.
Now when it dries they should be firm and you can also paint them if you like.
Well there ya go, homemade Holiday Cheer Reindeer!

Have a question? Want me to make you something or focus on something
particular? Please feel free to e-mail me at EssanceDruid@Gmail.com! I will do my best to make or help you make anything you desire in a cost friendly way!