Looking for a great Christmas craft project that doesn’t cost a lot of money? Do you like to recycle old items into crafty new items? If so, I think you’ll appreciate this project!

This project uses some old items to make new items, so it’s a great way to teach kids about recycling. You will need some cardboard fast food drink holders or empty paper carton egg cartons to make the paper pulp needed for this craft project.

Centuries: 8 and up with adult supervision.

supplies needed:

cardboard fast food drink carrier or cardboard egg cups

All Purpose White Craft Glue

Styrofoam Ornament Balls

Blender with tap water

old plastic bowl

foam sponge brush

colander/colander

Wood clamp

White, black and orange acrylic paint.

paint brush

(optional) piece of fleece

Tip: This project can get a bit messy, so you may want to lay down some old newspaper or an old plastic tablecloth before you begin.

make paper pulp – Tear your empty paper cup holder or empty egg carton into small pieces. Place the pieces in an old plastic container. To do this, a little tap water is enough and leave the pieces to soak for 60 minutes. Once they’re nice and moist, pour the paper mixture into a strainer. Using your hands, squeeze out the excess water. Place the paper pulp in the blender bowl and blend on low speed so that it becomes musky. Put the pulp back in its empty plastic container. Add some white craft glue to form a sticky paper pulp. Mine is the consistency of a lumpy dough.

make the snowball – Using a foam-type paint brush, lightly spread white craft glue onto one half of the Styrofoam ball. Using your hands… pat the pulp dough to cover the top half of your ball ornament. Repeat this process on the bottom half of your ball. Once this is done, hang the ball with the clothespin to dry and harden. (mine takes about 16-24 hours).

Add facial features – Once your ball is dry, paint with two coats of white acrylic paint. Once it’s dry, paint the eyes black, the dots for the mouth black, and lastly, an orange nose in a triangular shape.

optional scarf – We cut a piece of fleece that measures 1 1/2″ wide by about 10″ long and tied it into a bow and then glued it to the bottom of our ball to look like a fleece scarf.