As you saw from my DIY Dinosaur Costume post, I love making crafts at home out of recycled materials (toilet paper tubes, tissue boxes, whatever!). I often find myself hesitating over the recycle bin with an item in my hand wondering what I can do with it.

Today’s craft involves some recycled materials, too.

I have a whole stack of felt, but you could also use paint or craft paper or even bits of fabric. This is very much a “use what you have” craft - as all of mine are. (It’s how I cook, too.)

The primary material is the potato chip can/tube. Those are the perfect shape. When empty, I just wipe them out with a wet cloth, and dry them. Then I’ll use duck tape to cover up some of the writing that might show through the felt, depending what color we’re using.

Then, using a glue gun, I just wrapped the felt around and then we just let our imagination take over.

I had some old quilt batting that we used for Santa and Mrs. Claus’ hair (to be honest, Mrs. Claus went through a few hair styles before we decided on this one).

We used a sock toe for the snowman’s hat and pipe cleaners for his arms. For whatever reason, one of our cats was obsessed with the snowman. Poor guy had his arms and hat torn off daily. We’re not sure he’ll make it through the holidays.

My kids had a lot of fun with these and you could make a whole village if you wanted (and if you ate that many chips). The best part is that you can completely do whatever (or whomever) you want. Want a whole family of just snowmen? Go for it!

All of these crafts were inspired by my book, Where Would Santa Go? You can grab a copy on Amazon today.