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Merry Christmas folks, why not get creative this Christmas with our DIY Nutcracker tutorial. Although this looks difficult to make, it really isn’t and best part is it was super cheap to make (as this consists mainly of empty toilet rolls and chewing gum tubs) – bargain!
For this project you will need (for each Nutcracker):
Empty toilet rolls (X3)
Paint – Red, Black, Gold, Silver, Peach, White & Blue
4-5 sheets of kitchen tissue
Scissors
PVA glue
Paint brush
Sellotape
Empty wrigley's extra chewing gum bottle
White faux fur
Instructions
1. Flatten one of the empty toilet tubes and cut this in to two.
2. Roll both cut outs into two rolls, starting from the long end of the tube. Roll this so that the width of the tube is roughly the width of your index finger.
3. For the second empty toilet tube, cut a straight line through this.
4. Wrap the tube around the lid of the empty chewing gum bottle – this is the width you want your tube to be. Then sellotape the tube in place.
5. Sellotape the two rolls you created in step 2 to the inside of your tube created in step 3-4. You’ve now created the legs and torso of your nutcracker.
6. Flatten the final empty tube roll and cut through one side of the roll. Then open the tube up.
7. Cut half way through your empty roll (about 6cm in height).
8. Then cut again through the crease of your tube cut outs, leaving you with 4 individual pieces.
9. Roll each individual piece and sellotape this into place (forming the arms of your nutcracker). Two of the rolls should be longer in height than the other 2 rolls.
10. Sellotape the arms onto the body of your nutcracker.
11. Using your empty chewing gum bottle as a guide, stencil 3 circles on a sheet of very thick cardboard. For this I actually used the card that you get when buying bed sheets.
12. Cut out the circles that you stencilled earlier.
13. Glue the circles on top of each other. This will be the base for your nutcracker to stand on.
14. Next, sellotape your nutcracker onto the base.
15. Cut strips of kitchen tissue using scissors.
16. Using PVA glue, papier-mâché the tissue onto your nutcracker stand and leave to dry for 30mins - 1 hour.
17. Scrunch up a small ball, the width of a 5p coin and glue one of your tissue strips around this (to smooth the edges of the ball).
18. Then plonk the ball into one of the arms and repeat step 16 for the second arm.
19. Then repeat this process for the nutcrackers feet. PVA glue strips of tissue on top of this to smooth the surface of the feet.
20. For the head of the nutcracker, PVA glue tissue strips around this and leave to dry.
21. Next steps are to paint on the face and clothing of the nutcracker.
22. To create the hair cut a 6cm x 10cm strip from your faux white fur and glue this around the head of your nutcracker. For the beard cut a 2cm x 3cm strip from your faux white fur and stick this in place.
23. Finally to complete the look you want to create the hat of your nutcracker. Firstly take some card paper (doesn’t matter what colour) and roll this up so that the circumference is approx 5cm wide. Then cut this so that the height of your roll is also 5cm high.
24. PVA glue tissue strips around this and leave to dry. Once dry you want to paint the hat using black and gold paint and also leave to dry.
..and there you go, your Nutcracker is complete and ready to be displayed this Christmas!
