Easy Christmas Craft DIY Popsicle Snowman Tree Ornament to Make with Children

It’s such a proud moment to see that small piece of art you make hanging from a branch of the Christmas tree! Here’s an easy Christmas Craft DIY Popsicle Snowman Tree Ornament that you can make with your kids this Christmas!

It’s quick, simple, and gorgeous!

Even though Ollie, our toddler, has a very short attention span at 2 and a half years old, he participated in the making of our Christmas craft DIY popsicle snowman this year!

The DIY Popsicle Snowman Ornament is a fun project to bond with your family. And the result is gorgeous!

This  Christmas craft DIY popsicle snowman is my version of “Today’s Creative Idea” snowman, which you can find here.

Let’s get to it!

At the end of the post, you’ll find a video and a recipe card summary!

Here’s a List of Materials You’ll Need

• 6 popsicle sticks 
• Black and White Water-based paint
• A pair of medium-sized Googly Eyes
• Orange Construction Paper
• Burlap Ribbon for the Hat decoration
• Yellow Satin Ribbon Roll for the scarf
• White Construction Paper
• Twisted Rope String or Yarn to hang it on the Tree
• A Pair of Scissors
• A Hot Glue Gun with Glue Sticks

Step 1 – Painting the Popsicles

Align 5 popsicles on a surface.

You’re going to paint over them, so make sure it’s a surface you don’t care about. 

I used a spare plastic plate, some newspaper or carton would have worked fine, too.

Paint the lower third of each of the popsicle sticks white.

We used a brush (I’m trying to teach my toddler to use brushes) but we could have also dip them in white paint, or painted it with our hands!

You don’t need to paint both sides, though. Just the front of the snowman. 

The white part of the stick will make the snowman’s face.

Don’t worry if it’s not perfect, we’ll cover that with another popsicle!

Paint the remaining part of the popsicles black.

This part of the popsicle will be the snowman’s hat. Make sure it’s proportioned approximately 1/3 black, 2/3 white so that the face is considerably bigger than the hat.

The unions of the 2 colors don’t have to be perfect since we’ll use another popsicle to cover them. 

As with the previous step, you can just dip these in the black paint, too.

If you do decide to paint them with a brush, we need to paint the front side only.

Paint another popsicle stick completely black.

This will be the brim of the hat. 

Let the popsicles dry.

The resulting paint-work of all the popsicles should look something like this:

Step 2 – Making the Nose of the Snowman

Draw a small triangle in the orange construction paper.

This will be…

You guessed it! The snowman’s nose!

Use a pair of scissors to cut the nose.

Again, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’ll look super cute!

I’m sure you know this but be extra careful with your kids around scissors.

The nose should look something like this:

Step 3 – Adding the Brim of the Hat and Giving the Snowman a Sturdier Structure

Glue the brim of the hat.

When the painted popsicle sticks are completely dry, use a hot glue gun to place the black stick (a.k.a. hat brim) over the union of the two colors.

(In this example, I didn’t let them dry completely and then regretted it! You’ll know what I mean when you see my hands painted black!)

You can tilt the hat brim a bit to give it an interesting perspective.

Be careful when using the hot glue gun, I’ve burned my hands a couple of times and it hurts a lot! 

Glue some construction paper to the back to make the snowman sturdier!

The brim stick will hold the rest of the sticks together, but it didn’t look sturdy enough for me.

So I decided to glue some white construction paper on the back to make the structure more resistant to… ahem… toddler’s hands!

To reinforce the structure, cut two small rectangles of white construction paper, make sure that the rectangles cover all the gaps between sticks.

Use a hot glue gun to glue the white construction paper to the back of the sticks. Again, be super careful with the hot glue gun!

(See my hands are painted black… and red for some reason… since my toddler and I were too impatient to wait!)

Step 4 – Completing the Hat

Glue a burlap ribbon above the brim of the hat.

We’ll add now a small decoration to the hat, just above the brim.

I used a burlap ribbon with some white details, but you can use whatever you like!

Add a layer of hot glue gun above the brim of the hat, and place the burlap firmly on top. You can press the burlap with the grip of the scissors since the glue will be hot!

Seriously, I burned my finger trying to press it with my bare hands… I know, silly!

Make sure the burlap is about the length of the brim-stick, we’ll bend it later and it’ll look great!

Fold the burlap ribbon vertically over itself for volume

We used a burlap that was too tall because we wanted to give it extra volume by folding it in half.

If you do use a burlap that’s so tall that covers the entire part of your hat, add a layer of hot glue and fold the burlap to glue it over its bottom part.

Fold and glue the spare burlap ribbon to the back of the snowman.

Turn the snowman ornament around and glue the exceeding burlap to the back.

It should feel tight.

You may need an extra (adult) hand gluing this together, but a few drops of hot glue should do the trick!

By having the burlap fold over itself, and around the hat edges, it should look more “realistic.”

The extra volume will bring your snowman’s hat to life! 

You should have a hat looking something like this:

Step 5 – Complete the Face 

Place two 2-inch googly eyes below the hat of the snowman.

Don’t glue them just yet, they will serve as a guide to paint the snowman’s smile.

We want to wait until the smile of the snowman is painted before gluing them just in case we need to move them around a bit.

Paint the smile of the snowman

Use the back of the brush to paint the smile of the snowman dot by dot.

Don’t make the same mistakes I made, the dots are enough, I tried to end the smile with a little bit of cheeks and the result wasn’t what I expected (you’ll see what I mean).

Glue the googly eyes with a hot glue gun. 

Now let’s glue the eyes! 

Leave some space for the nose, you should have it around if you need to measure the space. However, you can always cut it further if it doesn’t fit.

Some googly eyes are auto adhesive, but the glue isn’t strong enough, so I always prefer to glue them with my reliable hot glue gun. 

(See what I meant with the smile’s cheeks? It would have looked better with just the dots!)

Glue the nose!

The nose ending in triangle gives the snowman a bit of perspective.

I tried to align the direction of the hat to reinforce said perspective, but you don’t have t do it like that.

I used a hot glue gun, again. Because I love hot glue guns. I reckon white glue would have worked well, too. But then I’d have to wait for it to dry…

Step 6 – Adding the Hanging String

Glue a twisted rope or a yarn to a white square of construction paper

In order to make the string to hang the snowman ornament on the tree, we first need to glue an “O” shaped twisted rope or yarn to a white construction paper.

I like long ropes for ornaments because my son can hang it himself! So I made a big “O” here.

Glue the hanging rope to the back of the snowman

This is pretty straightforward. Just be sure to glue it to the top, because you want a lot of string to stand out.

Here’s a picture of me just about to glue it! Yup, that’s hot glue there!

Step 7 – Add any Additional Details

We decided to add a scarf with a yellow ribbon, it looks super cute with that extra knot there.

But you can add whatever you like: a star in the corner of the hat, a snowflake, eyelashes, a different scarf! Get creative!

Step 8 – Hang it In the Tree!

Here’s our popsicle snowman ornament completely dry and a proud member of our tree ornament decorations!

Would you Rather Watch a Video?

Here it is! This is a video of me making this popsicle snowman ornament! 

My toddler tried to help, but I couldn’t both film my hands and make sure he was safe around the hot glue gun!

Would you Rather Read a Summary?

Say no more! Here’s a recipe card for the popsicle snowman ornament!

That’s a Wrap

Have you tried the popsicle snowman ornament?

How did it go? What did you change?

Tell me all about it in the comments below!

If you liked this article, please pin it!