A Six Pack o' Reindeer

OK, so... looking back (here and here), it appears as though I was really into reindeer this year. Again, I blame Pinterest.

As part of their gifts this year, we gave six packs of beer to my brothers, my father-in-law, and our brother-in-law. But they weren't just ANY six packs, you see. Each bottle of beer was dolled up with antlers, a couple of eyes, and a puffy red nose.

They were damn cute and FESTIVE, too! And really easy to make.

The antlers are brown pipe cleaners, cut to maybe about 8 inches long or so. I figured out the right length by experimenting a little bit, then just copied that length for the rest of them. The pipe cleaner is just twisted around the bottle neck, just under the cap. I didn't have any problems with it staying in place. Then, I cut little pieces to make additional points on the antlers, wrapping the shorter pieces around the longer ones.

The eyes are googly eyes, and the nose a red pompom. Both (as well as pipe cleaners) can be found in the kids' craft section at Michaels, Hobby Lobby, Joann's, etc. I attached the eyes and nose to the bottles using a hot glue gun.

Some brands of beer are better than others for this project. For instance, it wasn't until I sat down to do it that I realized that the "neck labels" on Yuengling wrap all the way around the neck--not leaving me any blank space to glue the faces. So, I had to rip off the little labels, which didn't make for the best looking six-pack. And the Land Shark reindeer, while cute, didn't look as nice as the ones on the dark brown bottles. We bought the types of beer based on our recipients' preferences, so it didn't much matter to us--but it's just something to keep in mind if you're not sure which kind of beer to buy for this project.

All in all, it was cheap to turn these six packs into reindeer, and didn't take much time, either. It made for a nice little gift for the beer drinkers in our lives. And if you want to make them for someone who doesn't drink alcohol--the original pin on Pinterest actually used a six pack of root beer bottles, too, so that's an option.

That sums up my Christmas crafting this year. Unfortunately, I didn't get to all of the ones I wanted; I'll have to save some of them for next year!

Did you do any crafts for the holidays? Did they come out like you'd hoped? Did you find that others (or your recipients, if they were gifts) appreciated your efforts?