While looking through a vintage craft book recently, we found a fun idea that we really liked: making miniature sheep out of pipe cleaner and wool. We decided we had to give it a go, but instead of making the black and white sheep as originally shown, we invited some llamas to the party and added some fun color!

Isn’t this rainbow crew of llamas so much fun? We left them as mini figurines for kids to play with or display, but you could totally add a little loop on there to turn them into ornaments or charms. These llamas might be a little too delicate to attach onto a backpack as a charm, but they’d make super fun Christmas ornaments or playful oversized brooches! Keep reaching to see how we did it!

• Pipe cleaners
• Scissors
• White glue (and/or hot glue)
• Ric rac (or other trim)
• Pom poms (to match your pipe cleaners)
• Felt
• Black acrylic paint
• Toothpick
• Wool (we used spearmint, cheesecake, and pink)

Step 1
Bend your first pipe cleaner into this shape – start by folding two small ears connected to the neck, and then bending to form the body.

Step 2
Continue bending this same pipe cleaner – at the end of the body you just made, fold the pipe cleaner down and back up to form a leg, bend a little tail sticking up, and then go back down and fold up again to form the second leg. You should have some excess pipe cleaner, so twist that around the body to strengthen it.

Step 3
With a second matching pipe cleaner, bend the front two legs in the same way that you just made the back ones, twisting it to attach in place, and cutting off any excess pipe cleaner. Glue a matching pom pom onto the neck to form the llama’s face.

Step 4
Now the fun part: adding the wool onto the llama! We used a few different shades and textures of wool from The Woolery – the colors we picked out are super bright and fun for some playful rainbow llamas, but if you wanted a more natural look these mini llamas would be adorable in whites, greys, and browns too! Gently separate a piece of wool and puff it up a bit with your fingers. Begin wrapping the strip loosely around the body and up the llama’s neck. This step will take some playing with to get just right. You can use small dabs of glue to secure the wool in place if needed, and add on additional small pieces of wool if you need a little more. We like to use one piece for the body and neck, and then a tiny piece glued on top of the llama’s head as hair.

Step 5
Add a felt blanket on top (glued in place) and decorate with trim and mini pom poms. For the llama’s face, use a toothpick to apply the paint to look like eyes, a nose, and mouth.

Happy crafting!