Making Mops Into Stick Horses

I haven't posted for a week because we have been on break from school and I have been busy planning my daughter's 10th birthday party.  She asked me to give her a cowgirl hoedown themed party.  She is creative and had visions of what this party would entail and the first thing in her vision was a stick horse for each guest!  Speaking of horses....whoa horsey!!!!......make 9 stick horses or worse yet, spend the money to buy 9 stick horses?  I don't think so!  So....I had to get creative to make it fit within the budget, fulfill this kiddo's birthday vision and pull it together within a matter of a few weeks.  What I ended up doing took about 20 minutes per horse to make and cost me less than $4.50 a horse - total!   Here's what I did...

Supplies

• Large full headed cotton mops (I found mine at Roses® department store $3.50 each- the dollar store's were too flimsy and Walmart's were too expensive)
• Large rubber bands
• Ribbon of your choice color (found mine at the dollar store w/beads that matched perfectly)
• Bead necklace (like a child's play necklace - I found mine at the dollar store -3 for $1)
• Wiggle eyes
• Hot glue gun
• Boa feather scarf (optional)

Directions

Take the mop and flip it upside down.  To make the head, gather about 1/3 of the mop to form the face of your horse.  Fold it in half and under.  Then attach a rubber band to hold it in place at the very top, closest to the stick end.  Then, place another rubber band closer to the bottom of your loop to create the horses muzzle (nose) as seen above.  To make ears, take three strands on each side of the horse face and braid them and then fold them in half (high and close to the head) and rubber band them to hold them in place.  (I tacked some hot glue to hold them up to the top of the head, but that's optional.)  Once you have done that, you will have what is beginning to look like a horse.  Now the fun part of decorating the face begins...

First glue on the wiggly eyes with hot glue, placing them high on top of the head.  Next, to make the horses bridle, measure and cut the ribbon to fit around the two places you rubber banded.  After that,  glue the ribbon around the horses face and tack them onto the mop with glue as well, this will hold them in place.  Next, take the beaded necklace and brake it in half to be able to use it as reigns.  Stick the end of the necklace beads into the bridle at the muzzle and glue, then thread them through the throat and glue and lastly, drape it around and glue at the throat and then muzzle on the other side.  This will give you the reigns.  That's it!  You are done!    

It took me longer to decide on how I would make them, then it did to actually make them!  You could do lots of different variations to this and get creative, to make a very fancy and beautiful stick horse!  My daughter wanted her horse a little fancy, so we not only added the boa feathers but we also took two colored ribbons to make her bridle larger as well, which you can see above.  I took a boa scarf and cut a few pieces the length I wanted and hot glued them into place around the mop and then some on top for the forelock of the horse.  On the doubled bridle, you do the same as the directions above for one, just twice and tack them together.  It was actually a fun project for my daughter and I.  You could always glue jewels and eyelashes etc. to fancy up your horse more.  

I love to come up with ideas for how we can give things to the kids who are coming to her parties each year.  It takes the focus off my daughter's receiving presents and puts it on what we can do for "others" at a time when the focus is heavy on "me" for kids.  I hope you love them as much as we all did!  They were a big hit at the party!  I will be posting later about the big birthday bash -cowgirl hoedown style!  So stay posted!  

If you are looking for more birthday blow out ideas you can see our drive-in themed party from last year which also has the last several party themes we have done together.  It's now become an annual tradition to plan a creative themed party together!