Now that Black Friday has come and gone, it's time to focus on what the holidays are really all about: showing your friends and family how much you care. Whether you're decking the halls, finishing up your Christmas shopping, or just spending time together as a family, it's time to relax and enjoy the holiday season with your loved ones.
'Tis the Season to introduce our very first Ear Plug Superstore Christmas Earplug Arts & Crafts Guide! The following crafts are perfect for the family to create together, and they're safe and easy enough for even very young children to enjoy (with adult supervision). They're fun, they're affordable, they're a great way to spend time together as a family, and best of all, they turn into great holiday gifts and decorations once you're done!
After all, nothing says "Merry Christmas!" better than a hand-made gift.
A note on red earplugs: To create these sample Christmas crafts, we used Argus hexagonal red foam earplugs. However, we've sold out of these earplugs, and have had to discontinue them in our store! So for your crafts, we highly recommend substituting Veratti Red foam earplugs. These are round, rather than hexagonal, and they're shaped just like the bright green Moldex Pura-Fit foam earplugs you'll see in the photos below. Our Veratti Red foam earplugs will work perfectly for all of the following crafts, and in most cases, they'll look even better than the hexagonal earplugs we used! Your craft projects won't look exactly like ours, but that's not the point -- after all, no two hand-made crafts are exactly the same!
Christmas Earplug Mini-Photo Frame
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What You Will Need:
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Instructions:
- Clean picture frame with soft, damp cloth, and dry thoroughly.
- Using a small stripe of glue, attach 1 red earplug to the top left corner of the frame, making sure the earplug lines up with the edges of the frame.
- Using a small stripe of glue for each earplug, alternate attaching green and red earplugs all the way down the left side of the frame. Align each earplug with the inner edge of the frame so you get a nice, straight border.
- Repeat steps 2 and 3 to cover the right side of the frame, working from top to bottom. Now both sides are done!
- Using a small stripe of glue for each earplug, attach five red earplugs across the top of the frame. Don't worry if the earplugs stick out above the top of the frame.
- Now it's time to decorate the last edge of the frame. Following the same method of gluing one earplug on at a time, attach five red earplugs across the bottom of the frame. It's important to make sure the earplugs don't stick down below the bottom edge of the frame, or you won't be able to stand it up when you're done! So before you start gluing, hold a red earplug in place at the bottom of the frame and see if it sticks down too far. If it does, just take your scissors and snip off the bottom of the earplug so it's the right height. Trim down all five earplugs (as necessary), and then glue them across the bottom of the frame.
- Now you're done attaching earplugs! Allow to dry thoroughly (45 minutes for Krazy Glue, 24 hours for Craft Glue).
- Once the frame is dry, you can now decorate it with craft foam shapes, stickers, bows, or any other fun decorations you like! We used some stickers, attaching a large "Happy Holidays" sticker across the top of the frame, and three small snowflake stickers around the frame. You can use any kind of decoration you like, gluing or sticking things right to the earplugs. Have fun with it!
- Put in your favorite photo (you can trim down a 3x5 photo using scissors if you don't have a 2.5x3.5 photo to use), and your Christmas Earplug Mini Photo Frame is ready to display!
The Finished Product:
Easy Earplug Christmas Tree
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What You Will Need:
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Instructions:
- Place one craft stick horizontally (sideways) on a flat, clean surface. This will be the bottom branch of the tree. Don't use glue yet!
- Take a second craft stick, and using scissors, carefully cut about 1 inch off the end. Try to trim the end so it's rounded, so the cut end matches the uncut end -- but don't worry too much if it isn't perfect -- once you put on the earplugs (later), it won't show much.
- Place the trimmed craft stick above the first one so the sticks touch, centered so that the ends of the second stick are shorter than the first stick by about 1/2 inch on each side. Don't use glue yet!
- Repeat steps 2 and 3 with four more craft sticks, making each one shorter than the last, and arranging each stick so it's centered above the stick below it.
- Now the branches of the tree are ready. You haven't glued anything down yet, so feel free to adjust them until they're all straight and centered.
- It's time to attach the trunk of the tree! Take your last craft stick, and draw a squiggly line of glue down one flat side of the stick. Make sure to leave about an inch at each end of the stick without glue.
- Place the trunk with glue on it down vertically (up and down) on top of the lined up branches, leaving about an inch sticking out at the top and bottom. Now your tree is assembled!
- Now that the tree is put together, allow to dry thoroughly (45 minutes for Krazy Glue, 24 hours for Craft Glue).
- Once your tree is dry, flip it over so the trunk is on the back, and all the branches are on the front. Your tree is now ready to decorate!
- Take all your green earplugs out of the wrappers and put them in a pile next to your tree. These MaxLite foam earplugs are the perfect green color, but you'll notice the bottoms of the plugs are a bit rounded. We'll need to trim off the bottom of each earplug to make it flat and ready to glue to the tree.
- Take a green earplug and mash it flat! (Don't worry, it'll expand quickly to its original shape.) Take your scissors and carefully trim off the bottom of the earplug, following the seam at the bottom. One easy snip will do the trick.
- Repeat this process with all your green earplugs. Let the earplugs expand back to their original shape, and you'll see they have flat bottoms now. Don't worry if all the green earplugs aren't exactly the same; real Christmas trees have a little variation in their branches, and so will yours!
- Put a dot of glue at the end of the bottom branch, and glue on a green earplug so that the flat bottom is glued down, the point sticks straight up toward you, and the earplug is turned so that the two little parts of the earplug bottom that stick out are turned pointing up and down. (See the photo above for a reference.)
- Using a dot of glue for each earplug, glue green earplugs all the way across the bottom branch until the stick is covered. Don't worry if the earplugs stick off a little at the end, or point in slightly different directions -- this is a Christmas tree, so it's fine if yours looks a little organic!
- Repeat step 14 for each branch. When you get to a place where you'd like to put an "ornament" on the tree, just glue on a red earplug instead of a green one and keep going. You can put red ornaments on your tree wherever you'd like!
- Now every branch should be covered in red and green earplugs, and the bare trunk of the tree should stick out above and below the branches.
- Finally, it's time to top your tree! We used a gold glitter-foam star to top our earplug Christmas tree, but you can also use a star cut out of yellow construction paper, or a star you drew on any kind of paper you like, colored, and cut out yourself. You could alternatively replace the star with a red bow, a shiny jingle bell, a sticker, or any other decoration you like -- it's your tree, so top it with whatever you like!
- Allow everything to dry thoroughly (45 minutes for Krazy Glue, 24 hours for Craft Glue). Now your tree is complete. Congratulations!
- (Optional) Glue a loop of string or ribbon to the back of the tree, let it dry, and it's ready to hang up on the wall -- or you can even use your mini earplug tree as an ornament on your own real Christmas tree!
Child's Handprint Christmas Keepsake Decoration
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What You Will Need:
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Instructions:
- First thing's first: the handprint. Using either red or green non-toxic finger paint, make a handprint in the center of your white cardboard, craft foam, or paper plate. For very small children, be sure to help! Allow the paint to dry completely.
- Using a compass and a pencil, draw a circle all the way around the handprint, leaving about two inches of space between any paint and the line of the circle. Try to make sure the handprint is well-centered in the circle. (If you don't have a compass, you can trace around any round object -- we used a glass bowl!)
- Cut along the circle line you just drew, so you end up with a handprint in the middle of your circular cardboard or foam cut-out.
- Now, using a pencil, trace a smaller circle about 1 inch all the way around the inside edge of the circular cutout. This will be a guideline, so draw lightly. It doesn't have to be a perfect circle; if you don't have a compass, you can carefully free-hand this circle -- just make sure to leave about an inch between the circle you're drawing and any part of the handprint.
- Now you're ready to start decorating your Christmas handprint keepsake. Using a small dot of glue, attach one green earplug at the top of your cutout. Make sure to point the rounded end of the earplug straight toward the center of the circle, and align the tip so it just barely overlaps the guideline you drew. Don't worry if the earplug extends a little past the edge of your cutout; that's how it's supposed to be.
- Using another dot of glue, attach a red earplug to the right of the first green earplug, so that the earplugs are gently touching. Do the same thing here: make sure the rounded tip points directly to the center of the circle, align the rounded tip of the earplug so it just barely overlaps your pencil guideline, and don't worry if the earplug sticks out over the edge of your cutout.
- Repeat step 6, alternating green and red earplugs, until you have a ring of green and red earplugs all the way around the edge of the circle.
- Allow to dry thoroughly (45 minutes for Krazy Glue, 24 hours for Craft Glue).
- Once it's dry, take a loop of red, green, or white yarn or ribbon and glue it to the upper back of the cardboard or foam circle, and allow it to dry thoroughly. This will make a hanger, so you can hang your decoration up for everyone to enjoy! Your handprint keepsake is now complete. Congratulations!
- (Optional) Once your handprint decoration has dried, you can decorate it to your heart's content! You can add stickers, bows, glitter, etc. You could even tie jingle bells to pieces of ribbon, and glue the ribbons to the back of the cutout so the jingle bells hang down below. (We left ours plain; red and green earplugs are the perfect decoration for us!)
Earplug Christmas Tree Ornaments
You can make earplug ornaments out of any color earplugs you like! Any foam earplug will make for a soft, fun, colorful ornament, so the only limit here is your own creativity! Here, we've made three ornaments: a large star-type ornament, and one medium and one large mosaic dot-style ornaments.
What You Will Need:
- A 1-1/2 inch to 2 inch foam craft ball (available at Wal-Mart and craft stores). The left and center ornaments were made with 1-1/2 inch foam balls; the ornament on the right was made with a larger 2 inch foam ball.
- Red and green earplugs! How many depends on which kind of earplug ornament you want to make.
- For a star ornament (far left), you'll need:
- 16 Pairs of green Moldex Pura-Fit Foam Earplugs (for a green star)
OR - 16 Pairs of red Veratti Red Foam Earplugs (for a red star)
- 16 Pairs of green Moldex Pura-Fit Foam Earplugs (for a green star)
- For a mosaic dot-style ornament (center and far right), you'll need:
- 12 Pairs of green Moldex Pura-Fit Foam Earplugs, and
- 12 Pairs of red Veratti Red Foam Earplugs (for large size, far right)
OR
- 6 Pairs of green Moldex Pura-Fit Foam Earplugs, and
- 6 Pairs of red Veratti Red Foam Earplugs (for medium size, center)
- Krazy Glue (use with close adult supervision in a well-ventilated area!)
- String
- Scissors (for mosaic dot-style ornament)
- Tip: You can make ornaments like these out of any kind of foam earplug you like! Check out our Industrial Foam Earplugs (you can buy exactly as many pairs as you need) and our Consumer Foam Earplugs (even more to choose from!) to find more colors and designs. When it comes to Earplug Ornaments, the sky's the limit!
Instructions:
- For a mosaic dot-style ornament, the first thing you'll need to do is cut your red and green earplugs into round discs. To do this, flatten an earplug with your fingers, then cut off the rounded tip with scissors and discard. Then cut the remaining earplug into three equal parts. The little round disks may take a few minutes to expand completely, but don't worry -- they'll grow back into circles. Each earplug makes three nice, round, flat discs. For the mosaic dot-style ornament, do this with all your earplugs so you've got a pile of earplug discs ready to go before you start gluing!
- Now it's time to glue. From here, the process is super-easy no matter which kind of ornament you're making. Put a small dot of glue in the center of a disc or the flat end of an earplug, stick it onto your foam ball, and hold it there for about 20 seconds so the glue has time to dry.
- Next, repeat step 2 with the rest of your earplugs or earplug discs, placing the second one right next to the first one, and so on. If you're using whole earplugs for a star ornament, try gluing a ring of earplugs all the way around the middle first, and then work outward from that ring in a spiral pattern to fill in the top and bottom. If you're making a mosaic dot-style ornament, you can glue on the dots in any pattern you like! We made one random pattern (center) and one striped rings pattern (right).
- Tips for the star ornament: Depending on what kind of krazy glue you're using, it may take a bit longer for each earplug to dry completely and stay put. Also, don't worry if your earplugs get squished while you're working on the ornament -- they'll expand back to their original shape!
- Tips for the mosaic dot-style ornament: We found that the larger foam ball (2 inches) was best for creating this type of ornament. With the larger base, you have a lot more room to create fun patterns with your earplug discs!
- Allow your ornament to dry thoroughly once you've finished gluing on your earplugs. This could take anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the type of glue you used.
- Cut off a piece of string about ten inches long. This is what will create the hanger for your ornament! Loop the string around your ornament; start by setting the ornament in the middle of the string, then thread the string in between the earplugs or earplug discs so it won't show, working up to the top of the ornament. When you've got your string around the ornament, tie a knot to secure it in place. Then, tie the very ends of the string together in another secure knot.
- You're finished! Your homemade, one-of-a-kind earplug ornament is ready to stuff in a stocking or hang on your Christmas tree.
We hope you enjoy these Christmas Earplug Arts & Crafts ideas from Ear Plug Superstore. These crafts will make wonderful gifts for your family to enjoy making and giving this holiday season.
Take the time together to enjoy some Earplug Arts & Crafts with the whole family, and you can make some truly unique hand-made treasures you can enjoy this Christmas --and every Christmas for years to come!
And from all of us at Ear Plug Superstore, we wish you Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Sincerely,
Tom "Dr. Earplug" Bergman
and the EPSS Newsletter Team
Have earplug craft ideas of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear from you! Email us your earplug arts & crafts ideas any time at sarah@earplugstore.com (please include photos!), and your craft ideas and photos may be featured on our site, in our blog, or in future newsletters jut like this one!
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