DIY Stick Ponies For Less Than $2.00 Each!

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I have had a couple of people email me asking for a tutorial on how I made the Stick Ponies/Hobby Horses for my daughters recent Cowgirl Party. Unfortunately I didn’t take a ton of pictures of the process, as we made them pretty quickly, the morning of the party. Each one took probably ~10 minutes to make – You could probably crank out 8-10 of these in an hour or so. They were SO easy, and so inexpensive to make, you could easily make them as favors for the party, for each of the kids. I just made 2 of them, and we used them for a “race the ponies” game – they were a huge hit, several of the kids asked if they could take them home, so I kind of wished I had made one for each kid!

This is a craft that you can totally use leftover stuff from around your house. The only items I purchased from the list below, were the socks and the dowels, everything else used leftover items from other crafts, so my horses were about $1.79 each.

Supplies:

5/8″ x 36″ Dowel Rod from Michaels or your local craft store – $1.29 each
1 Set white mens socks from the dollar store (1 sock per horse) – $0.50 per horse
Buttons for eyes and nose – could also use foam sheets cut into circles, small pom poms, whatever you have lying around!
Poly Fil stuffing to fill the sock – I had some left over from Christmas Placemat Pillows, but if you don’t have any, you could use tissues, tissue paper, etc.
Ribbon to tie around the nose and around the stick for the reigns – whatever you have around the house
Raffia, ribbon or yarn for the hair – I wanted mine to have a little more rustic look, so I used raffia, but you could easily use yarn or any other type of stringy material
Rope or ribbon to tie around the base of the sock and keep the head secure
Glue gun

Instructions:

1. Fill a sock with the Poly Fil or whatever stuffing you plan to use. Stuff it as much as you possibly can, the fuller it is, the better the head looks.

2. Stick the dowel into the opening of the sock and press it all the way up until the dowel is touching the top or the heel of the sock

3. Take your glue gun and glue around the dowel, where the sock opening is at – gluing the sock closed around the dowel.

4. Once the sock opening is glued closed, take your rope and glue the end of it, about 2″ above the opening of the sock. Then begin wrapping the rope around the sock and dowel moving your way downwards, go about 1″ past the bottom of the sock – then wrap it back up a bit – keep wrapping until it has the look that you want and sufficiently covers the opening of the sock about 2″ above and below it.

5. Cut the rope and Glue gun the end of the rope into the wrapped part (tuck it into one of the wraps if possible)

6. Using the glue gun, glue on the buttons for the eyes, and one for the nose on the end of the sock

7. Take a handful of raffia (or yarn or ribbon) and grab a bunch all going one direction. Then take another handful of the raffia and wrap it around the first bunch, gluing it together as you go. Then take the bunch that you just wrapped, and glue to the top and along the back of the sock, like a mane.

8. Take the ribbon and wrap it around the nose and down under the neck area. Criss cross the ribbon, and then wrap it around the stick, right above the roped off base. Tie it into a nice bow around the back of the neck and let the ends hang. You could also tie a knot here and then tie the ends of the string making a reign/handle if you wish, but we just let it hang.