Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Craft

Last updated on October 23rd, 2023

Inside: Kick off the holiday season with this fun Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas craft. Get your kids into the holiday spirit by painting Rudolph together.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas Craft

Christmas is my favorite time of year to do crafts with my toddler. This year, we decided to make a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer painting, because this is the first year my toddler was able to watch and get excited about the classic Christmas movie, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

What You Need for the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas Craft

• washable paint
  • brown for Rudolph
  • green and red for lettering
• thin paint brushes (3)
• medium paint brush (1)
• art smock
• Kraft paper or old drop cloth to protect your table
• googly eyes
• red pom pom (1)
• glue
• white paper
• old washcloth, rinsed in warm water

How To Set Up for the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas Craft

If you’ve never painted with a toddler before, be sure to check out this post detailing how to set up and clean up when painting with children. It also links all my must-have painting supplies!

How To Create the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas Craft

Once you have the basic set up done to keep your table clean, gather all your supplies for the craft and set them in the painting area. Put an art smock on your toddler and set them up in the booster seat.

I like to use this trick when painting toddler footprints:

• Place your paper onto a lightweight cutting board – roughly the size of your paper or so
• With your child strapped into the booster seat, angle their chair so their feet are near you
• Using a medium paint brush, paint one of their feet brown
• Now stamp their footprint onto the paper, with the cutting board behind the paper to keep the paper sturdy and from crinkling
• Set the cutting board / paper down somewhere out of reach of your child
• Using the wet wash cloth, wipe the brown paint off of their foot
• Scooch them back to facing the table and let them freely paint whatever they want

I have great success with this method. Using the cutting board really helps keep your paper sturdy enough to stamp the footprint.

When my toddler was younger (maybe between age 1-2 or so), I used to sneak underneath the table and do all the footprint stamping while he was scooched in at the table finger painting – he was hardly aware of what I was doing. But as he grew older, he would giggle and wiggle his feet, saying ‘cold mama, tickles mama’. So now he is more content to watch the process (2.5 years old) instead.

So after you’ve captured your footprint and your toddler is happily finger painting / free for all painting, you can do the finishing touches. I like to do these alongside my toddler so we truly are ‘painting together’. He will periodically stop and check out what I’m doing and it helps to feel like we are really playing together in this way.

For the finishing touches, add a dab of glue to the heel and place a red pom pom on top for Rudolph’s red nose. Then place two dabs of glue near the toes and stick two googly eyes on top. Lastly, add some antlers near the toes with a thin paintbrush dipped in brown paint. Voila!

You can then add a fun Christmas message – I chose ‘Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!’ but you could also choose some lyrics to the Rudolph song or any other Christmas message that you enjoy.

Happy Holidays!

That’s it! This craft is super simple yet so adorable and perfect for the holidays. Whenever we are crafting, I typically will make two copies – one for me and one for Grandma. Crafts like this make the perfect handmade gifts that you and your family can treasure for years to come.

If you’re looking for more fun craft ideas, check out my Crafts Page for more ideas!

If you’re still preparing for Christmas, you won’t want to miss my Baby Gift Guide and Toddler Gift Guide – they have over 100+ ideas on them!