Chestnut Animals – Cute and Simple Fall Craft for Kids | Tutorial

Chestnut animals are a wonderful autumn decoration! You can make a pair of deer from horse chestnuts and acorns with just a few simple steps and a little skill.

Chestnuts, beechnuts, acorns, cones, colourful leaves – autumn offers a rich banquet of natural materials for DIY projects. It’s been quite a while since my last craft with chestnuts – back then I was still a child.

So it was high time for a walk in the forest followed by a craft session with the collected materials. Because you can also make more sophisticated and delicate chestnut animals from horse chestnuts and acorns. This pair of deer makes a lovely autumn decoration and is also suitable for a place in a Christmas flower arrangement. You need some skill and a steady hand to make them – they are too delicate for kindergarten children. Much easier and just as pretty, you can make these chestnut owls.

How to Craft Chestnut Animals With Chestnuts and Acorns

Time: about 30 minutes per chestnut animal.

What You Need for 2 Chestnut Animals

• 4 horse chestnuts
• 2 large acorns
• 23 acorn caps
• 2 twigs
• 10 toothpicks
• 4 Wiggle eyes
• Hot glue gun or all-purpose glue
• Long nail and hammer or a hand drill
• Scissors

How to Craft Deers as Chestnut Animals

1. Drill Holes and Shorten Toothpicks

Two chestnuts each form the body of a chestnut animal. For the male deer, you need a wider and larger chestnut for the chest, and the female is made of two chestnuts of the same size. In the middle of both chestnuts, hammer a hole horizontally either with a nail or drill a hole with a hand drill. Make two holes horizontally next to each other in the underside of the chestnuts for the 4 legs. Drill a hole in the back third of each acorn for the head.
For each chestnut animal you need 9 acorn caps in which you drill a hole in the middle.

For the legs, shorten 4 toothpicks to about 3.5 cm and two pieces of toothpick about 1.5 cm long for the body and head.

2. Pin the Body of the Chestnut Animals Together

Now put two acorn caps on each toothpick leg and fix the legs in the chestnut with the pointed end of the toothpick. Put the short pieces of toothpick between the chestnuts to connect them and put an acorn cap on the second one as a neck onto which the head is stuck.

Tip: To make the male look unmistakably like a male, use a larger, wider chestnut for the proudly swollen chest. The female stretches her rump upwards boldly for me. 😀

3. Glue on Missing Parts

Cut acorn caps to make ears and tails. About one third forms an ear and the tail. Using a hot glue gun or all-purpose glue, glue the ears, tail and acorn hat to the back of the chestnut animals’ heads. I used wiggle eyes with a diameter of 6 mm for the eyes. Now the male gets antlers made from two branches.

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On our website you can find even more simple craft ideas with instructions to make them! All year round, browse the Leisure Ideas portal for inspiration for gifts and activities with kids, friends and your partner. Check it out!

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