DIY Walnut Penguin Ornament for Christmas
Ah the Walnut Crafting Fun continues!! A few weeks ago, we made some Walnut FOX Ornaments.. and now I have this adorbale DIY Walnut Penguin Ornament for the Christmas Tree (and beyond! Why not make a WINTER Tree this year?! And maybe add some more of these Penguin Ornaments to it!).
Walnuts are wonderfully tactile to craft with. They are a great natural material and if you split and eat the nut first, quite frugal too! Walnuts always remind me of Christmas (and traditional Germanic Christmas includes Walnuts – especially on St Nikolaus Day). So have yourself some Walnuts and then Get Christmas Crafty with these super duper cute DIY Walnut Penguin Ornaments.
These require a little painting and therefore more patience… if you want to make some Walnut Ornaments in one go, why not try our favourite Walnut Babies or Walnut Reindeer? So cute!
But onwards. I digress.
To make your Penguin Ornaments, you will need:
- Walnuts
- Acrylic paints (we used blue, white and black)
- Posca pen in pink (we added little cheeks – these are optional)
- A little felt (but you can add the final features in paint too or fabric)
- A knife
- Glue
How to make Walnut Ornaments for Christmas
We have a handy little video for you to watch and follow, or you can check out the step by step photo tutorial too!
Step By Step Christmas Ornament Making Instructions
The key to this craft, is to actually split your walnut first. I do this for two reasons – one, you get to eat the nuts (always a bonus and makes it very seasonal!!) and two, you can then glue your ornament’s features inside the walnut. In this case, we have the fox’s felt ears and also the baker’s twine to glue inside.
How to split a walnut
Walnuts are actually much easier to split neatly than you think. It doesn’t always work 100% but you can still use a “broken” walnut in this craft, as ultimately you are gluing it back together again. But 9 out of 10 times this walnut splitting method works perfectly for me.
Take something sharp (a small kitchen knife is perfect).
Insert it, into the base of the walnut and carefully press down. ADULTS ONLY
You may need to wiggle the knife a little too and fro to help start splitting the walnut in half.
Don’t rush it or force it. Usually I get 2 perfect halves! Occassionally, there is small lip, but as mentioned, because you glue it all back again later, it doesn’t matter.
Scrap out the inside and nibble!
TOP TIP: if making more than one walnut penguin in one go (which I hope you will be), be sure to keep matching walnut halves together and don’t let them get all mixed up!
Assembling your Walnut Back again
Now it is time to turn your walnut halves back into a walnut PLUS add the baker’s twine for hanging!! Don’t forget to add it!!
Add glue to one rim of your walnuts.
Place the knotted backers twine in postion. For the penguins, you want the hanging thread to be at the pointy end of your walnut.
Add a little more glue to the second walnut (mainly at the hanging thread end).
Push the halves together. Wipe done excess glue.
Decorating your Walnut Ornament into a Penguin
Paint the whole walnut in the desired penguin colour. We went for blue, but black, purple, light blues all would look great!
This can be a little fiddly/ messy, but you can hold the bakers twine to help you, or hang them up to dry.
NOTE: you can always paint the walnut halves FIRST, before gluing them back together again, if you find that easier!
Let dry fully.
Once dry, add a little white tummy and some black eyes and rosy cheeks.
Let dry.
Cut out a small beak and feed – we used yellow felt for this, but you can use fabric or paper or card too.
Glue on the features.
Your little DIY Walnut Penguin Ornament is finished!!
If you are inspired by this craft, you may also like our Cork Penguin Ornaments:
As well as our Walnut Crafts:
And our collection of Penguin Ornaments:
