Keep the kids busy with this fun cardboard woolly sheep craft. These sheep have been made from a recycled box, our free sheep printable and decorated using the cotton wool filling from a food delivery bag. The sheep’s wool was then decorated using diluted food coloring which really adds to the fun. This is a very low-cost recycled kids craft that our girls really had lots of fun with.

Cardboard Woolly Sheep Craft

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It worked out well that Miss 6 came home from school telling me all about the SH sound that she had been working on that day. Thanks to this, her love of farm animals and our sheep themed books that we love to read this craft activity was born.

At the bottom of this tutorial, you can find our free, S is for Sheep coloring printable. This printable is perfect if your child is working on the letter S, loves coloring or you just want an extra sheep related activity to keep busy with. I like to print out the printables and give them to our girls to complete while I get the craft project all set up and ready to go.

Books Books and more Books

It turns out that we have a few sheep books at home. Each of these four books has been well loved but the one that both girls LOVED when they were younger is the board book, Where Is The Green Sheep? It was mainly this book that our Woolly Sheep craft was inspired by.

Our craft sheep all turned out to be a variety of different colors. However, the sheep that we are looking for in the book is the green sheep, which of course is found at the end of the book. Along the way, we find a blue sheep, a bed sheep, a clown sheep as well as many other different sheep. Where Is The Green Sheep is such a fun book that even as an adult I enjoy (and I have read it MANY times over).

These are our personal favorite sheep books. Click the links for more details on each book.

• Where is the Green Sheep, Mem Fox and Judy Horacek.
• Baa Baa Smart Sheep, Mark and Rowan Sommerset.
• Sheep in a Jeep, Nancy Shaw and Margot Apple.
• Sheep on a Beach, P. Crumble and Dannielle McDonald.

On with the Woolly Sheep craft!

To make this woolly sheep craft we use the filling that comes with a food delivery box that we like to order. The inside of the keep cool bags is filled with a fluffy stuffing that is perfect for this craft. No food delivery bag then that is no problem as you could use cotton wool, filling from an old pillow, or even yarn. You will need to experiment a bit if using one of the alternative materials as some will work better with the food coloring dye than others. A good alternative would be to use craft box goodies to decorate on top of other craft wool designs.

The dye used to decorate the sheep with was diluted liquid food coloring. Again try using what you have at home if you don’t have food coloring. Watercolor paints could be a good alternative. The key here, like with many of our crafts is to use what you have at home and when needed swap out for similar material.

You Will Need

• An old box. We used an old lego box and beading packaging as both of these boxes were firm without being too difficult to cut.
• Sheep printable (below).
• Sharpie or another pen.
• Scissors.
• Craft knife or scissors to cut the sheep shape out of cardboard.
• Cotton wool or similar.
• Craft glue/ PVA glue.
• Food coloring, water, and droppers or alternative craft box supplies to decorate.

Free Printable

Choose a sheep below and print. We reccommend using the sheep with the legs together if you are using very thick cardboard as it will be much easier to cut out. You can alter the size of your sheep under your printer settings.

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Let’s Get Crafty

It is a good idea to make your sheep bases ahead of time. Alternatively get kids to trace around the sheep template and then color the free S is for Sheep coloring page while an adult cuts out the cardboard bases.

Bases

Print out the sheep printable and cut around the outline of the sheep. Place the cut out sheep ontop of a piece of cardboard and draw around the sheep using a Sharpie or pen.

Use a craft knife or scissors to cut around this outline. Once the sheep have been cut out draw on the extra missing details such as the sheep’s face.

Add on the wool

Cover the sheep in a layer of PVA/ craft glue and stick on the cotton wool making sure you stick on a little at a time. Continue until all of the sheeps woolly coat has been covered.

Decorate

We decorated our sheep using diluted food coloring. I discovered in this process actually how little food coloring you need compared to the water! Put each color into a seperate container and use a dropper or syringe to decorate the woolly coat drop by drop. A fun alternative (or do both) would be to decorate using craft box supplies. Tiny pom-poms would be super cute.

Set your sheep aside to dry.

Coloring Printable

S is for Sheep with this fun sheep coloring printable. What color will your sheep be? We had lots of rainbow sheep in our home!

You May Also Like

Check out these other fun crafts to do at home.

• Newspaper Cow Craft
• Recycled Collage Sun Craft
• Nature Art Turtle
• Recycled Box Clock

Thank you for stopping by. We hope you enjoyed making your cardboard woolly sheep craft today!